Looking for my own thoughts, after all this time
No one tells us the depth of that emptiness which comes after you know ‘enough’ about the world and its workings.
Starting as a lost kid, who was still finding her place in this world, it felt like the end of the world. The feeling of seeing people and being unable to talk, relate with them, and feeling acutely conscious of who ‘I’ was feels like a faded dream now. One that I consciously buried deep inside, along with my feelings of alienation, shame, under-confidence, and the tall, yet shaky facade of ‘feeling superior’ to them all. It was easier to just watch films instead, talk to imaginary, yet ‘relatable’ characters on the screen, rather than actual people, who could break that facade I’d built so diligently, so carefully. To survive.
And survive I did.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? And other quotes that do nothing for you except keep you somehow, alive. But at least, I was open to life passing through me, despite all the complexes I carried. It takes guts to be yourself in a room full of people, who in your head are pretty sure of who they are. So what if they are lost too? At least your head says ‘they’re so confident! I wish I was like that.’ And that’s all that matters to you. So, you go to your room, switch on your laptop, only to watch and eat stuff that comforts you. You’ve got two more years of college to figure shit out. No worries.
In hindsight, it’s easy to fall, fail, fight, falter, freak out, when you’re young and going through life. Because, the bruises they leave behind can make one fearful to feel the pain, all over again. Isn’t that why we touch hot water with the little finger? So that we don’t burn the whole hand?
And so, you learn to recognise patterns, avoid surprises. See through people, save your breath. Mind your own business, feel nothing. It’s super easy once you know the drill.
But, now that I realise, it’s this drill that has in fact taken the ‘life’ out of my life. I don’t give chances to things, not enough to transform me. I don’t pick up my phone and call that long lost friend, and tell her what I truly feel. I don’t meet people without my ‘drill kit’ with me at all times. I speak things that I’ve heard somewhere, seen somewhere, read somewhere, picked up from places for ‘conversation material’. I say random things that don’t mean anything to anyone. Specially to me. I’ve stopped caring. I’ve stopped feeling my life.
It’s like somewhere along the way, I unhitched myself from everything that made me feel — insecure, inspired, passionate, angry, happy, under-confident, jealous, sad. True emotions that I once used to feel, that also brought pain and confusion with them. So you ruthlessly cut off this part of your existence that gives you pain, throwing it into the deep sea, so that you never ‘hurt again.’
But now I feel, is it worth it? To live a pain-free, yet empty-to-the-core life? Is it worth it, to keep the band-aid on, when the wounds healed long back? Why did I even go through so many emotions, when now, the only one that’s left is fear — the imaginary line between me and the world.
If youth is wasted on the young and their insecurities, then shouldn’t our adult life be wasted on healing from the scars we carried and buried deep inside? How does fear heal? It has only kept me locked up, inside a place that knows only the emptiness of hollow words.
Healing is different, I guess. Not self-preservation. I’m not a pickle. I have been a prick. A stubborn girl. A smart girl. A wanderer. A believer. An impulsive girl. An explorer. A confused girl. A lonely girl. An angry girl. And now, a reasonably happy girl who knows herself better than before.
Maybe this is the truest thing I have written in a long time. Actually, it is the truest thing I have written in a long time. No maybes. Nothing.
The writer still loves movies and food. But, in a healthy way.
