"All our life is a series of leaving and anybody who thinks otherwise has clearly not lived enough."
When I start quoting myself I know something has gone very wrong. Because I otherwise know that I'm no hot-shot writer. It's only when I go through something massively heart-wrenching that I find in me the words to express the one emotion that is constant to all of us - pain. And today is finally a moment of sadness which I felt was adequate enough to put in ink. For you see I've been told I'm whiney and depressive and so I have made a conscious effort to keep all 'pessimistic' thoughts to the confines of my brain lately. Not anymore, they need to reign free.
Life is a complex process. We forever yearn for the one state of being which has either already passed or yet to come. I remember as a kid I'd keep asking my mother, "Mom, when will I grow up?" She'd look and me with all the kindness in the world and say, "Shh baby. You should never look forward to growing up." While I was fantasizing about my adulthood, she would reminisce her childhood. We both wanted something which we did not have. I do wish however I had listened to my mother.
As a kid all of us always believed that the people we were growing up with, would always be around. We imagined our life with all our friends, parents, relatives, grandparents, little knowing that half of them would not make it and the others we would just lose to the tides of time.
The closest person I believe to be is somebody's bestfriend from school/childhood. This one person has seen you grow up and been there through the pimples and heartbreaks. And this is the one loss that hurts the most. I have had the pleasure of having a BFF for the past ten years (phew! a decade of putting up with me, she should be awarded a gold medal at the least) and I hope the day never comes when I lose her. Because that would be a loss that's irreparable.
But I find myself losing her everyday. We all lose bits of our friends which we never knew we would have to while growing up. We lose our friends for the first time when our schools shuffle sections and the person we sat next to and shared our favourite crayon with is thrown across corridors. Our every minute conversations are reduced to brunch time tete-a-tetes. Then we grow up some more and find ourselves making a completely new set of friends because we have lost the old ones to changing choices and interests. Then we grow up further more and choose different streams (Science vs Humanities) and find ourselves losing yet another string of these friends. We join tuitions and then quit them and our loss of friends keeps growing.
Some friends however tend to stick despite all these years and we form a connection with them which is irreplaceable. We talk to them for hours on the phone and even after spending an entire day together, as soon as they head home their landline rings with our call because there is still some one story we forgot to narrate. We make it work through adolescent years when we completely change as persons and start to feel safe because we feel the hard time has passed.
Then comes college. We shift cities. These friends whom we value more than family are now not a phone call or car-ride away. We need to account for time-difference, skype details, international flight costs and ISD calling. We try and keep up through the various social media platforms somehow hoping and praying to god that texts will make up for face to face conversations. We try and be there for them when they lose a pet. We get condolences over facebook. Proximity is reduced to a whatsapp screen and we somehow make do because we all know we will get that one vacation home and somehow make up for lost time then.
After dragging ourselves through college and making a friend or two (more than this is usually difficult because we are too set in our ways and too picky in our choice of friends) along the way, we find our ways home if we are lucky. However most of us plunge into work which again takes us to newer 'heights' leaving even lesser room for the people we imagined spending our lives with. And what comes next? Marriage. Where the boys' geographical placement decides our future life. We have been uprooted so oft by now that we give up on making close associations and compromise with colleagues. We look to our life partners, always searching in them a shadow of the friends we lost along the way.
We lose our friends to time, to interests, to college, to jobs, to boyfriends, to husbands, to every possible thing. We lose you when you make new friends. We lose you all over again when those friends turn out to be manipulative people who somehow drive a wedge between what we've shared for years. We lose you to marriage when we can't make it for your big day across cities or tight schedules. We lose you to your husband and his family when you become a daughter-in-law and wife. We lose you to your kid when you're a mother for now they occupy the center of your attention. This process of losing is so continuous that I find myself scared of losing you too.
I'm scared of finding out someday through someone else about your engagement. I fear that your husband won't settle in the same city as mine and our conversations will be reduced to once-in-six-month-meetings. I am terrified that we will grow up and grow apart. And saying any sort of farewell to you only takes me that much closer to this ever growing gut wrenching feeling in all of my insides.
