The Song Is Over

People go through changes. This is established fact. Nobody goes through life without some alteration, either in his or her physical person, or in their "philosophy of life". The three things that define this change are the reasons for the change, the time period this change takes to take effect and the extent of the change in the person concerned.
There is unrequited love, people lose a job or win the lottery, someone close to their heart passes away, they're transferred, there's a change of government or you get married! Another good occasion for change is the beginning of the New Year. I personally feel the 11th of April or the 24th of September serve the purpose just as well, but people usually choose this time to make resolutions that they feel will serve as a catalyst for change. Birthdays can, at times, play the same role.

In my case, none of the above seems to have happened. It is also not the beginning of the year, though my birthday seems to be rearing its ugly head with an ever greater menace, as a possible omen, signaling the day as an auspicious one to initiate this change. I don't quite see too much change in myself though. For me, things seem to have changed, though I feel quite the same.
In that sense I feel uncomfortable, I'm not used to my surroundings, and with what's been happening. Things are not what they used to be. Everything feels different. But me, I'm still on the road, I am what I am. I am what I used to be. So I can safely say, I'm not "going through changes" in the sense that Ozzy Osbourne wrote about it.
But I thought things don't change do they? I've always heard it is people who change, not circumstances. What is it then? Is Ozzy right? Am I going through changes? Maybe I can never tell when I change; that would explain my assertion that I feel quite the same. But surely my actions would indicate if indeed I was undergoing some fundamental change? I certainly seem to be shedding some yolk, but I essentially feel the same. It might be a monumental shift in focus, in priorities, but I am the same person as before. Just the same way, Indians remained, in essence, the same, before and after Independence, even though, as Nehru thought of it, it was a "moment that comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when the age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance."
My own travails are but a trifle in front of so glorious an event, but the point I wish to make is that I feel much the same as Indians did before and after Independence. They were the same people before and after the fact, it was just that things changed around them. They could do more, think differently and live life in ways previously thought impossible. In much the same way, I am just the same as I was before, I just feel now that things are different.
In that sense, it feels like a song is over. I finished one song and I've started another. It is still me singing, just another song! And of course that song has different lyrics. The style is the same though! I am the same genre as before.
And people like different songs of yours, your parents like one song better than the other, your sis prefers another one, and your friends like you to keep playing the same song all the time. The artist though is always entitled to his personal favorite. I will, in times to come, look back at all my songs and have a favorite "song", until then I have to be content having ended a song and gone on to the next one. Maybe I'll regret it, maybe I won't. In Pink Floyd's words, " the time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say."