Things I hate

1. When you're texting someone and they fall asleep before you do.
2. When you put your hand in your pocket and you feel some money, only to take it out and realise that it's some stupid bill.
3. When you switch on the TV and catch the ending credits of a movie you've been dying to watch/one of your favourite movies.
4. When you fall asleep in the middle of the day and wake up feeling like you've been hit by a bus.
5. When you look at your clock, go "7:45 AM hmm I'll sleep for another fifteen minutes" and then wake up at 11.
6. When an assignment is due the next day, and all you wanna do is curl up and be lazy.
7. When one of your best friends becomes that person you used to know once who is awesome.
8. When a guy makes a plan and cancels.
9. When anyone makes a plan and cancels.
10. When you love someone who will never love you back.

Musings

Only some of the dialogue is real. The rest of it is a product of my bored mind. But somewhere, it took on a slightly depressing undertone. Didn't intend for that to happen :-/ J is a close friend at work, a fellow intern. But, unlike me, he has a LOT of work.

J: Why are you running around begging for work? Just chill, no?

D: Haha. No, I don’t want to be “that intern who slacked off for two months.”

J: Oh my God. What a drama queen. Today's the first day in over one and a half months that you haven't had work. Calm down. Also, you’re not. You’re “that intern who didn’t sweat the small stuff.”

D: Except, this isn’t the small stuff. Every second I don’t spend educating myself or doing something productive is a second wasted, a step backward.

J: But D, mindless number crunching is not major or heroic at all.

D: I guess you’re right, but I’d feel less useless if I was doing at least that. Maybe then I’d figure out what I want to do with my life, you know?

J: None of us know what we want to do with our lives! And repeated Excel iterations will not give you that answer!

D: No, J. I think we tell ourselves that to trick our minds and hearts into being okay with where we are in our lives. But actually, almost everyone else out there knows EXACTLY where they want to be and what they want to be do with themselves. Maybe they don’t talk about it because they’re scared it won’t materialize, but everyone out there has a plan, J. I don’t have a plan. I don’t even know how to start making one.

J: Trust me; the world is full of wannabes like you and me. Some might pretend that they know what they’re doing, but that swagger and that air of confidence is a farce. It’s got no underlying value. Hehe

D: Lol. Lame! I get what you’re trying to say. But I think they’re all getting ahead, and pretty soon I’ll just be another faceless voice in the crowd. And when I finally grow up and get my shit together, no one will take me seriously because everyone else figured it out when they were 18. And I’ll be 25. Old, decrepit, of no use at all to anyone.

J: What matters is your own life! Stop comparing yourself to everyone else out there. The day you start comparing is the day you let all this bog you down. Snap out of that.

D: But I can’t help comparing! The benchmark is always slapping me across my face, and I'm acutely aware that I'm not among the bait that the sharks want to grab at.

J: The benchmark must encourage you..push you..but if the benchmark is eating you up, then it’s not serving the purpose, and you’re giving it way way way more importance than it should be given..

D: I suppose the whole concept of “average” is that SOMEONE needs to be below the average, right? So maybe that’s my role in the large scheme of things. To be the person that other people can look at, and think “Well, I’m better than her, right? I must be at least average or above average.”

Everyone can’t be on the Dean’s list, get a perfect GPA, a perfect internship, and make amazing relationships with important people. I guess some of us will have to settle for scraping through, getting a mediocre job, and earning a mediocre salary. But what if the some of us that are destined for that type of lifestyle, are just NOT going to be okay with mediocrity? What do we do? When we’re not intelligent enough to get by on acquired knowledge, not pretty enough to get by on looks, not rich enough to rely on a trust fund, and not well-connected enough to land a fantastic job just because we know someone who knows someone, where do we go?

J: Shut up. I'm going to go get a coffee. I can't listen to this rubbish.

Trying not to remember to forget.

Dear ______,

I hope you’re doing well. It would suck if both of us were miserable. I’m miserable enough for the two of us. No, I’m happy actually. Except, when I think of you, I want to drive a sledgehammer through your head, and that makes me miserable. I’m not usually a violent person, but what can I say? You bring out the worst in me. You always have. When I’m around you I turn into a submissive weak person who always second guesses herself and has an enormous inferiority complex.

A dear friend told me recently that you should be with someone who shakes you to your very core and fundamentally changes something about you. I’m sure she didn’t mean the way you changed me. How did every other person see it? How did everyone else know that you would crush me all over again? More importantly, why didn’t I see it?! What is wrong with me? See! Even fake writing a letter to you makes me that person with no self esteem. It makes absolutely no sense to me. It's mind boggling and would make for an  intellectually very stimulating conversation except for the fact that I can't breathe or think straight (and not in that amazing giddy oh wow way). Sick, sick, sick, sick, sick. I'm not that person at all. So what ever gave you the right to turn me into that person!?

