Skip to main content

Could I have imagined you?

Every year, I think about you. Not too many times, but consistently, a few times. And each time I am not sure how I should feel. There is a vague sense of loss, a subtle tinge of abandonment, a painful realisation of independence. But mostly, there is just a numb nothingness.  

Who were you? I am not even sure I remember your face. Your smile, yes. Your eyes, too. But in pieces, in context. I can't imagine your reaction in a new situation. I can't see you as you may have become. I can only see the frozen moments that I have embalmed in my head.  

I wonder if you feel the need to see me. If you imagine what it may feel like to talk to me now. If you wish you had known me all this time. If I am even a real person to you. If you have convinced yourself that I don't exist.  

Perhaps it isn't as simple as moving on, as erasing, as avoiding. Maybe it's an intense removal, a complete denial.

I don't hate you. I don't love you. It's an absence of anything tangible. It's a murmur that never reverberates, never leaves the lips, never resounds. It's not even a feeling.  

You were, you were not. The difference between loving and forgetting isn't that much.

Comments

  1. Well, I have. Also, this wasn't about a love interest as you may imagine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. awesome..
    Beautiful words..!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. yes i feel the need to see u. and each time i feel the need, i close my eyes...

    ReplyDelete
  5. The trick is not to try and forget, but rather to remember. To place a memory at a peaceful place in your identity and learn from it, use it, rather than trying to exclude it from shaping you.The emotion of loss is just a feeling yet to be understood.

    5-D
    You should post more often, was bummed to not read something for the past 2 months on life itself.

    ReplyDelete
  6. There is no forgetting... It's like it never existed.. Like it was someone else's life.. A story I heard from a stranger?

    Glad to know that someone looks forward to my rants :-) I will try to be more regular

    ReplyDelete
  7. See the ted talk on the 'fiction of memory.'
    Usually this sort of emotion is a function of spare time and leisure along with some false memories.
    A jucy banana as long as it's kept under check.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Maybe it's an intense removal, a complete denial"... oouucch !

    ReplyDelete
  9. Tauji, even if I didn't see your name I would know that comment is from you :-P

    Also, anonymous, sorry if my words hurt you.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Date triggered thoughts and memories are nothing but date triggered memories and thoughts ..lasts just a day ..

    ReplyDelete
  12. Am I the only rational person in your circles?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Isabel Allende writes in Sum of Our Days, "....in these years without you I have learned to manage sadness, making it my ally. Little by little your absence and other losses in my life are turning into a sweet nostalgia.” I resonated with these lines, and thought of these emotions as my own.

    Until I read your blog.

    ANL

    PS: A beautiful, gorgeous work of prose by the way. Keep writing

    ReplyDelete
  14. I am not sure I understand....

    ReplyDelete
  15. I had lost my father 27 years ago yesterday - when I commented on your blog. He was a force in my life - my primal source of knowledge, strength, and validation. The constant undercurrent of pain that I felt for many years gradually gave way to sweet memories and unforgettable stories. A sweet nostalgia you see.

    Hence, when I read Sum of Our Days, I resonated with it. I found Allende's thoughts to be my own.

    But reading your blog made me realize that not all losses can be turned into sweet nostalgia.

    Makes sense?

    ANL

    ReplyDelete
  16. I wish I had imagined him but unfortunately he existed. Happy birthday to him. Belated, whatever.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I wish him nothing but unhappiness for the rest of his 'holy' life. Let's just leave it at that. Good day!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Wow... That's a lot of hatred.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Birthing Rumi - Part 1

The next many blog posts will chronicle my most significant journey yet - of becoming and being Rumi's mama. I considered starting a separate blog but then decided against it. While there is a lot to be said, my identity as his mom is not separate from the rest of me. In being his mama, I have become more of me. And in embracing this with the rest of me, and finding and resolving the contradictions, I have felt more myself than ever before. So I chose to put this here. Where the rest of my life and memories live.   “This is pressure, not pain.” A simple mantra I kept repeating as I went through labour. My waters broke at 3.30 am as Loi (the father to be) and I binge watched Bridgerton. I was one week overdue at this point. We had tried nearly every trick in the book to get baby out. The latest was eating a spicy labour inducing burger (yep, there is such a thing), taking a bumpy ride and eating extremely spicy daal. I had been having contractions (false/real who knows?) for weeks. 

Rollercoaster - Part 5

After what felt like an endless night, we woke up relaxed. And then my brain panicked. They hadn't called from the NICU since 5.45 am. Rumi was waking ever 2-3 hours on an average. So at 9.30 am that could have only meant that they didn't get the memo from the night nurses and demand feeding was again under contention.  Thankfully mom had come back to the hospital and I felt better when Lohit offered to go to the NICU to speak to the nurses and also understand if and when they would shift us to Paediatrics so we could be with Rumi in the same room. Lohit wrote to me that he had met the Paediatrician and they were open to shifting us. However they weren't sure if they would be able to find a room. By now I had begun to question my decision to not buy a breast pump and not read up enough on this topic. So when when hospital offered to get me to meet a lactation consultant, we jumped at the opportunity. She helped me understand how to pump and also got me to do it in front of