Goodnight, Travel well

Most people will say that the worst part of a journey is its end, the part where you know it’s over. I, however, disagree.

A journey is always bitter sweet. We cringe, we cry, we laugh and smile through a journey. We drag ourselves through stormy days, more often than we would’ve liked. With the little time that we have, we miss knowing a lot of people better. Some of us wish a million times that we had talked some more, and shared some more; while some of us don't seem to realize that amidst the chaos.

It’s pretty normal for a journey to not be all smiles. It’s pretty obvious that we cursed away and wished a few times that it were over soon enough. But once we’ve lived through the journey, once we reach the very end and know it’s really over, that’s when we look back and somehow, strangely enough, only remember how wonderful it had all been.

There is so much to cherish and be thankful for that everything else that ever distressed us, begins to appear irrelevant now. We begin to assemble the little things scattered throughout the journey (the laughter, the conversations however small, the fun, and the lessons) and when we are done, these things don’t seem little at all.

We probably always knew, but towards the end, we finally begin to see people for all the wonderful things that they are and for all the wonderful things they made us feel. We forget how much we knew someone and feel glad that we knew them at all. And that’s when we want to go and hug each one of these people that we stumbled upon and met, and thank them for all the moments that we would have missed out on if not for them.

Somehow, all the bitter is forgotten and only the sweet remains.

And that’s why I don’t think the end of a journey is its worst part. I really don’t.

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Hopes and Fears

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that's all there is. Love & its duty, sorrow & its truth. In the end that's all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn.” 

It was nine years ago that I first went to boarding school. It was the first time that I was left amidst strangers, left to build some trust and comfort amidst the sudden queerness. During those first few days, I remember wondering what I had done to deserve the different sort of schooling and upbringing that I was being subjected to. I remember wondering why I couldn't have continued to be one of those kids who could just get home and watch TV and study whenever they feel like and sleep in their own rooms on their own beds. The reasons were clear, but somehow they didn't seem reason enough back then.

In that new place, it was the mutual search for these answers and comfort and trust that brought me close to people I had just met and begun to know. Probably, nothing binds people closer like empathy does.

Nine years hence, I have realized that the same doubt-and-empathy theory is put to application in every situation of our lives every day, connecting us to the people that we tend to call friends (more so, for the lack of a better word). Sometimes, I think it’s rather sadistic to presume that relationships work that way. Perhaps, they just begin that way and last for different reasons later on, while others end for the lack of one.

I don’t know where I am heading with this piece of writing. But on days like today, which are often, when I am by myself in my room with technology fulfilling my need for company, I begin to understand the importance of things. Of small conversations with people we don’t know too well; of letters that we don’t read often and again, but don’t throw away anyway; of those fights that happened ‘cause we cared too much; of those versions of ourselves that we have now outgrown enough to be embarrassed of; and of those little things that get us through the blues.

No matter what people say about being practical and not expecting in this tough world, I think I am glad I still continue to feel emotions that make me weep sometimes.

After all , "that's how we keep this crazy place together - with the heart..."

Into the Wild

“I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong... but to feel strong."

Photograph by Norman Parkinson, 1971

There is something about coming home. Every time that I am here, no matter after how long or for how long, this place lets me breathe, makes me feel many more emotions. My mom says it’s the lack of activity, but I think not running against the clock for once transforms me into something more alive and real.

Now that I have the time, I look back at the last two months that sprinted past in a blur. From being terribly delighted to breaking down in sorrow, from meeting the nicest of people to the realization that some were done playing their roles in my life: I would say I experienced a slice of Life in the last two months and how. However, as I write this, I feel tad bit proud, tad bit happy for having survived through all of it.

It’s optimistic how we start every chapter of our life believing that everything is possible. We believe that distances can be dealt with; we believe that some conversations can be made forever, and we believe that it’s all going to last. But as we begin to end one chapter and start another, we face reality; console ourselves, sigh and try to move on. Except, we rarely ever learn.

Hope. We human beings never cease to hope. But perhaps that’s what keeps us going.

Well, this is why we all need to get away once in a while. We ought to remind ourselves that people do live for hundred odd years and these blues at twenty are not so bad after all.

Amidst the cold rains, mountains and forests, I am going to try and do just that.

 "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;

 There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

 There is society, where none intrudes,

 By the deep sea, and music in its roar;

 I love not man the less, but Nature more... "

- Lord Byron