To have loved and lost

People always wonder “Is it better to have loved and lost than having never loved at all?”

Well, I have been in love, in more than one occasion in my life and that probably gives me an insight given my overthinking on the subject!!

The first love happened at 19.. All I set out was with the fantasy of love!! I just imagined a life straight out of the multitudes of novels I’d drowned myself in!! So I poured it all!! Falling in love with my best friend was all I ever wanted and it happened!! So much so that I had my fairy tale wedding with the man I had fallen in love with!! It was beautiful until reality struck in!! But it was naive and innocent and true in every sense!! I felt butterflies with him!! He would make me laugh and I would laugh whole heartedly as I never had known heart wrenching pain before him!! It was sweet, innocent and the purest love I had experienced in my life!!

Well, it unfortunately didn’t last and had the most painful ending, the aftermath of it still lingering even after half decade of it ending!!

Well, obviously then the heart gets cautious of the people it will let inside after that!! But loneliness coupled with “hope” sometimes makes you do things and getting on to the online platform felt like a sensible decision!! And obviously after months of chatting with a bunch of people, I found the “male” version of me (well to a great extent)!! A kind, innocent, full of life and wearing heart on his shoulders, he patiently waited and made me comfortable enough to let my guards down!! I finally had someone care for me, show concern, reach out to me, have my back!! Well, I couldn’t have been more happier than when I was with him!! I finally began to laugh as I used to!! I began doing things I really had enjoyed!! I felt supported, I was guided, I finally had someone to have any mundane conversation with, someone to wish me a “good morning”, someone to check on me, someone who learnt about me each day and made my fantasy a reality!! Well, I lived a dream with him!!

Sadly, not all good things last and this ran its course!!

But I still am reminded of the fact that I had been loved right, and loved deeply, if only for a short while!! And it’s a bliss!! I remember him fondly!! 

Love happened in its own time, it was good and the good times were worth remembering!! And I wish those exes of mine the best because once you have genuinely loved someone, you can never wish anything bad, no matter how they might have hurt you!! Sometimes the pain of loss is too gripping and I wished I hadn’t fallen in love so hard, well, falling in love is never in your control and I can never love half hearted!! So the pain is bound to follow!! But those days when I felt alive, safe and happy is totally worth it!!

It’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all!! Because those moments are memories that reminds you the beauty of life and how it feels to be alive!! And I’m sure someday that love will knock the doors again, maybe this time to stay longer!! But yes, I’ve experienced love in my late teens and early thirties, both were different but both of them has changed me for the better and I wouldn’t want to change anything of it!! Don’t let love slip away, people spend a lifetime searching for it, so once you’ve found it, make efforts to keep it!!

Home

Home is the place you feel safe and comfortable the most!!

The place you can be yourself and not have to have any pretence or mask on!!

It’s the place you come back to, the place you rest!!

It’s the place you find peace!!

And no matter how much you try to make a space your home, there seems something amiss when the comfort and security goes missing!!

No matter how you decorate or what renovation project you undertake, a place can never truly be your home unless you find peace in those four walls!!

People say that you can’t sleep in a new place because it’s an unfamiliar place.. imagine that feeling of unfamiliarity in the place you’ve stayed for decades!!

Then where do you turn to?? Whom do you run to?? When your “home” doesn’t feel like “home” anymore..

Where the place just fills you up with grief and the loneliness haunts you?

Where the place just brings you to the reality of how alone you truly are!!

The place becomes the nightmare you want to numb yourself off!!

The place reeked of laughter and life but now it somehow just got quieter.. 

All because the reason I return home everyday is missing for a few days!!

My home is the person that makes me feel complete, gives me a reason to return, shares strength and brings a smile!! He gives me peace!! His presence gives me fulfilment!! 

And it’s saddening that a 9 year old burdens the responsibility of being the “home” for his mom!!

The cost of “Being strong”

When life puts you to a challenge, you either crumple or get strong to overcome it!!

But you have to pay a life term price for that strength you develop!!

“Resilience” becomes your personality and you are no longer fazed by any challenge because you learn you can overcome it!!

However, it also brings about a huge set of walls that you end up building around yourself as a defence mechanism..

You no longer need anyone because you’ve learnt to only depend on yourself..

The price you pay for this is not having anyone check in on you because you surely haven’t needed anyone!!

