Redemption

Forgiveness is divine, so goes the saying. I am not a forgiving person. I hardly ever forgive or forget. So eventually, I end up being lonely, because no one, including myself can ever live upto the high standards that I seem to aspire for. I cannot obviously, not live with myself, but rest all, who have been part of my life, who are part of my life have a tough time, when understanding why I am suddenly so cold or distant. But I cannot help that nature of mine. I take time to accept people into my life. I take time to trust someone. It is easy to break your heart, when unwanted people enter it and I don’t cope well with heart break. No one ever does. So, I am conscious. A friend of mine, once said, that I accept people too easily. That was way back, when I was fourteen. But I was not wrong then, my instinct has been right about her and we still are friends. The journey has not been easy with her, but we managed to walk for over ten years together.

I came a long way since the first time I heard that I accept people easily. I am sometimes hesitant about people, sometimes defensive and sometimes unkind. I have had all sorts of experience and however we try, sometimes, hearts must be broken. And when that happens, there is nothing much to do, except be broken and let the hurt sweep you all over and one day, when it is tired, it can help you catch your breath and you can start living again. That is just how it is. The glorified path of hurt only making you stronger, does not really work. Not really. There are no paths from pain. Except a deep tidal wave that engulfs you in a black hole. It will settle when it can and until then, you just have to deal with it. Of course, after that comes a better place and that is the happy place. I have had a share of my happy times too. The thing is, I have always been an introvert, with limited set of friends. Friends are not someone I take lightly nor do I call everyone a friend, just because I spoke to them a couple of times. Some people do that. So, I have to say explicitly, I do not say the word friend, lightly. And when I say a friend, all the shackles of self-defense are lost. Did I make wrong choices when I called people friends? Over the past few years, I have had my trust broken a million times and the people who should have been friends betrayed me. SO, yes, I made wrong choices. I made wrong choices and I paid for them, which made me even more choosy and set the bar that bit higher, so I would not be hurt. In this process, I lost confidence in a lot of people, people I care and love. And I did not make amends to fix whatever it is that pushed me away from them. Also along the line, I realized, I have not been a good friend either. I have lied by omission, which means I broke a trust. I have seen a friend go astray, which means I broke a promise. I have let a friend suffer alone, which means, I have not been there. I have let a friend take baby steps ahead and did not stand there, to witness it, which means I have not shared an important moment of his life. I have not indulged in a friend’s fantasy, I have been too uptight, which means, I have let myself be more important than that friend. I have not participated in friend of friend’s conversation, for I felt uncomfortable and out of place, which means, I have not had the chance to get to know the people who are important to him/her. I have put myself above others, which means, I cannot be a friend. Can I? When I feel such, why should I try to demolish the walls I constructed around myself? Am I not better alone, than be this selfish person?

I have realized, I have come a long way in life, but, I have just begun this journey. And as I evade past the choices I have, I realized, I have become someone who I should not be. I should perhaps try and fix the broken bridges and smooth the creases, yet, I realize, I cannot do any of those, for I honestly do not care for few and I cannot resurrect what has never been, in a few cases and few, I just am too ashamed to go back. I do not have the strength in me to forgive myself. And I also do not have the strength to forget. But I do have the strength to ask for redemption, of all the people, who have ever seen me as a friend and who have had the misfortune of being my friend. I am sorry, for being the person I have been.

So where do I go now? I ask this question of myself, over and over again.

I walk a lonely road, the only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes, but it's home to me and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating……..

And I don’t want to be anyone other than what I have been trying to be lately…

Welcome to Reality!

DISCLAIMER: This is a fictional story. All the characters are fictional. The incident itself is a creation. Any resemblance to people or to the situations in the real world, is purely coincidental.

--------------------------------------------

 
“These last few years have been the best, in my life. Waking up every day, because, for once, the reality is far better than the dreams, because of you. And the sleepless nights have been a bliss, thinking about you, whispering your words over and over, again and again, waiting for the night to be over, just to look at you the next morning. To see you smile, to know that I caused that smile, to feel it in my heart, that fond glow that embraces me. You are one person, who made all the difference in my life. And today, is the best day in my life. Watching you work for that dream has been a mangled expression of awe and pain. Though this means that it would push you half way across the world, knowing that you are pursuing your dreams and knowing that you are happy, will help me get through the days. You know, even though I am alone, there is this another person inside me, the person who is insanely in love with you. She remembers every second of the last few years. The distance matters little, when every nerve in her body screams your name and every time your name pops up, she is this glowing person who is very proud of you. She fully intends to give me company, so don’t you worry about me at all”, she said to her most favorite person in this whole wide world and the only person in her world.

