Patterns

Have you spent evenings that turned to nights and then days where all you could do was read meaningless internet articles to feel some semblance of relatability to the rest of world? Have you ever felt hollow emptiness when the words blurred screen flickered into darkness like your eyelids because exhaustion made them too heavy?

It's been close to four months since I last wrote something. And even though the words have been creating a prickling itch in my palms for the last couple of weeks, I've just run away from this ultimate form of confrontation with myself because I hate confrontation with the people I care about. I care about myself. I care about the people I love. So I run, I run from them and I run from myself, I bottle it up and I seek refuge in animation films that I've already watched. I seek fleeting comfort in a listicle which will make a point that I temporarily relate to. 

Patterns. They are everywhere. Maybe they had always been there, and it is now that I have begun to notice them. Patterns in the people I choose to keep close, patterns in the people who hurt me, and how they hurt me, patterns in my coping mechanisms, patterns in relationships and how they turn out that I wish didn't exist - but they do. 

Someone told me it was karma, because it seemed too much of a coincidence that people in my life had such similar life stories. Someone said it was the cultural baggage we come from. We will all have these back stories, these disagreements with our parents, these scarring experiences by the time we are in our mid-twenties. That's why we relate. Someone said, "It's just your luck. Accept it."

Have you ever, solitude-lover, felt afraid to unlock your bedroom and step out alone because you felt crushing loneliness on the inside? Have you realized how unfair it is to make one person your rock and put the entire weight of your expectations on their human shoulders, because the sets of shoulders that shared those burdens dwindled one by one? 

Have you felt an alienation so deep that you want to crawl out of your skin and reverse the life events that led to this moment? Have you ever wanted to reverse every single memory you hold close because right at this minute you couldn't give a rat's ass about all those people who made it so special because you don't seem special enough to them right now? Are they fucking blind? Or are you expecting too much? Have you tried distracting yourself with work and failed miserably? Has the vast music collection you pride yourself on failed you too because all those thumping beats and lilting melodies made you feel nothing?

Distractions. That is what it has come down to. Lame, sad, pathetic distractions. Browsing hours, reading screens and choking about woes of 90 minute lives of cartoon characters because they seem so much nicer than their real life counterparts. Exposition-conflict-resolution. Simple. A happy ending. Box after box of tissues which reek of deja vu even though there's no such tragedy seems to have struck. Get some half-hearted work done, because hey you're too cowardly to say "fuck you" to those goddamn deadlines.

And guess what? That's a pattern too. 

A different kind of chaos

You fluttered in like breeze and I felt you - through the strands of my hair and the gaps between my fingers. Ironically, the reason you stood out to me was how I was always aware of your presence without really sitting up and taking notice. I don't quite know how you managed that. Was it the infectious calm you exuded? Was it the unbelievable and infinite amount of patience you seemed to possess? Or was it just your aura? I can't put my finger on it.

Everything was still in place. You see, about a year ago, I had a plan. It was not one of those plans that we make every thirty-first of December and forget after the hangover the next morning. It was a serious plan with experiential roots. I was so sure I was going to see it through because I actually happened to like the routine it induced for once in my life. I still did not know what I wanted but I had a much clearer idea about what I did NOT want to do. My plan was rock solid.

Then my rock solid plan turned into a house of cards. And a breeze is enough to make it tumble; you don't really need the wind. As all my carefully arranged spades and hearts cascaded around me, I finally sat up and took notice. Still, I told myself, "You know what, I can make room for this. Everything is still going to be organized, just realigned." And so it was... for a while.

You know how triggers hide in the most inconsequential places? You can rid yourself of all the mirrors in the house, but your reflection could still find you in a clear dew drop on a chilly day. On a certain late evening, on an unexpected detour, circumstances were assigned and aligned and the trigger was pulled. With a silent shot, the last of the mirage that was my plan lay there in smithereens along with my denial. You had stirred up a storm and I was swept right off my feet.

