Adrift...

Farewells have always been difficult for me.
Unshed tears and unspoken words.
Words that always seem to fall short. Eyes that say it all. Embraces that you never want to end. Moments that keep running past the more you try and hold onto. Words that threaten to unleash the tears that you try lock away.

Farewells have always been difficult.

I thought it was difficult to be left behind but never did I realize how difficult it can be to actually move away, till I actually had to.

To move away from all that was known and certain. From all that was yours. From the anchors that held you in place to being adrift in a sea of change. To a place that feels alien. To people who seem distant. Trying to build a home so far away from home.

So much change and so much excitement that it actually leaves you yearning for some stability and some boredom !! Familiarity seems to give more comfort to the heart than the joy of new adventures. Such are the times as I look for an anchor to hold me in place in a world that seems to be moving too fast for me.

Fickle is the mind indeed as it craves for that which it does not have.

Gone with the wind...

In our lives, some times are more defining and more influential than the others. They change the course of our lives, the fabric of our being.
The last couple of months have been one such period for me.
They have just breezed past me and i was so busy that I could barely sit down and look at them. It felt like a giant roller-coster ride that has left me screaming my insides out due to fear, excitement, exhilaration and sadness.

They were filled with frantic activity that left behind frayed nerves. There was too much to be done and to be taken care of... so much so, that i didn't grant myself the time to just sit down and think, to assimilate, to register, to enjoy and to grieve. The days flew past in a haze and they left me wanting. Wanting for some quiet, some peace and some space.

I loved the rush and the excitement but I also missed the bigger picture. I missed being able to move one step at a time. To be able to grieve when the heart wanted to. To be able to rejoice when there was reason to. I missed not having opened my heart to have let those emotions out, simply because there was too much to do. I now wish to have been able to pause the roller coaster in motion just to get a snapshot in time for every moment in the past two months.

I've missed myself for so many days. The little girl in me who used to love staring at the stars had not gazed at the night sky for nearly two months because she was always too tired to keep her eyes open. The footloose nomad in me had not wandered off in a while because there were too many places to be at. The thinker in me had not thought for a while simply because there was too much to do.

The last few days have been filled with so many of these unfelt feelings, unshed tears, unspoken words and unspoken fears. The flurry of everyday activity had actually numbed my mind into unquestioning acceptance. And now when I sit down to think, the pain is too much to bear. The tears are too many to control and the words are too many to say.

The last few days have indeed gone with the wind as they brought me closer to Scarlett O Hara when she said - "Oh, I can't think about this now! I'll go crazy if I do! I'll think about it tomorrow."

But then now i also know that sometimes the pain doesn't diminish with time. All you manage to do is to push it under the rug till it resurfaces every now and then.

Some emotions are best dealt without procrastination.

Patterns in randomness...

In a life that is fast rushing past us, we are forever trying to make sense. Trying to understand all that happens and all that does not happen. We are looking for causes, explanations, reasons and justifications. We are frantically searching. Searching, for a pattern, a cause or an explanation. Something to comfort us, something to give us hope. Hope for the future. Solace for the past. We are dazed by the world and we try to understand it by finding patterns - repetitive events which might help us know the future.

Like the constellations scattered in the sky, we imagine patterns in our everyday life. We assume causality and order on more occasions than one as we try to explain the world. We forget that the constellations in the sky are only products of random chance and not really organized structures and patterns. We forget that we are bound to find some order or pattern even though the world is driven by randomness. Our mind tricks us by locating these patterns in pure chaos. We then hold on to that pattern and build our lives on it. We forget that the pattern was nothing but our imagination. Our error lies not in perceiving the pattern but in ascribing more meaning to it than should be.

Most people believe in a grander scheme of events to unfold, giving purpose to their life, as they seek order in disorder. Some realize the force of randomness in their lives but do nothing as they hope that their understanding is indeed accurate. Some realize the truth and strive to over come the tricks that the mind plays.

As for me, from a child who believed in destiny to a hopeful skeptic now, I've been through the phases. And as i move ahead, I strive harder and harder to accept the role of randomness in shaping our lives.