The strokes of serendipity

The end of an intriguing year is round the corner. The year which changed everything in my life. The year in which I learnt to fight, to laugh in pain, to enjoy the suffering, to take risks for the things I badly wanted and importantly I learnt to live. And the sweetest part of it was to realize how much I love her and in fact I learnt I love her more than what I used to when she was with me . Surprisingly that isn’t showing any signs of bowing down to the force of time. Finally, it is the year which brought me to this beautiful place. And if not for her I wouldn’t have been here, because she was one of the important reasons I came here.

I haven’t totally sunk into this place yet, so what I have is just broken words to talk about it. A place that’s bustling with activity for the first 4 days, which is wild for the next 2 days and deserted on the last day.Wide roads, unpredictable weather, short skirts, mini-skirts and no skirts. A land where beer is cheaper than water,cheesy stink every where,an accent that chokes you, food that kills your taste buds, rules, money, hot girls, clubs, middle finger(it’s as cool as a hand wave) ,ice in freezing water, snooping cops, fuck, ass and bitch(the words which are used as gracefully as hello and hi).

My stay has been exciting so far but not without hiccups every now and then. At a point of time things went so bad that I wanted to go back desperately. And once again if not for her I would have come back like a coward, far away from me her memories still keep driving me forward.

One of the other reasons(apart from her) I came this far was to learn. Be it about myself, life or education it isn’t falling short of my expectations so far. I missed home, that made me realize the importance of home and parents ,which I hardly respected all these years. I missed my friends, that forced me to be a friend first and apparently I made new and rather important ones. My work here was a nightmare(and it still is the same), that pushed me harder and tested my worth instead of insulting my worth. I boozed until I puked and did crazy things, that reminded me of those few principles I laid down for myself long back. I fell sick, horribly sick, that showed me who cared for me . I had a hard time understanding the accent here, that forced me to speak more and listen better( I still remember those initial days where the black lady in the subway would ask me ‘wakaing’…and it took me few visits to understand what she really meant was what kind of sub(wakaing) and I still go to that place to just hear that lady which reminds me how much I have changed)… I don’t have enough time for myself and not enough time to sleep either. This made me realize the value of time and sleep. I manage my time better now and as far as time for myself is concerned, every midnight at around 2 I walk back home alone and those 2 minutes is the only time I need to talk to myself and to keep me going for the next day. I met new people who taught me people can’t be good or bad,it’s only our relations which can take either side. I lost some serious weight. I feel better now, so I look better now. My body feels light and my heart feels lighter. Talking about my heart, every now and then the smoke from my past comes flying into my eyes reminding me the pain of losing her. In a way I feel that’s good for that is making sure I don’t turn into a heartless stone. Finally, the question ‘Did I give up walking for the sake of flying’ keeps popping up once in a while. And the irony is that sometimes I feel I am neither walking nor flying. But it didn’t take me much effort to realize I will have my moments to fly and moments to walk. All I got to do is, wait for those moments.

Although some things still concern me like calls from back home at odd time sends jitters into my life. Choking distance from my best friend gives me restless moments every day. My attempts to find someone to teach me how to write hasn’t gone well either and many more.  However, I realized my life is right on track only when things are not going good. I have to be worried only when things are going my way. My life was never supposed to be easy and I will never let it run easy myself. And I chose this life because I didn’t want to reach that point of time again in my life where I don’t have the strength to look back and no hope to move forward. I have to stay awake to be alive and I would not have ended up in a better place than this to keep me awake. The beauty of this place is its weather, it’s so unpredictable and never constant, it’s more like a mirror reflecting my own life. Every experience here is a chance for me to get better, every second I live here is a step towards being happy from being contended, and every person that comes into my life here is destiny, meant to change my life in some way.

The perfect ending….

I didn’t have to wait much for the day to arrive. The day I assumed everything would end and probably my own life, and it was pretty much eventless with me sitting in my room and lost In my thoughts. Went to her house and watched the activity out there like a coward( I didn’t have the courage to go inside). Can’t remember for how many days I was the same. But things started to move slowly but surely. I accepted whatever happened and forced myself to move ahead now that everything was over. It was painfully tough taking each step from there but something inside kept driving me ahead.

 

Soon realized that I was so overwhelmed by the pain that I failed to notice there were far better things in my life to feel happy about rather than holding on to one painful experience. I held her so close to my eyes to see anything going around and I was the one to be blamed for that.My best friend was walking right by my side holding my hand all the while and I foolishly ignored her(between my best friend is my girl’s friend ). I started to reach out to old & new friends .Spent time with my family and one day things started to move (not by much though). There was still that part of me which hated her for some reason I had to figure out. Then a thought occurred to me like a flash, I sat down and listed out all those things which were wrong in my life and those which I blamed her for. Looking at that list a few things were related to her and most of it weren’t . It was very obvious that I lost her for ever but the love and memories I had with her didn’t had to end with our relationship. Thats when I decided to undo all those things (atleast most of them).

 

It wasn’t as easy as I thought, but life started throwing at me experiences which solved all those things one by one. As if someone read that list or the one above answered it, things started to return to normal. I got one old picture of her in my wallet which I thought I lost it(I blamed her for even this). Similarly I started to get back everything I lost. And few months down the line I see everything on the list were solved except one which was the toughest one and I knew it was my call and life would not be so generous about this one. I always blamed her for me not continuing my studies ,which was rubbish. She never asked me stay back although she never asked me to go either. So this was the toughest choice to make between living a well placed life or living a life with regret. But then I decided I don’t want to go through whatever I had gone through from an year again. At least not for her(probably another girl who might or might not come way, we will talk about this later.) This last step tested me to the extreme and I probably will write about it sometime.

 

So here I am all dressed up, just had one last ride on my bike which we rode on together. Ready to leave my home behind for the world ahead in pursuit of clearing that one last regret. I might look like a fool or I am already one. But it doesn’t matter as long as I don’t have anything against her. The reason I am writing about this right now with other important things to care of about my journey is that this is the one last time I am going to write about her. It will be a completely different life from now on. A question might arise wont I miss her? What the hell, I will surely miss her a loads but I have enough memories of her to live with. My 5 senses can still feel her presence. Her smile flashing around me, the scent of her perfume still lingering, I can still feel the warmness of her touch around my arms, her childish laughter echoing in years and the taste of her beautiful lips are all I have right now and probably this I what I will need for the rest of my life.

 

Life also answered one question which had been haunting me for a long time, if she wasn’t meant to be with me then why did she have to come into my life and then leave it. She came into my life to teach me how to love and then she left to teach me how to live. As my best friend always said everything happens for a reason, and there will be a point of time in life where you will understand that reason. Probably I reached that point of time at last. I thought our love story had a crash landing and it ended in a bad note. It wasn’t the end at all, Now I can call this the end with her happy with her marriage and I am learning to be happy as well. It is a happy but complicated love story in a way.

 

I wrote this one in a hurry approximately 30 minutes so the flow might not be that good as previous ones( assuming the previous ones were good, otherwise please ignore this part). But I liked this way of putting down my thoughts spontaneously. Will probably right about my journey to Unites States in my next and hopefully it’s going to be a happy one unlike the last time.