He looked at the happiness on her face, wondering if anything he ever did will ever shatter that pride he heard in her voice, when she spoke his name. He endured the months of desperation and succeeded, thanks to her unwavering belief and today, when those dreams are this close to becoming a reality, he was torn between happiness and despair. He just took one step towards the dream and already, the past threatened to fade away. Clinging to the past would mean that the dream would remain a dream and pushing the past away, means that the reality will drown him. Past, he said that word over and over in his head. Every time he said that word, it was like a knife stab through his heart. The significance of that stab is not lost on him.

“Thank you, for everything”, he said, with an emotion that was too difficult to put in words.

She looked at him for a long time, wondering if something was wrong. She was lost in the moment of his glory, that she failed to notice the trepidation in his eyes. She could not explain the dread in her heart, yet, she knew that this day, she would not forget.

“What is it? Are you worried about us?”, she asked. He continued to look at her, unsure how to respond.
“We are going to be OK. We will work something out. Don’t worry”, she said, moving closer to him.

He stepped back. She stopped, taken aback. She looked at him, with comprehension in her eyes. “It’s over, isn’t it?”, she asked, with calm conviction.
He took a step closer to her. She stepped back and turned around. The ensuring silence deafening in her ears. For one moment, the world came crashing down on her. Was it a moment ago that she said that reality was too good to be in a dream. She has been wrong all along. She lived in a dream, seeing what she thought she saw. Because only in dreams, she was happy. She chased those dreams and the reality crept up on her. And now, the swallowing darkness has no light from any corner, to show a path. The darkness is much harsher, when the light that sparkled in that path extinguished. He was the light in the path she pursued.

She turned around. “Why?”, she asked and the whisper made that question a raging tornado in his heart. He looked at the emptiness in her eyes and he had no words to say, no words that would shun out the emptiness. He took another step closer to her. She stood looking at him.

“I’m sorry”, was all he could muster. She stood there, for a few more moments, trying to make sense of those words. Sorry for what? Sorry for taking away the life line? Sorry for inflicting the pain she never thought was possible? And he had the gall to stand there and look worried and hurt? She looked at him longer, anger creeping in. How dare he be sorry for her? How dare he threaten to feel sorry for the one thing that meant everything to her? How dare he, to take away the rationale in her pain? The pain that seems to be the only reality of her life, from now!

“Do you like to see me in pain?”, she asked with a tormented voice.
“No. No. No, that is not what I want. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want …”, he lost his train of thought at the expression on her face.
“Watch me learn to forget you”, she said and stormed out of the room, leaving him stunned.

He looked at her retreating back, knowing full well that he destroyed something very pure and sacred and he would be marred for the rest of his life in search of that sacred thing. He sighed. He underestimated her pain when he agreed that it was over and her words “Watch me forget you” did kill him. Unlearning an emotion is not an easy thing. For unlearning, she has to feel the emotion, relive it and then strip it inch by inch by inch, dying a thousand times and there is no guarantee that she would ever succeed and honestly, does he want her to do that? Does he want her to forget him? Does he want her to erase the best part of his life to nothingness? Does he want to be erased from her life? “Hell no”, he thought. Yet he would not do anything, not when there are his dreams that are at stake.

“Congratulations! You just took the first step towards your soul destruction. There, you see that? That girl was the best ever thing that happened to you and you think that your dream has any meaning without her? You will find out soon enough. Just when you find out, be sure to have a well padded body, for when you fall flat, you need some cushioning to take the pain”, his conscience mocked him. Just like that, the start of a wonderful life looked turbulent. Just like that, he stripped apart a life to pieces and he intends to construct his dream on the shattered pieces.

