Recovering
Innercircle and the outer circle.
The song had released only a few days ago before the incident but several years ago from today. More than fifteen years, I suppose. It was featured in a popular movie and was sung by one of the greatest singers of that time. The song, the voice, and the lyrics evoked unknown joy and resided stubbornly in my brain since I had heard it. I sang the song, with correct and incorrect words, on my way to school, the shop, and home. I sang it in intervals and the presence of people from my innermost circle. The song made my heart happy and my mind the dancer that it always wanted to be.
Once, as I chanted the song's lyrics like a hymn for the zillionth time, in the middle of a small interval between classes, a person from the innermost circle lost patience and demanded that I shut up immediately. I was flabbergasted by the reaction and was numb enough not to say anything. The person went on to ruthlessly shred the song into pieces, along with it, my not-so-fine singing skills and perhaps something more. The song didn't evoke whirls of joy in their heart or make their mind dance like it was raining after a long time.
The person was relentless while shutting me up, which certainly didn't require much effort. One embarrassing declaration, and that was it for me to enjoy anything publicly in the innermost circle ever. My numbness didn't allow me to strongly defend my song and an opinion that people, singers or otherwise, sing freely in their innermost circles. A few teasing insults are acceptable between friends but not dominating declarations and humiliations. That was all I was doing, enjoying freely as a senseless child, just like the person who did the same when they were smitten by a melody.
I didn't want to annoy anyone to madness but did want to say a thing or two in defence — a thing or two for the song and for me. Instead, I just shut up and never repeated the blunder.
Years passed. I granted admission to new individuals to the innermost circle over time — the individuals from school, college, neighbourhood, and work. I learnt a lot many communication tactics and applied them earnestly in all conversations. I learned to defend, opine, and retort but also made all attempts not to quash another person's defence, opinions, and comebacks. I didn't want to numb anyone else's ability to respond. I gradually became more outspoken, at least in my innermost circle, for a few years.
As a person with a personality inclining towards introversion, most of the time, innermost circle and one-on-one conversations are all you get for expression.
But communication is not that easy, is it?
We can set all the boundaries we want and forge a castle of loving people with whom we can freely be ourselves. Yet, we could end up crossing the boundaries, ours and others, knowingly and unknowingly.
Despite my sincere attempts, the desire to be honest, defensive, and expressive sometimes superseded my boundaries of not wanting to walk over others' expressions. People from the supposed innermost circle felt overridden, offended, and hurt. They didn't know (who ever knows?) the reasons behind my failures — the impulses to clearly state what I felt was right and the urges to have comebacks as soon as possible before the numbness set in. In retrospect, perhaps I did everything in my power to thwart the numbness, the defenceless silence, and the defeating quiet.
The numbness represented endings for me. Endings for my expression, being myself in front of close ones and singing all the songs I loved.
Nevertheless, the boundaries were crossed, and somebody else's singing was interrupted. The perk of being a conscious person is that most of the time, you can sense something's wrong, particularly when you have upset someone, even when they opt to embrace diplomacy and quiet. I let the ambiguity of being the offender hover for a while, but the overthinking hovered above the ambiguity, and it was necessary that I eliminated both of them. And as a result, I forced confrontations from friends that illuminated their darkest perceptions and the most hurtful actions about me.
With each unfurling page of the confrontation, the numbness seeped slowly into my mind.
I felt many things, but above all, I felt like the person who stopped me from singing within the innermost circle years ago, even though the circumstances varied here. I let the numbness engulf me and let the consciousness reign over every other emotion. I assessed every word I said in the innermost circle, and those that weren't uttered were suffocated under the debris of closed ones' perceptions. As time passed, I didn't attempt to organise more confrontations. I just kept paying back for the past illuminations. I talked to fewer and fewer people every day, and memories of the blunders ensured I stuck to the inner circle.
Yet, something wasn't right.
My one-sided admittance and numbness didn't magically resolve all the problems in the innermost circle. The problems persisted, and so did my isolation from the outer world. Until one day, I accidentally interacted with someone from the outer circle. The conversation was like a breath of fresh air and revived my interest in talking, opining, and expressing. I felt like a bird soaring across the expansive sky. My consciousness told me that my words were welcome and were even considered and respected.
I continued my rendezvous with the person from the outer circle and let all the freshness surround my life. Soon, I started interacting with more people, random and close. Each interaction brought me a little farther from the numbness and a little closer to happiness. I didn't stress about confrontations but more on listening, mindfulness, and expressing myself. It is a tricky balance, but I continued attempting every day, with every conversation. I don't know if I am better, but I keep at it.
Still, some conversations reminded me that the numbness was alive. It was dormant in my mind but alive.
Cues like my eagerness to say everything I knew as fast as I could, unknowingly cutting others off midsentence, the wrong pronunciations, the grammar mistakes while conversing, despite knowing the correct grammar sometimes, and the annoying fillers prompted me to think that I was still in a hurry to express.
I was still running away from something because every lost opportunity to communicate in a one-on-one conversation made me feebly uncomfortable and consequently sunk my heart for a while. Although everything else was normal in the outer world or even with the person with whom I interacted.
Regardless, I continue to talk, commit mistakes, and probably continue to improve because that is all I can do. I continue to say a thing or two for the song and for me.