Caught in the tornado, I had to confront the chaos that had crept (not swept) into my life. Words seemed to teeter at the edge of my tongue, refusing to form into speech. Heart beat fast, knees gone weak, thoughts caught in a web of my own confusion. I stood there - shocked and dumbfounded. You, you spoke your mind and my own was in a mess. 

But you know what? There was something about standing amidst all that wreckage that gave me hope. Hope, that I had told myself was gone from my life for a long time. Hope, that I had made myself believe I did not need. And here it was, shining at me through the eye of the storm, enveloping me in its warm glow.

It wasn't some divine intervention or an epiphany. It was you. 

You were the breeze, you were the storm, you broke my plans but most of all, you made the chaos seem okay. You grew on my skin like a vine and made me burst into colors I could only imagine. My waves were choppy and you were unwavering. You were the anchor that kept me grounded. Your essence painted me in hues that made mine come alive.

So, if you think I am going to tell you that you made it all fall into place, that it all makes sense now - you are wrong. 

You are my chaos. My world doesn't revolve around you but if you let go, it will cease to revolve. I don't need you around all the time, but your prolonged absence gives me a constant ache. You give me so much hope that I am afraid it will break me. You are not my everything, but everything seems so much brighter with you. My life won't stop without you. My heart will not stop beating. But walk away and it will merely go on. 

If this is not chaos, then I don't know what is. And you know what? You can wreck as many of my card houses as you want because I will build as many more with you. 

In Transit

You took my hand and led me to a place that no one knew but you. You let me make it my own. We saw the sky turn red, then grey and then we saw it get inked with reflections of lights that twinkled in the dark. We saw silhouettes of hills and try to demystify the secrets they held. Amidst blinking city lights, chilling wind and goosebumps, we laughed, we sang and then descended into a comfortable and comforting silence.  

How do you make sense of a state of mind which is in a state of recovery and rediscovery? 

A mind that is constantly in a sense of awe at the plethora of novelty that it is opening to, yet struggling to step out of a mold that it has been used to for an eternity in terms of numbers but only a few pages of life in terms of how it feels now? 

Blacks and whites are two ends of a spectrum but ones that hardly exist in life. Shades of grey are what color most of reality.

Memories find their way back to your vision at the most unexpected of times; but they feel alien - like they happened to someone else. Why? Maybe because she seems like a different person to you in hindsight. To her, you are a different person too. What changed so much and so quickly? Maybe the place, maybe the people, maybe the time. Definitely, you.

"Try and try till you succeed," they said. They never told you where to stop. And then, you tried life and it tried you. Did you lose yourself along the way? Or were you just in the process of finding yourself again?

To put it into words is a struggle in itself because so is making up your mind about it. "IT"? This whole journey from there to here and from here to so many other places and then back - each time adding some and taking some. 

Wearing, tearing, cutting, bending, breaking and molding all of all of your mind. 

Little by little, bits and parts of it everyday, making you question everything.

Covering, uncovering and recovering layers of things unknown, little known and known. 

Are we not always in some transition? Maybe sometimes more than others; like when big changes happen, or when little things change life in big ways. Somehow, we are always searching for something - love, hope, closure, excitement, satisfaction, ecstasy... always wanting, always something. 

And then, why not? Is life not too short to not keep striving for more? Is there not such little time and so much to experience? Are our hearts not too small to love the infinite number of things there are to love? Are our bodies not too superficial to feel the true warmth of a smile, the blissful comfort of a hug, the intense intimacy of touch, the innocent sight of a playful puppy and the tinkling sound of heartfelt laughter? 

But then, how much can you absorb at once, at a given point in time, in a lifetime? Will it not take a toll - this endless struggle for more, to know more, learn more and not go insane? Maybe that is why we shut our hearts and minds to certain pasts and presents and then we have certain futures, some of which we refuse to imagine but which happen anyway. 

Somewhere in all this madness and swirling thoughts in an overactive mind, there are moments of blissful peace, when we fall in love with all the chaos, where we somehow find music in noise, where we learn to see beauty in the jumble of hues that color our visions. 

Maybe that is the beauty of being in transit, because ultimately, is it not just a journey?