It brings along with it an array of emotional challenges too!! PTSD is your arm candy that doesn’t let you overcome what you’ve been through no matter how “healed” you are!! At the onset of a repeat incident, the body automatically drags itself down to the last time it experienced the same emotions and forgets all the healing journey you’ve been through!!

Along comes anxiety as there’s a constant vigil to protect yourself.. it brings its best friend named “overthinking” and convinces your head to make up all the remote possibilities so that you are prepared for anything that comes your way!!

And with all these things there’s the tinge of depression that is always ready to make its appearance when something seems a bit downhill.. and it has such wonderful capacity to build a mountain of a mole hill and ensure you’re crashed!! And it’s friend, anxiety and insomnia, joins hands in tandem in the mission!!

But the upside of the strength is that Resilience ensures you show up back to accomplish your tasks because you have no other choice and also because you cannot make yourself weak anymore!! This results in the complexities of “high functioning depression and anxiety” that ensures you function in the daily life but the insides of you are slowly eroded!! From feeling a lot to feeling nothing, they ensure you’re hollow from the inside!!

But then some friends genuinely put efforts and show up and they end up filling that void and bringing that happiness!! But the price you pay for being strong is that you do not have many of those friends in your life either!!

Over all, you end up having a strong  aura but a plethora of things to fight within yourself to remain strong!!

Single parent

You’ve got to be the fun parent!!

You’ve also got to be the strict one!!

You’ve got to be there for all the events!!

You’ve to also go out there to provide!!

You’ve to also spoil them!!

You’ve to also raise them right!!

You’ve to make life fun and convenient!!

You’ve to also make time for yourself!!

And all this while you’ve to take care of yourself and the kiddo!! 

The guilt of ordering in almost every weekend because you’re exhausted from the week that passed!!

The lack of attention to the kid’s academic since you have no bandwidth at the end of the day to catch up..

The half hearted project submissions since there’s no time on cards to do a sincere complete one!!

The pain deep inside knowing you can’t do it all by yourself!!

The motivation to do “just a bit more” in order to make life a bit easier for us!!

The fear of not being adequate enough!!

And living with this heap of emotions all at once is what makes a single parent!!!

Someone

In those long hours of night when I can’t catch a wink, I wished I could call up on someone to just vent it out!!

In those days when I’m elated, I just wanna celebrate it with someone!!

When the day is exhausting, I just want to curl up and have someone to pamper me!!

When the long weekends arrive, I just want to have someone to make plans with!!

When I’m in my wits end and I can’t think straight, I just need someone to calm me down!!

When I’m overwhelmed with all the talks that never stops inside my head, I just want someone to hug me close so that the chatter quietens atleast for a bit!!

It’s just the basic need but it feels good to have someone just know that you’re alive and you’re going on about your day!!

It’s just the basic need to have someone have your back!!

And yes I do, before all the “you’ve got friends” thing, I do have very close friends that do these things for me!!

But sometimes, you just want to have “your” person, a go to person that could be there!!

And then with years you begin to be fine by yourself enough to not look for anyone because everytime you felt someone could be there, they end up breaking your heart again!! And the heart learns to protect itself by shutting off people so that nobody can hurt you again!!

And then again those long hours of night happens when you can’t catch a wink; and the heart hopes to have “someone”!!

Travel

While growing up, we didn’t travel much except back and forth from Mumbai to Kerala during the summer vacations.. the only good thing about it was all of us cousins being there at the same time so that was frolic.. I used to spend the entire vacation on borrowed comics from neighbors and books I bought during the train ride..

But beyond that, we’ve had a couple of trips through Goa where I was introduced to the beaches and fell in love instantaneously.. But yeah, it’s even more memorable because I ended up losing an earring and a chain each on those trips during the beach dips..

But after ages of nagging and complaining, dad finally made up for those missed trips by taking us all to Europe!! A good 2 week, 10 countries trip and I ticked off most of the things I have wanted to see!! From dressing up for Eiffel to walking the pavements at Venice to celebrating the kids birthday at Pisa to playing in snow at Swiss, tulip gardens at Holland, Swarovski factory, cruise ride, seeing the pope at Vatican and seeing the roman structures, enjoying a Belgian waffle along with drive through Germany n Austria!! That was a beautiful trip with amazing memories!! Although the highlight for me would be rummaging through the streets in the hopes to spot a McD or KFC since my then 3 year old was tired of the Anglised Indian meal..