She walked out of the house and started walking to no where in particular. She could hear nothing and she could see nothing. The monotonous foot after foot took her in some direction, the road disappearing beneath her and suddenly she felt air whoosh past her, a truck barely missing her. She stood stock still and looked around. She was standing in the middle of a road with vehicles moving past her. She could hear the voices all around her.
“Mommy, ice cream” she heard some kid speak.
“Are you out of your mind? Move lady”, she heard someone yell.
HONK HONK… she looked around once more and started moving. Life moves on, every one else’s life moves on, except hers, for now! For now, her life has no meaning, no direction, no purpose, yet she has to move on and get on with life. She smiled sardonically.

“Welcome to the reality! For what its worth, your dream was great”, her conscience mocked!

... trying to be less lonesome

Realizing that there is no guarantee for the next second of life, we still hunt around for dreams, walk down the paths – sometimes alone and sometimes in company of people we cherish, yet, never stop and ponder, if we bothered to do the right things and say the right words at the right moment. What if, there is someone out there, screaming for your help in their dreams? What if there is someone out there, who perhaps is wondering the same thought that you are having at this instant? What if, your loved one has received the most coveted achievement of his life and is gloating in happiness for the feeling to sink in and is planning on how to tell you about it, while you are down in a dump not having the heart to feel the happiness? What if you are the most significant person in someone else’s life and don’t even know it? What if, no one ever told you that they love you and you would never know if you have been loved? When we are running around for success, chasing the dreams that are significant, sometimes, the people who cast those dreams for us, seem nowhere in sight. The people who are part of that dream seem unimportant. People who share those dreams are unimportant. “I” being the most prolific of expressions, “I” takes over “us”. And suddenly, everything else seems insignificant. The satisfaction of the crowning victory of the dream seems to be the only thing that matters. At that stellar achievement, is there no one who comes to mind, who would share that happiness with you? Who believed in your dreams and in you? If the answer to that question is “no”, then the achievement is just trash. We all need someone, ONE person, at least, who believes in us. But, finding that someone is the key. “We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome.”

We meet people along the way of life. Few become the stalwarts whose presence makes a significant impact. Few relations lead to conflicting emotions of love and affection. Few become the star performers in the dreams. Few are mere obstacles. Few are part of life, yet insignificant. Few are not part of life, yet are significant. Essentially, people play role that steers the wheel of life. Words are spoken, thoughts exchanged, promises said out loud, vows exchanged, all of which form a time capsule. And I cannot help but wonder, how many of these incidents have a ring of truth to them. Like, if there ever was a meaning to: “I will be there for you, always, forever. Remember that!” or “I love you” or “I miss you”? I keep thinking, sometimes, in the heat of the moment there are a lot of words exchanged. Some are good, some are bad, but how many are the truth? Eventually, as the tide turns, silence rules the world, even between the thickest of the companions. If words become a lie, the “companionable silence” eventually makes it worse. Have you ever wondered, when the companionable silence becomes silence? Where even the whispers of the inner voice can become screams of pleasure or pain? It just creeps up on you, like old age, never sounding a horn at its arrival, just the glaring obvious truth in the deafening silence. And is the journey back to companionable silence hard? Is there a journey back? Back to the time where the words roll off the tongue, even with the intention of fully falsifying them in the future? Back to where silence is more of a comfort than of an insult or prejudice?

When the dusk sets in on life, there is time to wallow in thoughts. There is time, period. That is when, the hard questions of life start making an appearance. When young and blood runs through veins and muscles seem strong to move mountains and the world is at your mercy, there is no time for thoughts. But when, the wrinkled body withers further, for every strong move of the wind, at that instant, who is your companion? Who is your alter ego? Who is the reason for your smile? Who is the wind beneath your wings? When the good and the bad pass through the eyes, can you withstand the phase without regret? What about the moments where you missed out on saying out loud about how much you care about someone? Will you regret them? will the stellar achievements hold any meaning? Will the anger towards someone hold any meaning? When the end approaches like a whistle, shrieking loud enough to wake the dead or steal your soul, will you be content or will you harbor regrets that push you to hell? These are hard questions for someone who wants to be less lonesome and there is never a right time to find answers to these!

