It occurs to me when I look at old photographs. Of when I was younger, goofier, possibly more in love. 

It comes when I stumble upon old emails. When I wrote them to people whom I was actually friends with, and before that, whn i splt dem like dis.

It sneaks up on me when I'm cooking, and humming a song that's playing in the background. A song that I once heard at a concert, or in a nightclub. Or one that I yowled out in a car, the stereo valiantly attempting to drown my screams. A tune that takes me back to a time, a place, a person.

It even strikes me when I read some of the old posts around here. I'm sure there's some appropriate German word for it, this sense of bewilderment/nostalgia/wonder that I feel. I don't so much wonder what life's sliding doors would have opened into instead, but I do ask myself one single question.

What happened?


"A feeling at my fingertips
That's pulling at my skin..."

Every single time I hear it, I think that 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' sums up my life pretty succinctly.

I'd rather have Hypnotize, though. Just sayin', yo.

"At her foot was her blood-stained man."

This blog, I often realise while reading, draws a rather succinct timeline of my mental and emotional states over the years.

I really ought to write more, if only for posterity. And of course, my own amusement.

"Don't," he said. "I'm weird."

"We all are," she replied. "It's what makes us who we are."

And that was that. 


"You know you should be glad."

Shakespeare said mercy blesses twice. Once, the one who gives it, and once the one who receives it.

Forgiveness is the other way around. Twice cursed.

Once by those you forgive, those who don't deserve it, those who hate you for being better than them. Those who you've cast out from your heart, but not from your mind. Those whom you've sworn off, and sworn not to think of. Those who occupy negative space, in the same way that a lint trap in a washing machine exaggerates its own importance in a spin cycle.

Then it comes to you. That bastard child of many fruitless conversations with best friends. Some of those best friends are yours, even. This child, this emotion, born of discussion, and of desperation to settle a mind.

And you curse it.

Because (and I know I'm not supposed to start a sentence with because) you don't get it. You don't get what you've done to deserve it. Your scale of grey is duochromatic - black and white, with nothing in between. 

So you sit up. Chemicals and manias course through you. You're in a strange land, drawing parallels to Latin. 

"Tu hi hai pyar, mahiya..."

Is it supposed to be this difficult?

But of course, you don't know. and you're supposed to not know, or care. 

Because you're trying to forgive.

One of the few perks of insomnia is being able to appreciate the unique blue of a winter dawn..

"One day I will find the right words and they will be simple."

Hatred is an unruly bedfellow. He's a bit annoying, what with all the rude poking, and the elbow nudges just when you're about to fall asleep. 

So I come downstairs, turn on the television, and distract him with a little Homeland. I leave him there on the couch, locked in the secure embrace of Saul and the CIA.

I trudge back to my bed, and guess who I see there.

Nostalgia. 

I'm just never going to get any sleep. FML.

I've suddenly realised that most problems occur because we expect people to as close to perfection as we think ourselves to be. 

I think I've begun to write randomly. As opposed to writing only when I'm emotionally troubled.

Evolution is strange in its ways. 

Its odd, the peace that I find myself at.

I felt it walking through the rain. It's 4°C, and pissing down. By rights, I should have been blinking furiously and dashing for the nearest cab. Instead, I walked two miles to the strains of Mark Knopfler.

And Tupac Shakur. Always Tupac Shakur. 

It's funny how I always associate Tupac with a certain friend. And our discussions of how most people miss the depth in his lyrics for the paeans to thug life. In fifty years, he will probably be recognised as a poet and a deep mirror to his time. A rose from concrete, indeed. 

It also reminded me of another friend, who once lent me his bike for a period of time. I would ride through town, extremely poor, on a borrowed bike, to pick up and drop the better half home, after a day's work. This all seems highly incongruous, given the fact that I am both horrible with as well as deathly afraid of bikes. But love will do that to you. 

It strikes me every time it rains, because I rode that bike through all sorts of wretched weather and general flooded potholery. And I envied people in their cars, smug and warm, while I generally felt poor. Of course, this was before I came into my purple patch and began buying cars and generally living the life. 

And to this day, every time it rains and I'm outside, whether I'm walking or in a car, or even on a train, I smile to myself and remember the guy who gave his bike to a kid without asking. 

There is always good in the world. 

And maybe that's why I'm at peace for now.

Let me get this straight...

In a day, the world's largest peace prize will be announced, and it will (hopefully!) go to a teenage girl, who had the courage to stand up to her backward society and demand equality and education for girls, and women of all ages, and not harbour thoughts of violence and retribution against the people who shot her.

And India is all at sea because some idiot duty-dodging dwarf is retiring from a sport that most countries don't even play?

Idiots.

Contrast

It's always good to know that someone would rather snipe and take potshots at you, assuming all the while that you're not looking, than be nice and wish you on the one day that they ought to be nice. 


"I got nine lives, cats' eyes,
 Using every one of them and running wild."

Unconditional

You could say we're neighbours. 

In truth, I live around the corner from his place. I'm not sure when he moved in, but I pretty much grew up in the neighbourhood, and it's not likely that I didn't chance upon him all these years.

I first saw him in the park. It was one of those summer evenings. I was out for some air, like everyone else. Little children playing with bubbles and balloons. Their parents hurrying and worrying around. Kids love me. They're always walking up to me. Their parents seem a little more guarded, sometimes hostile. Being agreeable in the face of hostility wears me out quickly. 

