I was pretty sure I would be single for a very, very long time. I had started saving up money for my own house. I had already saving for a house which would cost me about 18 lakhs. I was getting there slowly but surely. But life is just a notion. Ideas and plans, they are just like showcase pieces you talk about and admire from afar but you never get around to using it because it is far too pretty to be used. You get accustomed to the being that it is just there to look at and be comforted with.
Yesterday, I did a silly thing. For the past few weeks, I have been traveling on a particularly rocky road with a steep gradient but I had been toiling somehow. Out of sheer need to prove to everyone I am anything but a person who just dies at the effortless pull of the string around my neck. I wish I wasn't so proud and stubborn. Those two words, they are of binary attributes. It is almost a rocking chair. Stubbornness and pride can play well to get certain factors into your margin but if not used carefully, in the reality of life, it is damaging, degrading and ignominious to the core of your soul.
And so it happened. The micro I was on was inhumanely packed. Don't even ask me when I still squeezed in. I am the weird one here, I actually like it in a challenge kind of a way until I am smelling someone's body odor or I have my ass pressed against the erection of a dirty man. I don't mind it if I can save on cab fares which almost always eats up a quarter of my salary. (Note: I take a cab at least 25 times a month. Do the maths on how much I earn.) So I shall continue. I boarded the micro with two bags, one with my wallet, phone and iPad and the other one with my laptop. I quickly threw the laptop bag to the first person's head I saw and then went on to clinging for my life on one of those hanging bars. It's an adventure in itself, trust me. More passengers came in and then, I had the urgency to puke badly. My body temperature wasn't on the safe side. I was about to burst into tiny atoms. I prayed I would reach my destination fast. I was in such desperation that I alighted one stop before just to breathe fresh air and not the musky air of crowding men who obviously hadn't showered in days. I quickly handed in Rs. 15 to the conductor and rushed home with the wind on my back, free as a bird. That was around 5.45pm.
It was about 8.30 at night when I came to my full senses. That is really how dumb I am. I was about to take out my laptop to start working on a due-tomorrow article. I had the audacity to believe it was right at the edge of my bed, as it always lands on the moment I take it off my shoulder. I couldn't find it. I had left it behind, with some stranger's head I couldn't recall. Was it a he or she? Curly hair or straight? White or black, maybe all black because I wouldn't have thrown my laptop to an old person, simply out of respect. That is when I saw my crumbling soul. My life, the life I had never anticipated. I was falling apart, my life was detaching from me and I, from my life. I was going in circles, carefully holding onto the thread so it doesn't strangle me. I was almost there, trying to rescue myself and then, snap. I woke up. I needed no rescuing.
I am notoriously stubborn and proud. It is two ugly trades of mine my dad always warns me about. I couldn't say no to what I was asked to do. If I could have, I would. Nobody understands that I don't really have a choice here. I do what I have to do, hating every frail cell of mine and praising every enduring cell. If I could have my way, I would have bitch-slapped the person. I can't. Just like you don't play with fire, you don't mess with a human being who has no dignity and respect for another human being. It's just going to be yet another war, a war that you will lose in the end because they are the most dangerous kind of person, the person who doesn't think twice about using another people. You can't ignore them because they are always there, you can't speak up for yourself because they are always there with a scary glare. Maybe, I am just scared of this bitch, but whatever.
I am the picture perfect example of exhaustion. Longer time at work. More chores at home. Lesser snooze time. I don't remember what it feels like to sleep until 6am, my body automatically wakes up once the clock strikes 4. It doesn't matter how tired I am, where I am and what my day has been and is going to be like. That is how screwed my life is, really. All because I made a decision on impulsion. The worst part of it all, I have kind of have wrapped my mind around it and gotten used to it because it is what it is. I can't turn back clocks, I can't undo mistakes, I can't stand up for my rights to have a good rest, I can't break hearts and I can't run away. In a way, it is sick. In more than a way, I hate myself. What happens when no matter where you turn, you don't get a break from stress and tension, you fall apart and that is exactly what happened. One escapes to somewhere, I have no escape. It's only a wonder why I am a hardcore enthusiast of escapism. I was not troubled and in tears because I lost my laptop and all my documents. I was a convulsion of a breaking soul because I had no idea how fucked up I had become and yet, I still pushed myself on. Just to prove someone who sleeps like a log I am better than her.
Life is not a competition, I have realized, especially when it comes to competing with a person who is maliciously making me compete with my own inner strength. When life gets a little too tough, you don't fight on. Sometimes, you just take a back seat and breathe, breathe like it is the smell of roses in the air and like its winter mornings. I have once written a line, "When the going gets tough, so do you." You don't. I didn't. I was at the verge of a system breakdown. I was murdering myself. I was the sole puller of the thread around my neck. I was my own decider of my fate. The end of the thread in my hand, not in someone else's hands, and the noose around my neck. I was just tripping on my own tricks. I was doing it all to myself. I was letting her do it all to me. She was doing nothing to me except enjoying the way and the harsh fact that I was willingly letting her take more than a full hundred percent advantage of me. It was all me in the end. And that is how she won. I didn't win the war. Yes, it is still about winning and losing for me mostly at this point, especially at this point.
I gave up yesterday. I give up on pleasing the people around me. I always firmly stood by my rules to make myself happy first and then, the world comes in. I forgot my own principle as I try to manage juggling two different, absolutely challenging, energy draining and exhilarating roles. Even the Prime Minister, the man who runs a whole country sleeps and gives his brain and his body a break. I run a tiny country, so tiny, it can't be seen even from where you are seated. I was but a dog, nothing else. Even a dog knows when to stop. When I was a young girl, my greatest dream was to grow up and be old. Be an adult, have the world balanced nicely on my pinkie finger and have the time of my life. Falling in love, getting married and having babies were never in plan. What was in plan though, was a successful career and a hot live-in boyfriend.