How do I put it all in one letter? One blogpost? One anything? I have so much of you all around me. It breaks me to think you won't be two lanes away from me. My city = you. What will I ever do with myself with you gone? I used to think once we grew up and started earning, all we'd do would be chill together in the spare time. Now I laugh at how naive I was. I can see our lives going down separate paths and I can't take it! I want to turn back time. I want to discuss Jhalak perormances with you. I want to see Arjun Kapoor say "Whattahplaya!" next to you. I want to go for our pointless drives to Sirsi Road. I want to see someone get just as excited as me, if not more, when I say 'Momos'. I want so much and now that you've gone, I can't have any of it. All I can have is a memory that plays all our moments on repeat and makes me miss you even more.
Sigh.
If only I'd known this is what life has to offer, I wouldn't have rushed into growing up. I would've taken my time. Enjoyed some more biscuit-icecreams with you. Drank some more ThumbsUp from your daily 500mL bottle. Gate-crashed that wedding like we always talked about. I'm not done making memories with you. And I'm certainly not done with YOU. So no. I refuse to bid my bestfriend a farewell because I know that is the beginning of the end. I know now how you felt when I left but I also know that I'm not going to accept that you're gone until the day your 'doli' leaves gandhi path. I love you with everything I've got. You are a part of everything I am. Nothing and nobody and certainly no amount of distance will ever change that.
The future is ours. Just you wait and see.
We're going to be two 90 year old grannys together who drive each other mad, bitch about our kids and die of liver disease on the same effing day because I will never see the sun on a day when I know you don't exist.
You're MY PERSON.
And in all the lanes I walk, I'll carry you with me in my heart. In all the words I write, your memories will echo. And in every smile that ever graces my face, you will be the person I think about. Thank you for a decade of insanity and love together. There's a lot more to come Rats.
Oh and - The concept of Bestfriends and Farewells?
Once you've got a bestfriend (even half as awesome as mine) hold on to them and never let them go. That's the crux of it. No farewells. No goodbyes. Only hellos.
PS: Hey there delilah, you be good and don't you miss me.. Two more years and you'll be done with school.. And I'll be making history like I do.. You know it's all because of you..
When I start quoting myself I know something has gone very wrong. Because I otherwise know that I'm no hot-shot writer. It's only when I go through something massively heart-wrenching that I find in me the words to express the one emotion that is constant to all of us - pain. And today is finally a moment of sadness which I felt was adequate enough to put in ink. For you see I've been told I'm whiney and depressive and so I have made a conscious effort to keep all 'pessimistic' thoughts to the confines of my brain lately. Not anymore, they need to reign free.
*
We as a generation have been raised to believe in the romanticism of every little thing. Everything is hyped and a grandeur so magnificent is created around it that we are forever in awe of this phenomenon called, life. Well let me break this bubble for you ladies and gentlemen - It is a lie. Everything that has anything to do with us achieving something, eventually ensures that we reach the top of the ladder, alone. There is no fairytale finish to this story called life. And all the advertisements and novels and movies that made you believe otherwise should be sued. Life is a complex process. We forever yearn for the one state of being which has either already passed or yet to come. I remember as a kid I'd keep asking my mother, "Mom, when will I grow up?" She'd look and me with all the kindness in the world and say, "Shh baby. You should never look forward to growing up." While I was fantasizing about my adulthood, she would reminisce her childhood. We both wanted something which we did not have. I do wish however I had listened to my mother.
As a kid all of us always believed that the people we were growing up with, would always be around. We imagined our life with all our friends, parents, relatives, grandparents, little knowing that half of them would not make it and the others we would just lose to the tides of time.
*
Loss is a funny word. We always relate this word to someone passing away. How ironic though that most of the times we lose them bit by bit and before we know it they've slipped through completely. The loss that hurts me more than the inevitable one is when we are made to lose the people we love/loved.The closest person I believe to be is somebody's bestfriend from school/childhood. This one person has seen you grow up and been there through the pimples and heartbreaks. And this is the one loss that hurts the most. I have had the pleasure of having a BFF for the past ten years (phew! a decade of putting up with me, she should be awarded a gold medal at the least) and I hope the day never comes when I lose her. Because that would be a loss that's irreparable.
But I find myself losing her everyday. We all lose bits of our friends which we never knew we would have to while growing up. We lose our friends for the first time when our schools shuffle sections and the person we sat next to and shared our favourite crayon with is thrown across corridors. Our every minute conversations are reduced to brunch time tete-a-tetes. Then we grow up some more and find ourselves making a completely new set of friends because we have lost the old ones to changing choices and interests. Then we grow up further more and choose different streams (Science vs Humanities) and find ourselves losing yet another string of these friends. We join tuitions and then quit them and our loss of friends keeps growing.
