Holding on and letting go

The world makes a whole spin in 24 hours. In this fast paced life, stopping isn't always an option.  Lives are made, lives are shattered daily too.  In some rare occasions, both happen on the same day. The impermanence of the moment is heavily stressed upon here.  Every moment is precious, every second is vital. If everything from our pacing heart to speeding metros are constantly variable, how can holding on be an option?

What happens if we try to hold on tightly whether iT is a person or an object or  an addiction? Imagine a bird has perched on your hand. You don't want it to go away so you hold on to that fragile being even more tightly. So tight that one moment she's alive and chirpy and the next moment, the life is sucked out of her.  What seemed beautiful at first only ended in misery and guilt. Sometimes it's not the other persons life which is at stake, it's our own. We become self destructive. Typically seen in cases of addiction.

I once wrote my name in the sand on the beach. It was washed away instantly. I wrote it again over its hazed predecessor. The waves washed it off again. I got so angry, I wrote my name again and again  over the same spot till I looked more closely at my botched name. It was even more distorted and messed up than what It was the first time when I wrote it.  I realized, we try to etch our permanency in people's life be trying to reinforce the importance of our presence. Though we think we are doing the right thing, we not only distort our image, we also botch our importance just like that botched name in the sand.

I once read that people who are willing to be a part of your change are the people you can expect to be the constant variable in your life. The rest, are just a part of a story in your journey.

A perfect act of love is sacrifice. It is the art to have the strength to hold on and have a greater inner power to let go. I wrote a post about how memories fade. It's true and I'm not gonna contradict myself. Though people tend to confuse it with love. It's true to a certain extent because if the memory doesn't remain, the reason to love doesn't last. People claim that love fades. It's doesnt really .

Love doesn't fade, it evolves.

Ask two people who ended a relationship amicably, their love is converted to mutual care and understanding. If they were close enough in their relationship, their connectivity lasts beyond the termination of the relationship.

Ask two people who ended a relationship abruptly and before time. One is filled with pain, longing and hope. For the other,Love is replaced with  a blend of guilt and indifference.

Time heals all wounds. The hope goes away. The longing also goes away even though it takes a while. Though I realized that the pain really doesn't . It takes a chronic form. It doesn't die, it's suppressed, like a painful keloid. It's there, you may never see it, since people are experts at saying " they are fine" . It's so subtle, that sometimes even we don't know it's there. It's so subtle that we don't even realize when it had the power to change who we were. Like a scar, we are conscious of its presence, so we engage ourselves in daily  mundane human activities to distract ourselves. Though somewhere down the line we also wonder how we don't take risks as gregariously as we used to before, or how we used to be more free.

The pain doesn't go, but I promise it gets easier... Once you start letting go. Or at least try to.

Nicole sobon  once wrote," the hardest part isn't letting go, but is to start over"

It is. It truly is, but it also makes us one step closer to strength,One step closer to the truth and one step closer to you

Memories and me

( the celestial love story- part 2 will be continued next week )

Once I heard a song about a girl who loved her lovers face. The song goes about how he walked away from the relationship and she knows that he will write one day but the only question she would ask him would be if time ever changed his face since they were practically strangers. The beauty and simplicity of the song reflects on just how important a persons face could be to someone.

Memory is a cruel thing. Its your companion in solitude. Its a bad lesson that you learn not to repeat. Its a diabolic reminder of all that you had and lost. Its that deep abyss that once you enter, its really hard to leave.
I've recently learnt to accept that everything in life is impermanent. Even you. What I was yesterday is not what I am today. Though saying that, what remains unchanged is the essence of me. That's what makes me unique. That's what makes me, me!

Memories fade with time too. Just like the song, I do still wonder how certain people look like now. Have they gained weight? Do they still have their patent annoying habits? What went wrong?  Why dont  I remember their faces? Why dont I remember them?

These people have become the faceless ghosts of my past. When I really young in kindergarden, I used to be  called a chatterbox. yap yap yap yap ....chattering away....
It was Christmas and this boy (who's name I have forgotten) gives me his " Rudolf-the red nose reindeer" book.
" you keep it, I want you to have it"
"no but its yours"
"I rather you have it, it will make you happy"
I dont remember any of my friends in kindergarden like others in my kin do. I just remember that faceless boy who gave me his book because he thought it will make me happy.
I still do think about him, specially during Christmas. Though if he crossed me in the street now, I wont be able to recognize him.