P.s: I found my laptop. I always knew I would find it. I have that much trust in my people.
X
Genisha
Yesterday, I did a silly thing. For the past few weeks, I have been traveling on a particularly rocky road with a steep gradient but I had been toiling somehow. Out of sheer need to prove to everyone I am anything but a person who just dies at the effortless pull of the string around my neck. I wish I wasn't so proud and stubborn. Those two words, they are of binary attributes. It is almost a rocking chair. Stubbornness and pride can play well to get certain factors into your margin but if not used carefully, in the reality of life, it is damaging, degrading and ignominious to the core of your soul.
And so it happened. The micro I was on was inhumanely packed. Don't even ask me when I still squeezed in. I am the weird one here, I actually like it in a challenge kind of a way until I am smelling someone's body odor or I have my ass pressed against the erection of a dirty man. I don't mind it if I can save on cab fares which almost always eats up a quarter of my salary. (Note: I take a cab at least 25 times a month. Do the maths on how much I earn.) So I shall continue. I boarded the micro with two bags, one with my wallet, phone and iPad and the other one with my laptop. I quickly threw the laptop bag to the first person's head I saw and then went on to clinging for my life on one of those hanging bars. It's an adventure in itself, trust me. More passengers came in and then, I had the urgency to puke badly. My body temperature wasn't on the safe side. I was about to burst into tiny atoms. I prayed I would reach my destination fast. I was in such desperation that I alighted one stop before just to breathe fresh air and not the musky air of crowding men who obviously hadn't showered in days. I quickly handed in Rs. 15 to the conductor and rushed home with the wind on my back, free as a bird. That was around 5.45pm.
It was about 8.30 at night when I came to my full senses. That is really how dumb I am. I was about to take out my laptop to start working on a due-tomorrow article. I had the audacity to believe it was right at the edge of my bed, as it always lands on the moment I take it off my shoulder. I couldn't find it. I had left it behind, with some stranger's head I couldn't recall. Was it a he or she? Curly hair or straight? White or black, maybe all black because I wouldn't have thrown my laptop to an old person, simply out of respect. That is when I saw my crumbling soul. My life, the life I had never anticipated. I was falling apart, my life was detaching from me and I, from my life. I was going in circles, carefully holding onto the thread so it doesn't strangle me. I was almost there, trying to rescue myself and then, snap. I woke up. I needed no rescuing.
I am notoriously stubborn and proud. It is two ugly trades of mine my dad always warns me about. I couldn't say no to what I was asked to do. If I could have, I would. Nobody understands that I don't really have a choice here. I do what I have to do, hating every frail cell of mine and praising every enduring cell. If I could have my way, I would have bitch-slapped the person. I can't. Just like you don't play with fire, you don't mess with a human being who has no dignity and respect for another human being. It's just going to be yet another war, a war that you will lose in the end because they are the most dangerous kind of person, the person who doesn't think twice about using another people. You can't ignore them because they are always there, you can't speak up for yourself because they are always there with a scary glare. Maybe, I am just scared of this bitch, but whatever.
I am the picture perfect example of exhaustion. Longer time at work. More chores at home. Lesser snooze time. I don't remember what it feels like to sleep until 6am, my body automatically wakes up once the clock strikes 4. It doesn't matter how tired I am, where I am and what my day has been and is going to be like. That is how screwed my life is, really. All because I made a decision on impulsion. The worst part of it all, I have kind of have wrapped my mind around it and gotten used to it because it is what it is. I can't turn back clocks, I can't undo mistakes, I can't stand up for my rights to have a good rest, I can't break hearts and I can't run away. In a way, it is sick. In more than a way, I hate myself. What happens when no matter where you turn, you don't get a break from stress and tension, you fall apart and that is exactly what happened. One escapes to somewhere, I have no escape. It's only a wonder why I am a hardcore enthusiast of escapism. I was not troubled and in tears because I lost my laptop and all my documents. I was a convulsion of a breaking soul because I had no idea how fucked up I had become and yet, I still pushed myself on. Just to prove someone who sleeps like a log I am better than her.
Life is not a competition, I have realized, especially when it comes to competing with a person who is maliciously making me compete with my own inner strength. When life gets a little too tough, you don't fight on. Sometimes, you just take a back seat and breathe, breathe like it is the smell of roses in the air and like its winter mornings. I have once written a line, "When the going gets tough, so do you." You don't. I didn't. I was at the verge of a system breakdown. I was murdering myself. I was the sole puller of the thread around my neck. I was my own decider of my fate. The end of the thread in my hand, not in someone else's hands, and the noose around my neck. I was just tripping on my own tricks. I was doing it all to myself. I was letting her do it all to me. She was doing nothing to me except enjoying the way and the harsh fact that I was willingly letting her take more than a full hundred percent advantage of me. It was all me in the end. And that is how she won. I didn't win the war. Yes, it is still about winning and losing for me mostly at this point, especially at this point.
I gave up yesterday. I give up on pleasing the people around me. I always firmly stood by my rules to make myself happy first and then, the world comes in. I forgot my own principle as I try to manage juggling two different, absolutely challenging, energy draining and exhilarating roles. Even the Prime Minister, the man who runs a whole country sleeps and gives his brain and his body a break. I run a tiny country, so tiny, it can't be seen even from where you are seated. I was but a dog, nothing else. Even a dog knows when to stop. When I was a young girl, my greatest dream was to grow up and be old. Be an adult, have the world balanced nicely on my pinkie finger and have the time of my life. Falling in love, getting married and having babies were never in plan. What was in plan though, was a successful career and a hot live-in boyfriend.
P.s: I found my laptop. I always knew I would find it. I have that much trust in my people.
X
Genisha
