this one is for you

This one is for you, my friend. So often in my heart I have walked with you as you trudged alone on heartbreak land. I have felt the desolate darkness, the betrayal. So many of us are walking there all the time, yesterday, today, tomorrow.
This is not to console you, but sometimes there are no answers for what happens. No reply to the 'why?' which always rises in our hearts as we weep silently. And it all seems so one –sided as we think of all the sacrifices and adjustments we kept doing in the name of love. So, would it mean that there was no love the other side? There was, it just did not reach up to our expectations.
In our naiveté, we waited for getting it all back in equal measure, in a way we were dreaming about. I think that was the beginning of the rift that became a gap and then dwindled into a silent chasm that could not be bridged, ever.
We drew solace from friends who were so with us, so mad at the other side that they hated them, by proxy. But did the other person have the luxury of a friend they could pour their heart out to? We were lucky that in the midst of heartbreak we forged new friendships, we were moving ahead, finding new pursuits, albeit under coercion from our friends.
What did they have? Maybe a king- size guilt that they could not give us much, that we could not have the life we dreamt about together, the children we wanted to have? It’s all so universal, so human that that it has happened all around us and keeps happening. So, where does life take us from here? Once again there are no signposts, no books to go by that works for everyone. Of course there are the self- help books but when we are in heartbreak land, where is the inclination to seek these books?
Some of us are left bitter, with scars that pop open ever so often that we are constantly taking swipes at happy couples and love, some others become stoics and stay away from entanglements, and some of us wear our hearts on our sleeves all the time waiting for the gap to be filled by another love. Yeah, the list goes on, as do the unfinished endings. It goes on…….

happiness and joy!

Now ,it tickles my funny bone, no, not because I have been exempt from this emotion, but because I can see how the same heart that can love someone to excesses can also laugh at the same things at a later point in time! Nor will I be able to honestly say that I am beyond feeling the same emotions again!

Life is beautiful; I know you will agree that what I say is so inane. It gets even more beautiful when someone waltzes into our unsuspecting heart or our path as we walk along. And then we go careening down all the way into heartbreak land. Only, it’s that I believe that we all have such soft landings that we don’t wake up for a while and our slumber continues to lull us in a pink cocoon?

The tick of the wall clock in a silent room that enhances the tingle of anticipation when we are waiting for that special someone? Oh yes, you can even smell the fragrance in the breeze which would blow even otherwise in our daily existence! I mean, love evokes such poignant and intense emotions inside us when we are in love and it feels as if the universe around us echoes only to that.

And I hope this doesn’t happen to any one of you in love, but when we come out of the cloistered walls of this sacred emotion, we feel dizzy – trying to land on our toes with a semblance of sanity. We vow that it was a close call, that it’s not for us, that we have been there, done that….

When every person that you know has experienced love in their own unique way, I guess it is difficult for them to understand what we see in the ones we love. I have always felt that our friends put up with silence and stoicism our love for someone and secretly heave a sigh of relief when it’s over and we are once again on safer terrain! What is it about that special someone that makes our heart blip so crazily? And why does it change when it’s over? Where does the magic go? My friends would give me endless answers that it transforms into domesticity, into building and living a life together? Does it conclude that anyone not in love is not living in domesticity?

I would say that the magic, the fragrant breeze, the splendid sunset are all still there. That doesn’t change, what does, is our thinking. We inherently believe that happiness and joy has to be shared. By extension of this corollary we believe that it can only be done with the people we are in love with?! I did believe too till I discovered the love of silence. It was an alien sensation, quite unlike the chatter in my head, more so when we are in love! Initially I was drawn into this silence against my will and everything in me wanted to run away; it was so strange and discomfiting.

A day came when I stopped running and stood still. It was a sweet moment and more eternal than any ephemeral human emotion. Inside me coursed pure sensations that touched something which till then I had thought to be inside another heart! In course of time I have learnt to accept that emotion as joy. I have learned that joy is inside us, that happiness can be person/ event related but that joy is always there inside. We need to strengthen that by just acknowledging her presence. The outer world crumbles and cracks around us but the inner world stays intact.

I guess this is what the yogis of yore found after a lot of penance and meditation. I would even go so far as to say that the beatific smile on their face is just a realization of this simple truth as they went in search of complex issues and answers?!