Goodbyes And Other Wounds

Not a good time. Not a good mood. December always gets me down. Even though the fabulousness of my life must make me seem like a crank for complaining. It’s too many people, too many expectations, too much to consider and keep track of.

They say a man (person) is known by the company he keeps. Personally, I always thought that was a tad unfair. After all, I enjoy the company of a wide variety of people, across age and interest groups. What does that say about me? That I’m fickle? Or that I like variety? But I realised when I was screaming my heart out this week, what that really came to. There’s warmth in this friendship, genuine warmth, at least I thought so. And yet, more than once I’ve had a chance to be pained by the people she hangs out with. Are some people natural filth magnets? I surely don’t want to be part of such a circle. And so I resign. Even though I have no problem with her as such, I certainly have a problem with the riff-raff she chooses to hang out with and forces me to rub shoulders with, at every conceivable social occasion.

Goodbye dear friend, I’m sorry for running away this way but your ugly world scares me.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Another adage – a man is alive so long as he is remembered.

The Best Friend is moving overseas, the visa approval finally having come through. Somehow I feel like a part of me is drifting away forever. The last connection I have to my distant past, the person I used to be before this cynicism and visibility. The person I was before the fractured dreams, before those dreams were even conceived…all of them go with her. If there’s no one who remembers what you really sound like, do you have a voice anymore?

Goodbye dear friend, carry my cherished self with you. I know you’ll take care of it well. This is not a world for that gentleness anymore.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~O~

I snapped at another friend for calling me a name I didn’t like and I told him not to pick on me in my rare moment of emotion. He replied,

This isn’t a rare moment of emotion for you. Its a rare moment of this particular emotion of helplessness. And, I’m not enjoying you feeling so.

Do you know why that was striking? Because he pinned down the exact thing that’s bringing me so much agony. I hate this, hate, hate this feeling. Helplessness is not a place I’ve ever been comfortable in.

What am I doing? The writing is not going well, not at all, I’m afraid. I don’t want to know that I’m good, all I care about is that I’m not good enough. It may just be a matter of time but I’m afraid I don’t have that time. Or perhaps I do but I don’t think I can live on these shifting sands for much longer. I need terra firma beneath my feet and if that means I bury my dreams and sell out, I probably will.

Goodbye dreamer-girl, there’s no place for you in this gritty world. Your wings are no substitute for the strong legs I need to stay put. I’m going back.