For some time now they were saying that the time had finally come and was about to happen at any moment. They being those kind wise folks who knew everything better than the rest of us.

Not that everyone was as prepared as the other, I certainly was not. The group had as a whole succumbed to the inevitability of the situation, providing a collective consciousness that prevailed in more ways than one.

Let yourself go as an individual bubble and become a better part of the whole, it's pretty much up to you. That's what they said, suggested, or whatever.

Years and years later, we can now sit comfortably in front of the fireplace late in the evening, watching the flames assuming various degrees of awareness, reminisce about old times past, chuckling softly here and there.

Still at the back of our minds we know what had happened, was bound to happen no matter, what could have happened if things were otherwise. But they weren't nor would they ever be.

Acquiring the needed individual traits over time is something for which we need not prepare as it happens naturally as long as we let it happen of course.

The real challenge is retaining as much of one's core without compromising, without giving in, and at the same time moving forward without too much worry. Good night and pleasant dreams.