The doors are now closing...

I think I'll go mad. Thinking about things. Trying not to think about them. Trying to live...actually just trying to breathe...

I find myself short of breath so often. Screaming inside my head. Smiling, laughing, socializing. And just utterly, completely alone. Not isolated, just alone.

So intensely scared. That life will go by just the way it is. And I won't have the guts to change it. Or the strength to bear the consequences if I do change it.

So desperately sad. That I'm perhaps irretrievably losing a few things, the only things most precious to me. And I don't see a way out. Every time I try I split into two. One side goes into denial of the downward spiral. The other is in auto pilot, pretending life is just as she planned it.

Wait, that's just denial again right?

So much so for thinking I was an independent, strong woman. There I go, falling to age-old tricks played by life. And being nothing but a coward burying into my comfort zone. Which is not so comfortable anymore. It's become my biggest compromise.

My days are stifling. My days are frozen in time. Yet I'm overwhelmed by it's pace. I'm still there...and everything else is whizzing by. Or maybe I'm going too fast and everything else is getting left behind. Leaving me behind. And I can't get on the roller-coaster. And I can't get off.

The frantic need to take a decision. Because I'll bitterly regret it if I don't. But I don't know what that decision should be. And will I regret the decision itself?

All I know is...this can't be it. Can it? I don't know if I can bear it then.

See what I mean by going mad.

I am suffering from a Benjamin Button like EQ syndrome. In the past few years, I've been feeling and doing things that are fine when you are 19, or even 25. But downright stupid at my age.

And I tried to stem the downward spin, I did. But it's difficult when stupid makes you so happy. I guess I should have remembered that it's even more difficult when you get the inevitable wake-up call.

After all, only the very lucky are able to stay on in Fools' Paradise forever - the rest are just shown glimpses. And I've never really been lucky. In anything.

Full Circle

You're humming some random tune
Making yourself your morning cup of coffee
And suddenly that tune messes with your memories - and your head
And the coffee turns cold, sitting forgotten on your desk

A weekend spent surfing channels. Endless, mindless sitcoms.

Laughing at a silly joke you sink into the couch

And then you remember a talk you had in that very place

And the mindlessness becomes a welcome relief...

A perfectly normal conversation at work

On mundane, boring, every day things

When out of the blue, that voice over the phone

That intonation, certain pronunciations - reminds you of someone else

And the yearning hits you - like a fist to your solar plexus

And you can't respond to the questions coming over the line. You are short of breath.

They say time heals all wounds...
...Except those it doesn't

...

You think you are too old to have your heart broken.
And then you discover pain never goes out of style. 

Breathe

I love the smell of home.

The smell that assails my senses when I step into the room I grew up in
My memories traversing a different space and time, automatically
When this was life...

My fingers move, of their own accord.
Opening this, adjusting that, trying to place things just as I liked them a decade back.
And all the while, I breathe in a past.

It’s a whiff of childhood, and of adolescent pangs
Of the sense of liberation once exams were done and dusted
And the warm, lazy, endless summer days began

There is an aroma that could only mean mom
Her clothes, her cooking, her hugs
Mixed with the sharp, burnt, heady smoke from dad's late night cigarette

It’s the scent of first love, of late night phone calls
Of the feeling that anything, absolutely anything is possible
The scent of dreams yet to be realized, and thus, yet to be broken

It’s the sense of growing up, leaving the comfortable behind
Forcing yourself to spread your wings, even if you are scared of heights
The refusal to acknowledge the overwhelming homesickness

It’s not a sensory overload, oh no.
It’s more subtle, creeping in and catching me unaware during those flying visits home
And that’s how it departs too. Slowly, almost unnoticed, almost too soon.
Till suddenly, I feel the familiar ache of something missing
And I know it’s time to move on.

A random love letter

Dearest,

You have given me so many 'firsts' - I could put them all together and create a brand new life. A brand new me.

A me that I wish I could embrace all the time. And not in bits and parts. A life that I wish was the one I lived endlessly, and not in stolen moments.

You are the madness in my life. And the sanity. The storm and the anchor. The dream and the reality. You helped me find myself - by letting me get lost in you.

Deliciously, maddeningly lost.

You've woken a part of my soul. And changed my essence forever. And I'm back to where I started, longing for us to begin, all over again. So that we can discover, all over again. Resist, all over again. Surrender, sink and drown, over and over again.

I'm waiting for the firsts', to transform into forevers'.

Yours

This is how you lose her

"This is how you lose her.

You lose her when you forget to remember the little things that mean the world to her: the sincerity in a stranger’s voice during a trip to the grocery, the delight of finding something lost or forgotten like a sticker from when she was five, the selflessness of a child giving a part of his meal to another, the scent of new books in the store, the surprise short but honest notes she tucks in her journal and others you could only see if you look closely.

You must remember when she forgets.

You lose her when you don’t notice that she notices everything about you: your use of the proper punctuation that tells her continuation rather than finality, your silence when you’re about to ask a question but you think anything you’re about to say to her would be silly, your mindless humming when it is too quiet, your handwriting when you sign your name in blank sheets of paper, your muted laughter when you are trying to be polite, and more and more of what you are, which you don’t even know about yourself, because she pays attention.

She remembers when you forget.

You lose her for every second you make her feel less and less of the beauty that she is. When you make her feel that she is replaceable. She wants to feel cherished. When you make her feel that you are fleeting. She wants you to stay. When you make her feel inadequate. She wants to know that she is enough and she does not need to change for you, nor for anyone else because she is she and she is beautiful, kind and good.

You must learn her.

You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there. You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to.
You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.

And, this is how you keep her ."

- This Is How You Lose Her || Junot Diaz