Conditions Apply

What are your expectations from a relationship with no expectations? What is your investment in something where you can have no returns? How detatched can you be from someone you are involved with? Or have been?

I have spent the past week playing host to my ex - and the current love of his life. I have faced varying reactions to this. Incredulity from my friends, resignation from my folks and a certain level of amusement from my 20 year old self who pays me random visits at times. None of it makes any difference to me - because that relationship makes no difference to me anymore. Its run its course...and so have the expectations that came along with it.

But what about relationships that are supposed to go somewhere - but somehow feel like they are worth nothing?. Or those that should not mean anything - and feel like a new lease of life?. Is that the product of warped priorities? Or just a reality check of where your life's heading?

I have recently become so proud of my ability to detach. To not really let anything get to me beyond a point. To have things happen around me, participate - and yet not really care a damn about where things are going. But I'm not so sure that is a good thing. A sensible thing - yes. Gives me peace of mind - definitely. But is this who I wanted to be - perhaps not.

My complete non-reaction to my ex - now that's a normal reaction after so many years. Because the years in between have taken control. But my disinterest in current relationships, in what people expect from me is reaching an extreme that makes me wonder about myself sometimes.

It's ok when the person who crosses your path has no expectations either. You are in sync. But when that person thinks differently, when they feel and want and dream - then isn't dumping my baggage of 'I-don't-give-a-damn' on that person actually expecting too much from them?

Irony is, the reason you stop caring is because perhaps at one point of time you cared too much. And you met someone who didn't. And you learnt to re-set your expectations. And now you are doing the same thing to someone else. Your lack of expectations means you will fail to understand theirs, or live up to it. Or you will simply not be willing to walk that extra mile. And you will break their heart. And perhaps they will then break someone else's.

But somewhere along the way you stop thinking about it. All you think about is how not to get involved. How to tuck every little thought and emotion and relationship away in its own little corner of the mind. Where it can't mingle with the others and mess up your emotional balance.

And you walk into every relationship with a tiny little * in the corner of your mind. And hope to god the person in front remembers to read the fine print.

This and that

Pink - 'Coz that's what a little girl begins her journey with. Candies, frills, soft toys, and a bubble-gum life.

Yellow - 'Coz your world is opening up to new possibilities - friends, promises, secrets, adventures, sunshiny, happy, worry-free days

White - 'Coz you feel anything's possible - that life's a canvass were you can fill in any colour you want, draw any picture and sign off on it with a flourish. Where you can say, "Look! I made this. This is me."

Blue - 'Coz promises break, dreams turn out to be illusions and reality sets in.

Grey - 'Coz  it's so important to realize that life is not all black and white.

Purple - 'Coz the passion of red always gets coloured by the finality of black.

I feel purple sometimes. Mostly. 

Matters of the heart...and other inconsequential things

A wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left -  Marilyn Monroe


She got it right, that lady. And most of us get it too...unfortunately by then the damage is done. In most cases. You have foolishly let your heart make decisions. That idiot has gone and superbly messed things up. And then you are left with some sort of emptiness. Undefinable. A niggling, annoying pain somewhere inside that dances around the corners, only to slip away when you try to catch it and figure out what it's all about. Figure out what you are all about.

The root cause of all dissatisfaction seems to lie in our bid to attain our heart's desire. Yep, there is that heart again. When you think you have it, you realize it's not what you wanted at all. And what you want is now forbidden. Rendered untouchable by what you already have.

Which is why forbidden fruits are so attractive. An unfulfilled longing is better than a satisfied desire. Satiation has a way of making your needs lose that element of mystery and therefore its charm. Longing for the unattainable on the other hand, is so all-consuming. Pointless, heart-breaking, but taking-over-your-mind kind of powerful.

Someone once told me - don't be with someone out of a sense of companionship. Be with them out of love. But what I want to know is...what kind of love? Is loving someone what matters or being in love?

For example, I love you with all my heart. But I am no longer in love with you. How does that make you feel? Do you still want to be with me? Is that what companionship is all about? Isn't that doing things half-way? Would we rather do some things in halves if the alternative lies in not doing anything at all?

Is not doing anything an equivalent of emptiness? Does emptiness scare you? But don't you think that you can fill that emptiness with so many new things? Or will it turn into that annoying, niggling pain again?

So to come back to my question---love or companionship? Doesn't the first naturally fade into the other in the course of toeing the line of life?

Which is why passion trumps love trumps companionship. Or perhaps it's the other way round. Depends on what you want from life. Do you have what it takes to turn everything you know upside down, question the order of things, and build things up all over again. How badly do you want to define your life? Enough to blow it up in your face?

Do you want to exist? Or do you want to live? Really live?