That's when I saw him. He was sitting on a bench. I don't normally walk up to single men in the park, but there was something about him. I'd like to say it was his eyes, but sharp as my vision is, I can hardly tell hazel from azure at a hundred paces. 

He did have nice eyes though. 

He got up and started walking away as I drew closer. So I just walked right along, behind him. 

We fell in step soon enough. He looked at me with a quizzical smile. And he did have nice eyes. I followed him home without exchanging a word. His neighbour saw us enter together, and she gave me the stink eye. He smiled it off and she smiled back at him. Maybe she's used to it. Maybe he's the sort of guy.

He watched some television and I had a bite to eat. I only went to bed with him a week later, when I felt comfortable enough. I'm not that kind of girl.

I saw him a few days later in the park. With a woman. My heart broke. They went home together. I followed, skulking in what I thought was an unobtrusive manner. Who was I kidding? He saw me, and smiled at me. She gave me a look of undisguised hostility. 

I went back to his place a week later. With him. The woman was away. No words were exchanged. I spent the night there, and left just after dawn. 

Maybe this is what we need. We don't have much to say to each other. It's more like companionship. I know we'll never be together. She won't let it happen. Though if she's all that, I wonder why he needs me. 

I know he loves me, though. I can see it in his eyes. Every time, before we drift off to sleep.

He rubs my belly, and nuzzles me, and calls me his girl. And then he looks at me with those eyes. 

And then I purr and wag my tail. 

Bliss.

Two Track Mind

My brain is currently occupied with two things. One should hopefully get me a bit of money, or at least some intellectual bragging rights. The other is pure fictional fantasy (for now anyway), but it involves intricate planning. Like playing a long drawn out game. 

Few feelings come close to that of my brain working. It's the mental equivalent of a high-intensity workout. Unlike a maths exam, which is the equivalent of running a marathon in high heels. 

Not that I've ever run a marathon.


"...mack and slap back the whack..."

Golden

It's funny what silence says to you. About others. And about yourself.


"...living in a powder keg and giving off sparks..."

Where I now start using titles

To recap my summer...

I never heard back from a 'sure thing' internship. 

I went mad.

I flew across half the world to surprise a bunch of people. All were surprised. Some were happy.

I dropped the ball somewhere. Unfortunately, my heart was in there too, and it shattered. I'm still sweeping up the pieces, but I can't seem to find them all.

I got fat. 

I rediscovered the joy of eating Indian food. And there is a lot of joy in that.

I got to drive. 

I applied to another internship. They responded, but too late. 

I came home expecting to find somethings, understand, and maybe consolidate the goings on in my life. Instead, I've come undone and I haven't the faintest clue of what's going on. I don't think it's a particularly healthy way to be at my ripe age, but then I'm always wrong, so maybe I'm wrong about this too. Silver lining much?

Somewhere I think there's a disconnect in the way I think - between what I feel I deserve, and what I actually deserve. I suspect I view myself with rose-tinted glasses, complete with a halo around my large head. 

I'm horrible at understanding people, and it is always my undoing. It is particularly, and heart-rendingly ironic that I can claim to care for someone and be so caught up in 'doing the right thing' that I don't actually do what is needed. And evidently over the last 10 years, I haven't learnt much.

I'm broke. This will be a year of no alcohol - not that I drink that much - and very little luxury. By luxury, of course, I mean chocolates.

At least I won't be fat anymore. 


"Can't ever keep from falling apart
At the seams..."

Some things are random. Impulses triggered by non-logical, unrelated events or chains of events. 

Like that feeling of guilt you get when you're trying to sleep at 6 am. When you remember that you've hurt someone you truly cared for and you can't really fix it.

Then you begin to wonder if you can ever fix it. Or whether it's just going to be some karmic debt. And whether you'll have to always watch over your shoulder and wonder, when something bad happens, whether it is retribution. 

Then you start to justify your actions. I didn't mean it. It was deserved. We both made mistakes. It's not my burden alone. I was hurt first. 

Then you remember how you cried for a week. At night. In the day. When you thought no one could hear, so you could sob. Great, racking sobs that make that space between your lungs and your stomach feel like it's empty, and being sucked out. 

Maybe that's where your soul is.

Then you remember maybe you cried because you felt dirty. Like you'd hurt something pure. The pure love that you had for someone, and now you've muddied it with dirty footprints. Stomped all over it. That feeling of guilt. Of having destroyed something sacred. Because it doesn't matter whose fault it is, when you both cry and neither of you can fix it.

Then you go back to your life, and your thoughts, and your attempts to sleep. 



"Because I know no other way"

I think it's all going south. I don't know what I've done wrong, in my own convoluted way. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe I am kidding myself.

I don't seek absolution. I don't want sympathy.

I ask for clarity. And peace.

I crave peace

"Happiness isn't happiness without a violin-playing goat."

The more I hear, the less I listen. The more I see, the less I know. The more I learn, the less I understand. The more I meet, the less I like. The more I party, the less I relax. The more I go out, the more constricted I feel. 

The more I try, the less I want.

For someone who is fluent in sarcasm, the irony of the situation took some time to hit home. Which, in itself, is a delicious irony. 

I wish I had someone to just talk to.

"In another life, I would make you stay"