This made me realize how time not only erases the bad, but it also erases the good memories too. Though I have noticed that even though the memory or the people are erased, some temporarily or permanently, you can never really forget how they made you feel. Saying that their pleasant or unpleasant presence in your life didnt affect the way you are is an outright lie.

“I am starting to think that maybe memories are like this dessert. I eat it, and it becomes a part of me, whether I remember it later or not.” 
― Erica Bauermeister, The School of Essential Ingredients



My fear is, what if your memory fades away?Will there be a time when you want to look back, your left with a void? How would you feel if the reason your you is lost in that void? Do you lose yourself or start over?

Juan Rulfo once said,“Nothing can last forever. There isn't any memory, no matter how intense, that doesn't fade out at last.”

Yet, that wont stop me from going out to make those memories, for its the journey I live for, whatever the destination might be...bleak or bright.

So, look back, do you remember a memory that once defined you? If yes, it was worth living that memory, even if the moment has gone.

A Celestial love story - part 1

This is a story about lovers. Though throughout time and history, people recollect stories about the vallant  and brave: the courageous and the adventurous. This, my friends, is a story about faith. The story I am about to tell you is about two people, just like you and me. Though it would be easy to give them names, I wont. They are as extraordinarily ordinary as you or me. Giving them names would do them a great injustice.

Two people, who loved each other very much, died before their time. They died in a car crash. It was no one's fault really. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Though people fail to realize that there is always a bigger picture to situations or things. We get so caught up in the moment. We are humans after all. Environment affects us as equally as the next species. Choices needed to be made. Whom do the paramedics save first? The woman was an empathetic being, the kind of emotion you see in a mother when she looks at her child. In her dying stupor, she asked the paramedics to save her man first. The man, like most other men, had ego.  "Yes, save me first, so that I can handle my woman, her hospital bills, inform her family, inform the office. Yes, it would be wise to save me first."

Both of them, in their own way, thought of each other in their dying moments. Yet, the man's approach was considered to be selfish. There is a saying in Buddism, that the soul carries forward their last emotion into their next stage of existance. For eg, if a person commits suicide, its evident that his mind is in agony. He dies in agony and misery. They say that this emotion will carry forward in his next life and define his whole being, his whole existance until he finds a way to detach and become the better man. Since the lovers dint have any more lives left to live, they were sent to what you call, heaven and hell.
The woman was sent to heaven, for her selfless nature and empathic nature.
The man was sent to hell, for even though his intentions seemed noble, they were covered in a greasy coat of  selfishness and greed.

God was really happy to give this woman entry as it was a while since he saw sacrifice in its true form. He had been observing this woman for a while. He knew that her soul was pure. The woman loved her man very much. Her basic instinct made her look around for him. She was disappointed. She needed him. She became restless.

" A restless soul in heaven, whose could that be" , pondered God. God decided it was time to make conversation with the woman that baffled him from the time she took birth till her presence in heaven.
" What makes you so restless, my child? ", asked God
" Where is he?" , asked the woman
" He is where he belongs, with all the troubled souls, in hell"  replied God
" I need to go to him, for without meeting him, even if its just that once, I need to at least get a chance to say goodbye." replied the woman
" What good will it do?", asked God
" You will understand when you will see us reunite, trust me, you will get all your answers then", answered the woman in an urgent tone.
Amused at how somebody could talk to God like that and ponderous over how, for the first time, he did'nt have an answer to her behaviour , his curiosity got the best of him. He decided to let her go though just for a night, since hell is most active at night.

Ancient Egyptians had a theory that God Anubis guided souls across the celestial Nile to reach either heaven or hell. Though there was a great difference in the tributaries that led to both places. Unlike heaven, the river to hell was filled with anguished souls, attacking the boat Anubis and the woman were travelling in, trying to tear it down. Angry whispers, whispers of plead and obvious pain resonated across the Nile. The woman was scared, though Anubis gently held her hand and told her not to worry even when the boat rocked with an intention to topple. The current of the celestial Nile was turbulant. It felt like a sea storm with the absence of waves. The sky was a gloomy starry darkness. "Ironic" thought the woman since while burning in their aqueous pyre, the troubled souls only saw the stars and felt the only emotion unknown to them all this while, hope.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, they reached the gateway to hell.
"My journey with you has ended, oh! dear soul, may you find what your looking for." resonated Anubis and off he went.

The woman touched the gates of with an uncertain emotion that once she entered, she had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
part1 - end
part 2 - to be continued.