You Are An Endless Epic.
I don’t write to you often now, but I like to believe that you can still conjure the sentences I delete in between the lines I publish. I like to believe that you know that they were written for you. I wish you find yourself in every pause and every breath between these words. They were always addressed to you, but never stamped and rarely posted. Today, as every past year, I will try and word those feelings, that I always meant but never wrote.
I can’t feel it all exactly how you do.
You are intelligent beyond ages and emotionally so much wiser than I could ever be. You feel things that I can never understand. You understand words that I will never speak. And you speak too much when you are scared to listen.
Feelings needs to be dressed in words.
I know it as much as anyone.
Feelings deserve to be wrapped in care and concern and wishes and hopes. They deserve to be delivered to the right eyes and ears to be undressed and to be felt as intended.
So, maybe just listen to me today.
Just listen and then do what you need to do.
Because if you listen once, I know you will remember it. As you remember every little details of your life — the gate number of the flight you missed, the flavour of the ice-cream we had on a summer trip, the colour of the walls from your first home, the scent of the boy you first kissed, or the dress you wore on your ninth, fifteenth or twenty-first birthday.
I can’t remember how most events have happened, but I can recall how they made me feel. I can recall the emotions I felt before and after. I know you remember much more than I do. I only remember things I don’t want to forget.
I cannot put everyone else’s opinion of you ahead of mine. Sometimes not even yours. I am entitled to have my own opinions for you.
You’ve achieved a lot since my last letter. Yet, this bundle of intelligence you’ve gathered is twisted into knots. They have made you a little paranoid and a lot quieter. You keep spending your time, revisiting the words spoken to you and then struggling to find clasps to unhook them even further, trying to interpret them in a way you think they were spoken. We are all guilty of it sometimes — looking for an interpretation we think we deserve.
You deserve a better interpretation. You are loved and compliments are sometimes just that. I hope you don’t spend yet another year of your life over-analysing everything.
I wish you are surrounded by people who admire your theatrics as much as you enjoy performing them. I hope you struggle less to share your feelings and find perfect words to share them. And, I wish you get interpreted as per your intentions.
Maybe I am expected to accept you as you are.
I can’t help seeing prospects in you. I cannot not see a future for you. I see you being admired and climbing the heights you deserve. I know under your heavy skull, and behind that twisted bun of hair, you have these dreams for yourself too.
I want you to keep believing in those dreams. But I also want to tell you, that life itself is the most improbable thing to happen, and it keeps reminding us that by being unpredictable at the most improbable times.
I want you to know that sometimes in pursuit of a destination, we realise that we don’t want it anymore. That’s only happened to me when I’ve slowed down and wondered about my intentions for a pursuit. When I wondered about ‘why to be there’ instead of ‘how to be there’.
So, I want to tell you — keep your head down and run towards your dreams and don’t stop to wonder.
But, I also want you to be in awe of your pursuits. That happens when you slow down and soak in the journey. Admire the place where you have reached and look back to where you began.
I want you to plan your future. But, I also want you to live all your todays.
How can I say one without saying another?
There is so much pain inside everyone.
I don’t know how not to notice it. I was quiet about it once. Until someone told me to speak what I feel. There is only one life we know we have for sure, don’t waste it becoming someone else.
I am speaking now. I don’t know if anyone is listening or if anyone listening will understand these words and dare to explore the feelings within. But, I am feeling them. I think that is enough.
I am no one for anyone. Yet, I see myself in everyone. I cannot not find my own stupidities in their mistakes, and I derive happiness in their triumphs. They all are like mirrors to me — reflecting myself to me. Maybe that’s what we call empathy.
I hope you discover yourself in others too. It’s a beautiful feeling.
It enables us to understand people, believe in them, then get betrayed sometimes, to find strength to forgive, and to move on, having learned a little more about ourselves, having seen a little more of ourselves in them.
There is always someone in pain, someone in need of money, someone fighting themselves, someone struggling with a disease, a loss, or a death. There are winds of betrayal, jealousy and envy brushing through us everyday.
But, still you’ll find that in between all these — there are spirits that have kinder intentions. People who will feed a stranger, nurse a wounded soul, and sell you hope in exchange for your pain. I hope your eyes recognise more of them this year.
Sometimes, you’ll want to scream.
But, you will find yourself muffling your voice, trying to avoid jolting up someone’s innocence before it’s their time.
I hope you find ears around you, that can hear the scream in your whispers. I hope you find the hands that can calm your heart, when you need it the most.
I hope you discover how alike we all are, and how much of our differences makes us whole.
I hope your lips find refuge on the lips that love the taste of your words. I hope you find a shoulder that makes you forget yourself for a while. I hope you find courage to remap your life with your own hands.
I hope this year you hear a voice in which you’ll love hearing your name. I hope you unlock some secrets of your past. I hope you dance a lot this year. And, I hope at least for this year, you never have to click on ‘forgot password’.
I wish I’ll be able to write more to you this year.
In case that doesn’t happen, I want you to know — you will forget who you were this year, by this time the next year. Everyone forgets what’s it like to be a teen when they turn 20.
I know these days will all become stories someday. Our pictures will turn into old photographs without any filters. We’ll become somebody’s someone one day. But right now, these moments — they are not stories. They are happening. We are here — living these lives — our presents.
Our pictures will turn into old photographs without any filters.
I hope you steal many presents from life this year. Because in these stolen moments, we know — we are not a sad story; we know — we are loved; we know — we are alive, and these moments keep us warm on inevitable cold nights.
So, today when you go out and see the lights, the buildings, and the traffic outside; when you feel the rain in your face, wind brushing your hair, and when a moment will arrive when everything around will fill you with wonder — think about that song you were listening to, on that road trip, with the people you love the most in this world. And think about that time, when you were on the phone, lights out, eyes shut, and the world was a perfect place for a good night. And finally, think about the last time, you were told, how beautiful you are.
You’ll realise you are loved, and will always be loved.
You’ll realise you are not a short story, you are an endless epic.
Excerpts from an in progress collection “Before You”
© Pratik Mishra 2019