It’s been almost three years for crying out loud. I haven’t seen you, we’ve barely spoken, but unfortunately my brain hasn’t forgotten the way I used to feel about you, and my heart won’t let it. That’s what I want, more than anything. To forget. Why do I remember every tiny sickening detail? Is this normal? I can’t imagine that love is supposed to feel like this. I can’t believe that the garbage is somehow supposed to be healing me from within and making me whole again. What a load of bullshit. Why isn’t my brain working on forgetting you? I tried not to remember to forget, I tried that. And for a while it worked, and I thought I’d found the answer. But you so rudely decided to make your presence in my life felt again. And honestly by then, I thought I was too exhausted to even care.

What is wrong with you? No seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? I can’t be your constant source of amusement. It’s uncivilised! I need to grow out of this crap and put it behind me but I can’t. I am so confident and so cheerful and so optimistic about every other thing in my life. You can’t dampen all that with the negativity that floods my body and mind when I think about you. You’re just not allowed to. Get out of my head, damn it. And for God’s sake get out of my heart. 

The only way..

I pressed the cool metal surface to my cheek, reminding myself that I had the power. The girl in front of me didn’t stand a chance. Surprisingly, her face showed no signs of horror. I could see no apprehension, no fear. She didn’t beg and plead with me like those before her. She knew who I was, and she had resigned to her fate. It was almost as if she was mocking me, daring me to complete what I had started. I couldn’t understand it. Why was she unafraid? Didn’t she know what was about to happen to her?

She used to be someone I could trust. Someone who loved me unconditionally and always forgave me for my mistakes. But of late, all she did was look at me with a condescending expression on her face. Disapproval and disappointment had permanently replaced the warm acceptance and respect she had for me. I could feel the weight of the loaded weapon in my hand, and decided that since I was in control, I would get all the answers to my questions before carrying out my plans.

“You seem undaunted by the knowledge that this could possibly be your last conversation with anyone. Care to explain?

“You seem perturbed by the fact that I am not in the least bit intimidated. Why should I be? You and I both know you are nothing more than a coward. Why should I be afraid of you? You have lost all powers of reasoning, your thoughts are no longer coherent, and you are just a scared little girl, yearning for anything to make her feel relevant. I lost all my respect for you a long time ago, my dear. You weren’t always this way though. Remember when you were actually happy? What changed you into this shadow of a human, who feels more incomplete with each life she takes?”

I was livid. She was judging me? Really? Did she even know who I was, what I was capable of? She should be begging me to have mercy on her, and let her go. She should not be standing there, all calm and collected as though she can talk her way out of this. She isn’t impervious to pain. All of this is a facade. I bet she was crumbling underneath that cool exterior. She was buying time, that’s all.

But she never did crumble. All she did was look at me with the most disdainful expression that has ever been thrown my way.  

“Well what about you? What about always sticking by me? You were the one person I thought I could rely on. You were my pillar of strength and hope. When he..when he left..you were all I had. Why did you turn your back on me?” I yelled, finally baring my soul and demanding a reason for all the pain she put me through.

She stared back at me, with her unabashed defiance. Still no hint of fear. She sighed and shook her head as if I were a child.

“Somewhere along the way my dear you became unrecognisable. The kind, honest person I knew evolved into an ugly, selfish creature. It started with you unintentionally hurting people around you but the moment I saw you take the life of another I knew we were over. You and I would never share that sacred bond of trust and hope anymore. You don’t deserve to be loved any longer. I would ask you if you knew how much pain you have caused but you are so far gone it probably doesn’t even make a difference to you now. You’re a stranger. You have the same face but I don’t even dare to fathom that you’re the same person. That person died a long time ago. And for what? To avenge the fact that you got your heart broken? It started with him. What gave you the right to end his life? Who are you to decide who gets to live and who gets to die?”

“He didn’t just break my heart!” I screamed out, enraged. “He broke me. And I will never recover from that.” The memories crept back in and threatened to consume me once again. “No! NO!” I gasped for breath. “No. I vowed a long time ago that no one would ever hurt me that way again. He deserved to die. He would only do to someone else what he did to me, and what kind of person would I be if I didn’t try and put a permanent stop to that?”

“You’re delirious. You’re trying to delude yourself into thinking that what you did was right. What reason do you have for the rest of your victims? What great purpose did that achieve?”

“They all deserved to die! They were all cheaters, liars, dishonest people who duped innocent minds every day!”

“NO!” Her perfect nonchalant disguise was slowly beginning to give way. “No they weren’t. They were people who tried their hardest not to give up on you, who stood by you, but you drove them crazy and you eventually drove them away. Literally. Your own parents. Did it ever cross your mind that you had gone too far?” Tears were glistening at the corners of her eyes.

“They hurt me. They tried to put me away in an institution. They didn’t love me. They never loved me.”

“They tried that because they loved you. Don’t you see? What have you done? I tried telling you before but you never listened. You are beyond repair.”

“I’m not. I’m not!” I protested, breaking down. Did she really think I couldn’t redeem myself? Was it true? Were none of my actions justified? They had all hurt me in some way or another, and all I was doing was fulfilling a promise to myself...right?

It was as if she could hear my thoughts because she said, “You know you agree with me. None of the decisions you have taken have been correct.”

