Hope springs... happiness blooms...

They say life doesn't go the way you planned. It doesn't. But the good thing about it is that sometimes it goes better than what you expected. Or at least that's what people and books said. I had believed in them for a long time but it never happened to me. Not much, at least. But today it did to someone so dear that I felt it happened to me - suddenly, simply, silently, happiness had walked through the door.

Today, I saw a happy ending or rather a happy beginning, after a lot of patience, frustration and anguish. My heart sang at the prospect of such happiness for someone so close.

I had somehow given up on happy endings. I thought they happened only in books and movies for young girls.

Real life is different, I had come to accept. It is colder, harsher, a little more brittle and a lot more confusing.
But today proved me wrong and I am a happier person for that.  Because today made me believe again - that in real life too, happiness can come simply, easily and effortlessly. It can spring into your life one fine day like the spring flowers that line the roads. It can bring beauty, happiness and a change for the better.

Like the spring blossoms, they may last for a few days but they mark a new beginning. They mark a step forward towards a bigger, brighter and happier future. And that is all I need to believe for a little longer - that good things do come to good people. That amidst all the chaos, randomness and luck, good things do come. May be not to everyone and may be not all the time,  but there is enough of a chance to make it worth playing the game.

Here's to the new beginning and a walk in the clouds - because some people are special!
L'chaim!

 

Remember to remember...

It was R's graduation day - a big occasion. One to be remembered for life but all she could feel was relief at having made it through the day and the excitement to move onto the next thing. But L knew better. Her years had taught her to pause, to reflect and celebrate before moving on; and so, she made R stop on the banisters of the school and to take it all in. She reminded R that within a span of a two years, this scary place with gargoyles, columns, and banisters had transformed from something alien, distant and scary into something familiar. It was a moment to remember for life. A feeling to cherish. 

L and R are fictional characters but that is the lesson I need to learn. 

The years have taught me many a things, but one thing I am yet to learn well is to remember the good things in life. The need to pause, reflect and to will something good, into memory. To store it safely, ensconced away in a special corner, far from the corrupting influences of daily living. 

We spend our days and years in constant motion, as an act of survival and before we know years have passed and we are at the end of the journey. It is then that we need these memories. The happy memories of a time gone by, of a life well lived. Of birthdays, of graduations, of celebrations, of successes and of milestones. The pictures, the letters and the notes give you a snapshot of it all but what breathes life into these memorabilia is the feeling you choose to remember them with. 

Hours fade into days, days into months and months into years. With sufficient time, years becomes numbers and what remains from all of those many hours are a few memories. One needs to make these memories sharp and bright else what remains is a fuzzy outline that has little color.  

I wish I had L in my life. To make me pause, and to remind me to make those memories before they are buried under the shifting sands of time; because now when I look back, I remember so little. 

In my efforts to forget the bad and to move on, I have also forgotten the good and life feels a little too uneventful right now. 

And so, I try, to take a moment every now and then - to stop. To wait and to remember what it was like... 

I had people who used to make me do that, but not any more. Now, I need to make my own memories...

Bubble-wrap...

Bubble-wrap. Fairly transparent, unseemingly sturdy and exquisitely protective. So simple and yet so desirable. The world would be a broken place without it.
It cloaks and shields in a way that your most delicate belongings can breathe and still survive a tough ride.

How very magical...

So much so that on some days, that is all I want. Some bubble-wrap.

To wrap myself and stay away from all that is wrong in the world and all that can go wrong - because as Murphy says, what can go wrong, will go wrong.

There are days when I want the world outside to be muffled because the voices in my head are loud enough. When I want to be sealed into a safe place without being suffocated.
There are days, when I want something as reliable as bubble-wrap just so I can tread out a little and come back to safety it if things get too rough. Having that sanctuary within my reach made me a little more daring, a little more adventurous - to take that extra step and to walk that extra mile. Because I knew there was a safe place within my grasp.

There was a time when my relationships would do just that. Bubble wrap me - giving me the time and space to heal, to recuperate. They were but a phone call away. Today, they feel far - separated by time and space, the folds that cocooned me seem to have become bigger, more open. Time and space have taken us farther apart, a little each day. Not too far but far enough for me miss that tight niche. To miss those embraces that would hush me to sleep on a bad day. To miss those gentle folds that would give me my space and yet shield me from the worst of world.

There are days when that's all I want - my bubble-wrap.