Some friends however tend to stick despite all these years and we form a connection with them which is irreplaceable. We talk to them for hours on the phone and even after spending an entire day together, as soon as they head home their landline rings with our call because there is still some one story we forgot to narrate. We make it work through adolescent years when we completely change as persons and start to feel safe because we feel the hard time has passed.
Then comes college. We shift cities. These friends whom we value more than family are now not a phone call or car-ride away. We need to account for time-difference, skype details, international flight costs and ISD calling. We try and keep up through the various social media platforms somehow hoping and praying to god that texts will make up for face to face conversations. We try and be there for them when they lose a pet. We get condolences over facebook. Proximity is reduced to a whatsapp screen and we somehow make do because we all know we will get that one vacation home and somehow make up for lost time then.
After dragging ourselves through college and making a friend or two (more than this is usually difficult because we are too set in our ways and too picky in our choice of friends) along the way, we find our ways home if we are lucky. However most of us plunge into work which again takes us to newer 'heights' leaving even lesser room for the people we imagined spending our lives with. And what comes next? Marriage. Where the boys' geographical placement decides our future life. We have been uprooted so oft by now that we give up on making close associations and compromise with colleagues. We look to our life partners, always searching in them a shadow of the friends we lost along the way.
We lose our friends to time, to interests, to college, to jobs, to boyfriends, to husbands, to every possible thing. We lose you when you make new friends. We lose you all over again when those friends turn out to be manipulative people who somehow drive a wedge between what we've shared for years. We lose you to marriage when we can't make it for your big day across cities or tight schedules. We lose you to your husband and his family when you become a daughter-in-law and wife. We lose you to your kid when you're a mother for now they occupy the center of your attention. This process of losing is so continuous that I find myself scared of losing you too.
I'm scared of finding out someday through someone else about your engagement. I fear that your husband won't settle in the same city as mine and our conversations will be reduced to once-in-six-month-meetings. I am terrified that we will grow up and grow apart. And saying any sort of farewell to you only takes me that much closer to this ever growing gut wrenching feeling in all of my insides.
How do I put it all in one letter? One blogpost? One anything? I have so much of you all around me. It breaks me to think you won't be two lanes away from me. My city = you. What will I ever do with myself with you gone? I used to think once we grew up and started earning, all we'd do would be chill together in the spare time. Now I laugh at how naive I was. I can see our lives going down separate paths and I can't take it! I want to turn back time. I want to discuss Jhalak perormances with you. I want to see Arjun Kapoor say "Whattahplaya!" next to you. I want to go for our pointless drives to Sirsi Road. I want to see someone get just as excited as me, if not more, when I say 'Momos'. I want so much and now that you've gone, I can't have any of it. All I can have is a memory that plays all our moments on repeat and makes me miss you even more.
Sigh.
If only I'd known this is what life has to offer, I wouldn't have rushed into growing up. I would've taken my time. Enjoyed some more biscuit-icecreams with you. Drank some more ThumbsUp from your daily 500mL bottle. Gate-crashed that wedding like we always talked about. I'm not done making memories with you. And I'm certainly not done with YOU. So no. I refuse to bid my bestfriend a farewell because I know that is the beginning of the end. I know now how you felt when I left but I also know that I'm not going to accept that you're gone until the day your 'doli' leaves gandhi path. I love you with everything I've got. You are a part of everything I am. Nothing and nobody and certainly no amount of distance will ever change that.
The future is ours. Just you wait and see.
We're going to be two 90 year old grannys together who drive each other mad, bitch about our kids and die of liver disease on the same effing day because I will never see the sun on a day when I know you don't exist.
You're MY PERSON.
And in all the lanes I walk, I'll carry you with me in my heart. In all the words I write, your memories will echo. And in every smile that ever graces my face, you will be the person I think about. Thank you for a decade of insanity and love together. There's a lot more to come Rats.
Oh and - The concept of Bestfriends and Farewells?
Once you've got a bestfriend (even half as awesome as mine) hold on to them and never let them go. That's the crux of it. No farewells. No goodbyes. Only hellos.
PS: Hey there delilah, you be good and don't you miss me.. Two more years and you'll be done with school.. And I'll be making history like I do.. You know it's all because of you..
:'(
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