Then other priorities set in and covid happened so travel was on the back foot until the friends of mine ditched the usual Goa for a trip to Aurangabad and that’s when it brought of the wanderlust in me.. again, I didn’t plan anything just went with the flow!! Thoroughly enjoyed the sightseeing and the company even more!! Ended 2022 with a decision to travel more!! 

And lo, the first trip of 2023 was spontaneous because it was a long weekend and a friend at Bangalore casually told to drop by and I didn’t think twice before booking the tickets and showing up at her place!! And the kind hostess she is, she and her husband entertained us and took us around!!

The next one again was a quick decision since it was a solo trip to Mysore to meet a friend and he took me through the historic city of Mysore and showed Tipu Sultan reign and the magnificent Mysore palace.. inspired by that, had a two day trip in Mumbai too to cover the iconic places.. 

The year ended with finally exploring my own state of Kerala.. travelled to different cities, saw some famous landmarks, witnessed the beauty of nature at Munnar, found the beauty in Kochi.. 

The resolution of 2024 included travelling more so ended up with a trip to kerala for a family event and going for a touristy boat ride which is a must do.. it’s more of a weekend getaway to be with family but a well deserved break!!

The little planned trip is the one that I just bid adieu to!! Never have I explored north of Mumbai so beginning the year with a visit to the capital city of the country, check off the iconic buildings here, walk through Mughal dynasty and ruins, awe at the Taj and get some cool clicks for the gram, see the Pink city and feel like a royal amongst the beautiful palaces!!

The one thing travel did teach me is that until now, I had someone doing the planning part and that is the most taxing thing!! Planning the schedule, trips, being responsible for the people involved and a bit of fear of being in a new land amongst strangers brings about some internal growth in yourself.. after this trip, I feel like a bit more grown up and responsible person!!

Travel is rightly said to help you discover yourself a bit better and it’s a very liberating feeling to find yourself in a new place and explore new things!! Well, time to save up and plan the next one for the next break!!

Wake up call

It is just a random conversation that shook my dreams off!!

“Nobody really loves you, they’re with you only because they’re getting something out of it”

Didn’t expect this jolt out of the blue at the trip that was supposed to be rejuvenating!!

It’s the truth, I do have a handful of friends and people that expects nothing from me!! But the world in general is full of people that just wants to take advantage of people!! And being a pushover and “hopeless and desperate for love”, I easily dote on people that shows even just an iota of affection only to be heartbroken sooner than expected!!

I recently came across a reel on Instagram where someone said that the reason why we marry is to have someone witness our life.. one of my favourite songs of Linkin Park is “Leave out all the rest”, it emphasises on the fact that we humans have an innate desire to be remembered, and we hope for a bunch of people in our lives that we’ve touched in a manner that they’ll remember us even if our time here is done.. We desire to remain here even if we are not physically around anymore..

And that’s one of the biggest thing missing in your life when you have been alone for a while, you miss having someone that can share your mundane day with.. there are good days and bad, and happiness doubles or frustration vanishes when you have someone to talk to!!

I understand I do have friends that’s available at a beck and call, but personally it feels like intruding their personal space bombarding them when I wanna share something good or something devastating.. but they’ve stood by me through my 3am calls and hours of wailing over the same thing or celebrating small happiness’..

But yeah there’s a solace in having “your” person that witnesses everything about you, that becomes an integral part of you that they’re pseudo present in everything, they understand references, people that you’re talking about, they know exactly where you are and with whom because despite their absence you keep them updated.. they are that first text in the morning, the last call at night, the updates through the day and sharing stupid meaningless stuff just to remind them that you remember them.. they slowly are an integral part of life and routine!!

As someone asked, is it loneliness or freedom to wake up without someone wishing you a good morning or going to bed without the comfort of a hug and the security of having someone to guard your soul!! Maybe it’s this desperate effort of wanting someone to witness your life that makes people post their routines on social media hoping to leave behind a trail of earthly existence..

Maybe that comfort of feeling safe might never happen, might be the cortisol level is meant to be high at all times.. But I do know that a relationship always ends in heartbreak, either the love dies out or the partner, but being in love brings about unbearable pain at the end to counter the happiness and peace it brings when it sustains.. I understand humans are not designed to be alone and everyone fills the void with something, endless scrolling, screen time , house full of living beings being my escape, everyone finds out theirs..

Maybe that wake up call was harsh, but it’s a reality.. there probably exists nobody that can love you unconditionally and that’s unrealistic to expect too.. but I definitely can enjoy and share the love with people as long as it can last..