Looking back...

I am a month away from getting an year older. For the last few days I have been thinking a lot about a lot of things. Where I am, where I am going, where I want to go, and mostly about the choices and decisions that has brought me here.

I have made all sorts of choices. Brilliant to brilliantly stupid. And sometimes I have struggled to take ownership of them. And other times as much as I pretended I didn't regret them, I have. Most of the questionable decisions in my life has been born of thoughts like "there's only one life", "what's there to lose", "you'll never know if you never try", "this will make a hell of a story someday", "maybe this will finally work", I don't think I would die of it", etc.

But ironically most of these questionable choices have led me to some of my best memories, best achievements, best people and best stories (I wasn't wrong there^ you know).

But unqualified glorification doesn't do these choices justice. Many of them have also made me fall flat on my face, left scars(not the glorifiable kind), caused me immense pain, agony, failure and truckloads of issues.

This morning while scrolling through my gallery I came across this picture from last year which I hadn't posted earlier because of how uncannily enormous my neck looks (just look at it!).

But today when I saw it, I was suddenly washed over by a sense of peace.

THAT is what I want to look at when I look back at my life. ( No not the NYC skyline literally, although that would be pretty dope too)

I want to look at a sea of glitter amidst darkness. 

Because try as I might, I can't avoid the dark, the mistakes, the failures, the regrets or the depression.

But look at that view, isn't it breathtaking? Wouldn't the glitter be lost without the darkness? 

Whether I look back or I look around today, I see the glitter all around me. I see some beautiful faces that love me, some stories worth of bucket lists, some successes that fill me with pride and so much laughter! Oh god, I have laughed, and loved and have been loved, so much!

I am not even half way to becoming the woman I want to be at my death bed. She is gonna be epic, believe me you!

But one thing I know, to become that woman, I will not be able to make conventional choices always. And that as cool it may sound isn't always a very cool thing. It brings with it a sea of darkness too. But today I realized I am okay with that. I am okay with taking absolute ownership of all that my choices entail. It has been and will be extremely hard. There are and will be days when I question my commitment to the glitter. But what will keep me going, I promised myself today, is this view, whenever I decide to pause and look back and also at the end, when I am an epic old lady bidding my farewell, I hope this view is what everyone else sees too! And I hope they know I worked very hard to create it and live it and I have loved every bit of it, even the bits I really hated.

The Lost Ring and A Best Friend

I lost my favorite ring a few days back.

I had looked for it everywhere but couldn't find it.

Today I found it lying in a corner of the room

I wasn't looking for it or thinking about it.

When I had given up on the ring, the universe brought it back to me.

It made me think of you. 

I gave up on you some days back.

And I have promised myself I won't go looking for you.

I don't want to find you again, 

In my recent messages, in my recent call list or in my life

Between the knotted stomach and the blurry vision, as I lie awake every night, 

Telling myself that I'm okay with giving up on you,

I was thinking tonight,

What if like the lost ring, I find you too again,

Some day, in some corner of the world, 

When I am not looking for you, not thinking of you, not hoping to find you?

Would it make me as happy as the ring made me today 

Or would it make me sad ?

That I should not have given up on you

But what could have I done 

I had to 

I had to give up on you 

It was between me and you

Like  it has been all those times in the past

And I had chosen you over myself every time

But for this once I could not

I chose me

I'm sorry

But I hope someday I can tell you how it broke me 

To choose myself

Someday I can tell you that although I could give up on you I could never stop loving you

I hope you're happy always forever everywhere every time all the time

I hope you forget me 

Because I wouldn't dare hope that for myself 

How can I, how can I ever forget you how does one forget their own heart.

October 27, 2017

Calcutta,India.

Survivor? Victor.

Of words spoken too soon,

Of words never said at all,

Of doing too much,
Of not doing enough,
Of being too cautious,
Of being too spontaneous,
Of waiting too long,

Of not waiting long enough, 

Of swallowing the feeling,

Of being swallowed by the feeling,

Of smells you can't forget,

Of smells you don’t remember,

Of the panic when you hear a certain word,

Of the pain when you don’t, 

Of daydreams that make you dizzy,

Of dreams that became nightmares,

Of the frozen feet at a certain sight,

Of the midnight run to numb the flashbacks,

Of the lump in your chest,

Of the cold fingertips in a fist,

Of the breathlessness from sitting still,

Of suffocating from too much wind,

You are, all of it.

Of everything you have ever and never felt,

You are.

Yet here you still are.

Here you still are.

Cowardice

"You misunderstood me", she whispered to the receding shadow, of you walking away.

What was for you an excuse, granting you the freedom you didn't have the courage to ask for, was her reason to live shackled with guilt for years to come.

Unrequited, alternately

He did

She couldn't 

He did
She shouldn't
He stopped
She did
He couldn't.

Adulthood

Freshly off the rocky boat that brought you across the sea they call Teenage
The jacket of invincibility fits a size too small suddenly
This new island they call Adulthood is your home now
The rules of land are different from the sea they warn upon arrival
But no one tells you what the new rules are
The first steps on the shore are hard after spending years at sea
You falter, stumble, fall and scratch your skin
The jacket tears apart, ripping at the helms
While you struggle to find foothold on the soft sand
Passersby whisper about how you walk weird
But no one gives you a hand
You see some struggling too, but some others seem so sure
"Experience!", a fellow struggler tells you following your eyes
Eventually the walk gets easier, but just when you find your foothold,
The landscape changes, and they tell you, you gotta keep walking
It's a marshland now, and again the faltering ensues
But it has been a few years on this island already
And you know that there's no escaping it
So you learn to make peace with the idea of this new home
You still are not sure when the landscape will change again
But you know as long as you own your fragility you will be fine
As long as you accept that you're breakable, you will be able to fix yourself
The knowledge is empowering, yet some nights
When it gets a bit too cold here on this island
You miss that jacket, the jacket of invincibility that fell apart at the shore
The waves have probably taken it back and fixed it, you think
And it is keeping some other kid at the sea warm now
And you hope they take care of it
You hope they know its not theirs to keep forever.

Why I didn't laugh...

I don’t blame you

I really don’t

I am not angry at you

I am really not

You didn’t hurt me

You really didn’t

But when you made that joke

That joke that you had made

A hundred times before

And I had laughed

A hundred times before

Because I thought it was funny

I really did

Only this time I didn’t laugh

And it wasn’t your fault

Just that your joke

Sounded eerily similar

To the voices in my head

That I had silenced

A hundred times before

At 3 AMs, 2 PMs

At 7 PMs, 10 AMs

The voices that I had

Refused victory to 

A hundred times before

Lately they were getting louder

And when you made that joke

The voices laughed in my stead

And I couldn’t silence 

The deafening sound

And I couldn’t laugh over them

Even though I tried

I really couldn’t.