Suddenly the weight of all my sins came crashing down on me and I fell to the ground. What had I done? I had killed him, and then all those people after him. What had I done? My parents. My own parents. When had I turned into this ruthless monster? I couldn’t take this pain. I needed a way to stop this. But how? Killing the girl in front of me seemed like the most reasonable way out.

“There is only one way to end the pain, my dear. And I think you know how to.”

She was right. I did.

I smiled at my reflection. I had betrayed myself, just like all those people had. I had caused myself so much pain. I didn’t deserve to live any longer. I held the revolver to my head. The girl in front of me smiled for the last time and closed her eyes as I pulled the trigger.  

To texters everywhere.

A close friend of mine told me yesterday that she misses the times when she would fall asleep texting someone. You know how that used to be. Your thumbs flying across the keypad till 4 AM and then closing your eyes for "just a minute" only to fall asleep mid text. You would wake up the next morning and hurriedly type “Oops sorry, fell asleep.” Remember when your phone would buzz and you would instantly smile because some sixth sense told you it was “that” person. Remember those days when you would leave school and pull out your phone the minute you got on the bus, and you would secretly hope that there would already be an unopened message on your phone? You would hold your breath and be filled with that wondrous sense of anticipation that always accompanies the unknown. Even if in this case, the unknown was that the person had the “most disgusting biryani” for lunch that day. What was amazing was that you were the first person they wanted to tell. And so, even though to most people that information would be completely inconsequential, to you it was a fabulous start to the rest of your day.

Remember those days when subscribers realised our insatiable hunger and provided us with 100 free messages every day? Remember how it was almost never enough? You would text through tuitions, through dinner, through post dinner family chats. It was an obsession, almost an addiction. And what fuelled that obsession was that you knew that the other person depended on you just as much as you depended on them.

From endless conversations about which flavour of Lays is truly the greatest of all time, to making jokes about the pretentious teens you knew who turned their noses down at Jeffrey Archer novels, you’ve done it all.

Remember when you would reach for your phone to read a new text message, and it would say “Loading” or “Updating” because the text was three or maybe even four pages long? You would read it and then re-read it because it was just so heartfelt. You almost wanted to commit it to memory. 

If you’re lucky, this person is your best friend today. What inevitably sealed the deal in most cases was when you had a bad day, and the other person could tell just by the tone of your texts. And they would immediately ask, “Dude is everything okay? What happened?” Initially you would insist that nothing was wrong but they would always know. And then everything would come pouring out and they’d spend hours convincing you that things weren’t as bad as you thought they were. The two of you would spend the entire day (and most of the night) figuring out how to fix your problem, and then at around 3:30 AM, when you were at long last exhausted, your thumbs were complaining, and you had sent well over a 100 texts, you would finally say “Thank you so much for this. It really helped, you have no idea. I love you J” and the other person would say “Don’t thank me you dumbass. It’s what I’m here for. Love you too. Sleep tight J” And you would. Sleep tight, I mean. Because you had your person. It didn’t have to be anything romantic. It was perfect in its simplicity. It was back then, it still is, and it always will be. 

It's rusty. But I'm hoping you'll forgive that.

Her world might not be her beautiful sanctuary right now. It might be an unsightly mess, chaotic and cluttered, with almost no resemblance to the perfection she is used to. Routine has become a thing of the past, and endless battles within her mind have replaced the harmonious chords of her once astounding melody. Well, she allows herself this temporary catastrophe and understands that she has to come out of this victorious; there is no other alternative. She lives for the people she loves, and trusts them to guide her.

Blessed with an incredible amalgam of intelligence, beauty, and compassion, one wonders how it is fair for such exquisiteness to suffer so much pain.

After much consideration, it slowly dawns on me that this ethereal goddess only absorbs what makes her stronger. The strife, the internal conflict, the fleeting moments of self doubt; her cache of wisdom deepens with each new experience. And then, after more deliberation, I realise that there is nothing she is incapable of handling. Incompetency is nowhere on the horizon, and she in fact needs this challenge to ensure that she doesn’t get complacent.

I’ve often read that matters of the heart must always be dealt with delicately. But when she loves, she loves ferociously. It’s the only way to love. Pansy, half hearted love is not for her. I don’t understand how such an angel’s love could go unrequited. Then again, after living with her, I’ve come to accept that no cause is a lost cause, and that there is hope for everyone.

She brightens up my day and makes me a happier person. She makes me grateful for what I have and she’s taught me to love life more than I ever knew how to. She’s an awe-inspiring woman, unaware of the mesmerising effect she has on people. She radiates goodness, there’s no other way to say it. Every parent’s dream, every friend’s deepest confidante, and every master’s favourite disciple.  I often wonder how she can relate to everything in her life so well, and how she seamlessly blends into every facet of who she is. How does she see wonder in the ordinary? How is every humdrum movement transformed into an electrifying performance? She doesn’t cease to amaze me, and I doubt she ever will.

Conversations with her are enjoyable yet stimulating. A confession to her is my catharsis. A hug from her is invigorating and refreshing. A word of appreciation from her is all the motivation I’ll ever need. Even though she really doesn’t need anyone to watch over her, there’s an impenetrable shield of love and affection that she will have to endure for the rest of her life. She’s just that special.