Being there…

I always wanted someone to be there for me. It was a dream of me since I was a child. Sometimes, I used to feel that it would be so easy if I do not have to articulate my needs and emotions at all. The world would have been a perfect place if there was someone who read my thoughts and understood my needs without me uttering the word. Obviously, there was and is no one in my life who would be that ideal person. I missed that person like anything. To be honest, I still do sometimes.

The world had different things in store for me though. I felt lonely as expressing my emotions and needs was not my comfort zone. I dreamed and dreamed of someone who would come along and be this amazing person for me. The feeling that someone would be there who would know me in and out even if the world misunderstands me was amazing even in dreams. I was fortunate enough to meet many people who came quite close to the description. However, this just proved to be the silver lining to the dark cloud. I mean those people were great; however, they failed to either convey their understanding or simply misunderstood or misinterpreted the signals. Still, they were there for me in their own way. I am grateful for that.

My search continued. It was a fruitless search anyways. It was a fun search though. I mean whatever you do or whatever someone else does, no one can be your alter ego. The expectation itself is irrational. I was giving up and settling for so many great people that I had. These people had made me realize a lot of things about myself. Without realizing, I started becoming increasingly open about my emotions and needs. I had realized that someone else would understand my needs and emotions when I express them clearly and precisely. In my search of the person who understands me perfectly, I started getting closer to myself. Frankly speaking, there were times when I did not understand what I was feeling. I did not know I needed a hug or a cup of a tea. I realized that even I cannot be that person myself. How on earth someone else was going to be that person for me. 

I found a lot of things lying inside myself that did not know their place. So, I started getting acquainted with them. It was a learning experience to understand something about oneself. Then, there were other times when someone else just happen to understand what I need more than I did. I had very thoughtful moments when the people who understood me were actually strangers. My self-talk was, “How can they know what I need?” It is a wonderful when you look at yourself from a stranger’s perspective.

Through such things, I started discovering that person who knew me in and out. I was glad to meet that person. It is not every day that you are completely and precisely understood. However, this became a fact for me. I had finally found somebody who was my perfect partner. From that day onward, I have hardly ever felt lonely. I always tell my friends I may be alone but not lonely. It was bliss.

As anyone can easily guess that person is me. I became my person (this is for Grey’s Anatomy fans out there). The other me still has problems understanding me. However, together we pass each and every hurdle we come across. As I have mentioned in my earlier posts, I merely stopped waiting for somebody without realizing it. I am just with me. I do enjoy this.

And I yell at myself:

I will be there for you

‘Cause you’re there for me, too

Warning!! Emotions ahead!!

Things get difficult sometimes. It indeed seems that there is no way out. But I would always say that my complaints are always addressed to my God as is my gratitude. 

This is a cry of a girl who lost the most important person in her life more than five years ago. She lost hope that day. Losing anything is difficult. However, if you have hope, you can always come back. Losing hope leads you to a perpetual night. Her fingers still tremble and her lips shiver when she comes face to face with her grief. She was quite attached to that person. She tried to find someone. She is still trying to find someone. She knows that what she shared with him is never going to come back. That’s the reason she was hopeless. She covered her hopelessness with anger, frustration, rebelliousness, arrogance, stubbornness. She hid her grief as she could not find anyone to share it. 

She could not succeed in many things she did. She worked hard. She couldn’t avoid her feelings coming in her way though. Leading a seemingly normal life after a huge loss is certainly not easy. The days are filled with something or the other. It is the nights that trouble the most. After a busy day when she would lie down on her bed, her feelings would come back to haunt her. However, life had to continue.

It was easy to build a wall around oneself than confide. Like a story in which a princess wanted to roam the world and her father wanted to cover the entire world with leather. Someone suggested that the princess simply cover her feet with leather instead. In a similar way, rather than communicating her sorrow, she decided that it was easy to protect it. In a way, she is still protecting some of it. There were people who tried to offer her comfort. Alas! She couldn’t get any. Gradually, she could face her loss and fear. She found good friends. However, she went far far away from the people lived with her. They just became strangers—adults who were enveloped in their own world and who did not have any time for her emotions.