"It seems to me that, if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world." – John Steinback
Every day, we move closer and every day we move further away. We move closer to the end and we move further and further away from the clear water. The murkiness of the future gets thicker and thicker. Every day! Perhaps it is time to think of a way to live life, if it is a life that is a harbinger of doom at dusk or a recipe for content.

One tree Hill and ...

One tree hill became my latest addiction and when I started going through what is available online, my favourite character, Lucas Scott, played by Chad Michael Murray is no longer going to play in this soap, from Season 7 and it is a heart break for me and I am not really sure if I want to watch the season any more. The love that lasted tough times between Nathan and Haley might push me to perhaps catch an occasional episode, but for some reason, it just is not the same any more. This particular TV drama had me aching for the characters from the episode one. Leaving out the melodrama and the unspeakable story lines of few episodes, the voiceovers that quote from classics sometimes, leave me sleepless through the night. The plot evolves the characters decently, but rather sketchily for my taste. The byplays between characters is sometimes brilliant and sometimes rather sad. But, I enjoyed scripts that revolved around the sports, for they are a source of an inspiration. Watching a sports person’s career is like watching life in a capsule – the trysts, the disappointments, the choices, the hardships, the success, the failures, the fame, the attention and over all, the future that is forever changing and forever challenging and forever unknown. To see them succeed or give up or fail, is a lesson to one and all and when I started watching this, it was in the hope of finding an inspiration. But the show did not give me that, it just went on portraying the characters, sometimes disgustingly and sometimes brilliantly. Yet it stuck to me, as I wanted to know how these characters shall turn out as the life throws punch after punch. It also got me thinking about the life beyond the world I see.

I live in a world that is small and I see people with different perspectives. What choices made them who they are today? Are all the choices correct? Are they proud of those choices? Are the smiles behind their success true? Are the thoughts behind their words true? Are there hidden intensions behind every step forward? It is not easy to know anyone’s life but their own. And sometimes, I wonder, if I understand my life. The surrounding world has so many influencing factors that are not catered for, in the life plan. When I think of life ten years from now, I see a question mark. When I see it five years from now, I see a question mark. When I see it two years from now, I see a question mark. If I asked myself the same question, ten years ago, I would have dreamed of this day. And if I asked the same question, five years ago, even then, I would have said, I am still on course. Now that I ask this question, of myself, I go blank. It is like, one dream is realized beyond which there seems to be an emptiness I cannot handle. I try confronting the emptiness and I see nothing. I keep probing myself, pushing myself to dream about something else and I find myself lost in the nothingness. Sometimes in life, inspiration does not come from anything but oneself. Today, I seek inspiration from somewhere else. I try to see if there is one tiny ray of hope that shall pass me today, to perhaps push me in the right direction and I find myself disappointed. Not because I can’t find any outstanding achievements, just those achievements seem ordinary to me. Somewhere along the road, I lost the meaning of simplicity and somewhere along the road, I picked up a baggage that weighs me down and somewhere along the road, I forgot to stop and rest and stop thinking. Thought at some level intellectualizes everything. Like, relations. Too much thought and too little heart in a relation, just makes the relation cold. Like work. Too little thought spoils the growth, but no heart, makes one dissatisfied. There are no “for-sure” answers in life. And one has to find the answers to a lot of questions along the way. And along the way, perhaps, one has to realize that, it is not the answers to the questions that matter, but the questions themselves. Those questions mould the person into whatever they are. In search for the answers, they change their skin. Along the way, I also forgot the company of many people – parents, friends, well-wishers. Along the way, all lost the meaning, except solitude and questions. I still ask questions and have no one to answer. I still have people around me, just don’t really know if that should mean anything to me. It falls back to a thought I held close to my heart for a long time – “you are alone”. The thought of people in life, forever and till eternity just holds no meaning. When life is a question, what certainty can anyone give for forever?

The bonds shared by people sometimes just vanish, as though they never existed. The promises and words mean nothing but ash. All that is left is a bag full of questions and a heart that aches. At some point, the charade begins, where the smiles and affection becomes a fabricated exhibition rather than something that forms the core of everything. Along the way, there are no values that can be upheld, just a faint belief that echoes the certainty of truth, yet insufficient to hold any meaning. Along the way, there is no way forward, just a stop sign and an end.

A harsh reality.