Life Itself

What does it really mean? All of this shiny-sparkly-attractive mess? What does it mean to have to wake up without an alarm clock? To get up, because you simply couldn't sleep any longer? To lie down only when your eyes can't take it anymore? To talk like a strange person who has a million simultaneous thoughts? To listen, but mostly pretend. To have a million thoughts cross your mind, a million lists on every page of every notebook you ever owned, a million things, and very very little time? What does it really mean? All this powerful-driven-crazy mess? What does it mean to know that you are the last word on something? To have people look at you for answers? To not have a back-up, a safety-net, any option? To have all eyes glued, all attention received, all ears in your direction? To hear the applause, but not feel it? To reach a point of so much crazy that even dinner seems like an indulgence? To listen to your own story and not relate to it? What does it really mean?

[For the last two years I have been putting up an end of year post: 2010 , 2011 . This year, I turned this blog off sometime in July. Now this post needs context, so here I am posting again.... something's are so hard to let go off.] You were a year of turmoil. A year of change. A year of growing up. 2012, I never should have let you have your way with me. You were uncertainty  You were pain. You were the incomplete lyrics of the poem that never became. You were the start of the end. You were the road's last bend. You were achievement. You were insane. 2012 started off as a year on drugs - quitting my job, setting up my start-up,  and somewhere in between finding, losing and finding myself again. I learnt that real friends stay with you, even when you give up on them. I learnt that people change, that some places do too, that some always stay the same. I learnt to depend, I learnt to trust, I learnt to let people in. I learnt to halt. I learnt that things that hurt are

That moment, when you have tried every trick in the book, including the very trick that the book advises you never try: being completely honest - and nothing comes of it. That sensation of inching doom, when you have done all you could, other than giving up - and got nothing in return. That uneasy frustration, when you have written, screamed, silently begged - and the only person who heard you is yourself.  That awkward brush of reality, when you admit that every effort has been in vain - and only go back into self denial.

Now dont worry about how made me feel. We all move, just flow in whatever direction we are supposed to. Sometimes our paths cross. Sometimes encounters end in uneven consequences. Sometimes hearts break. I have come a long way downstream and I know that most times we don't intend to be malicious. And I know you certainly didn't. So go ahead and walk away. I am not holding tight or trying to make you stay. I am not wishing on eyelashes or praying till I go insane. There is no pain in the world if you can't feel it. There is no deception if you can't see it. There is no looking back at empty spaces. There is no regret where there was never any hope. There is no yesterday where there was never a tomorrow.

When I sit in silence, often times I find my thoughts crawl in your direction. Its not a conscious, purposeful process. Its involuntary and mostly happens in the background of whatever else is happening around me. What really makes things interesting is that no matter where we stand, my thoughts are usually positive. The silence makes me want to extend my immediate circumstance in a way that it includes you. The inward contemplation usually gets punctuated by a desire to share my thoughts with you and to predict how you would interpret them. But on most days and at most times, you are a different person than the one existing in my head. So I neutralise the apparent conflict by thinking of you as the same person, but in parallel universes, one where you are the perfected version of yourself, and the other that your ordinary self inhabits. This is not to say that I am only connected to who I imagine you to be. All it means is that I understand you are human, but to protect myself from

No, its not okay. Not your love. Not your hatred. Not your passion. Not your distance. Not your warmth. Not your numbness. Not your screams. Not your silence. How do you go from forever to never so quickly? How do you despise and need all in the same breath? How do you decide to respect and disrespect the same thing on two different days? How do you turn from someones safe into their loneliness? How do you take the deepest concern and make it the cruelest indifference? One day, I too shall learn.

Laughter can be such a great distraction. While you are in the midst of that momentary lapse of self-control, it is almost impossible to focus on pain. Its easy to drown yourself in the noise and color and forget, if only for a moment, the harshest reality. I am often tempted to deal with my problems by drowning them in happiness. Simply by shifting focus, I effectively deal with anything. This is true. But you know what's also true? There are moments of solitude amongst the clamor that force you to think, to reconsider that smile. Is ignoring a problem going to take it away? Sometimes it does. Most cases, you open those shut eyes, and the problem continues to stare at you. So does that mean that confronting a problem, feeling the pain, experiencing the emotion and dealing with conflict is the only real solution? I wish it was. Unfortunately, some problems have no solution and the faster you drown them in laughter, the better.