She started growing up. She started handling her own issues and problems. She started deciding to be independent. It was a journey she began without much of her free will. She was confused. She did not know which way was up. There came a moment of realization when her aimless pursuits stopped being aimless. The road she chose led her to calmness. She knew she wanted to achieve composure and independence. She realized that she cannot crumble down so easily but should support herself. She found people around her who were ready to help. She did not know that even if no one else is there she would be there for herself. This gave her the reassurance she was searching for. 

The most important person in her life is still the most important person in her life. She would not have been able to travel on this road of self-search without immense guidance from him. There were so many times she just wanted to give up. She did not know then that she was giving up on herself. She knows that this journey is tiring. There are going to be hundreds of obstacles. She was searching for someone to hold her hand for support. She did not know that for one of her hand the other hand can be the support she is searching for.

When she lost him, there was a void that got created. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle that was missing a big piece in the center. She tried and tested every piece she came across. None of them fit. The piece is still missing. She does not know whether she would ever find the piece that would be good enough. She knows one thing for sure. She has to keep trying. She has grown enough to accept the void. However, she does not want to stop searching as of now. 

She has many riddles and puzzles to solve now. This is not the only puzzle. However, even today, when she lies on her bed after an honest day’s work, the puzzle with the missing piece is the one that tells her that she has to get up next day. Simultaneously solving other puzzles, she wants to check if she can find the missing piece someday.

She began with a loss. The loss is still there. She has an objective to achieve. She has found strength in herself. This definitely is not happily ever after. As I said, it is a cry—a struggling cry—toward life.

My God lives within and around me. Thus, I would always direct all my emotions to him. He’s always there.

The historian within

I remember writing once about memories. I believe it is more than once that the memories have filled me with all sorts of emotions in the world. Memories are very handy. They have their own house in your heart. I always felt that though memories sometimes soothe your mood, they can seriously disturb you at other times. Nonetheless, they make us what we are. They are the foundations that we live on.

Nowadays, there are so many different devices to capture the so many important moments. We have cameras, video recorders, and mobile devices. We capture so many moments. However, can we really capture the humanness that is attached to those moments? Can we really capture the sheer ease with which a flower blooms? 

There are wildlife photographers and enthusiasts who go out of their way to capture such fragile natural moments and movements, for example, animals yawning, flowers blooming, the movement of the trees, the turning of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The list is endless. I am still not sure whether these photos and videos can capture the delicate beauty of these moments. 

We take videos of human emotions as well. We capture numerous emotions crossing a person’s face as the individual experiences something heart touching. We try and keep record of everything from the childbirth to marriages to death. 

Now, with the mobile devices being easily available, we can start recording any time. However, can we keep track of everything? Can we really record what one goes through before saying yes to a marriage proposal? Can we ever capture the alone journey of a person going back to home after a wonderful and satisfactory completion of a project? We aim to write down, record, capture, compose, and in turn, express everything that we want to. However, so much remains to be captured. 

I always wondered what passes between two people when they touch, shake hands, pat, hug. Because with everyone, these things have different meaning and emotions attached to it. Even if we can capture someone patting the other, would we ever be able to understand what emotion was sent and received. A gaze of reassurance! Never can you capture the gaze of reassurance. It is one of the emotions which depends on the understanding of the two people—a person asking for relief and the other giving it. 

I never understood how we can grab a moment so intimate that when it will start and end cannot ever be predicted. We can capture crying eyes but we cannot tell the emotion that flows through them. This all is safe with the historian within because the mind is always recording everything that happens. Each thought, emotion, behavior, existence, and thing is noticed and noted. And when the mind decides to play a story in front of its eye everything is clear and well placed. The mind organizes deletes, saves, alters, and maintains all that is important to us and all that which someday may prove to be important. It even protects our dreams which definitely cannot be recorded. It knows when we had a knot in our throat which no one else noticed.

I salute to this great historian that is present within all of us. Howmuchever technology may develop, the historian would still exist and keep doing its work effortlessly and without failing.

Today, I want to just hold my historian tight and thank it for showing me movies of happy times when I was low and warning me about the negative during my euphoric fits. Love you and thanks for being there.