This is the year of things falling apart. This is the year of standing on the edge of things, looking back over my shoulder and wondering whether I should jump or not. This is the year of endings so quiet that only I can hear the door shutting. This is the year of rifts so loud the fissures seem to originate from my very core.
This is the year of panic.
This is the year of stretching thin and holding fort. Of not knowing where next month's rent will come from. Of feeling the imminent death of loved ones in my bones.
This is the year of being smiled at. A lot. 6 year old, 10 year old, 14 year old grins. Toothy grins, sweaty grins, book-seeking 'please help me ma'am' grins. 'Please read us one more story' grins. Life giving grins.
This is the year of fighting & holding ground.
The armour of love that my family has woven around me is soft, pliable and tough as nails. Shielded by this love, I’m growing into a new me that has better discernment. Love doesn’t endlessly take. That is not its job.
I don’t have time to waste anymore.I don’t have time to waste with people who are mean or disrespectful. I don’t have to stand around and take it. I can walk away. I don’t need to care about everything and everyone.
I don’t need to center the other person’s emotions, circumstances, trauma or dysfunction as if it is solely my responsibility to make it better for them. I can leave their shit at their door.
I don’t need to be hypervigilant about the other person’s moods, tastes, interests, likes & dislikes. I can relax and let it be revealed on its own timeline without the pressure of having to make it better.
I don’t need to rush to please. I can please without panic, from a place of truth.
Instead…
I show up as my authentic self, perfect & whole in who I am.
I let my personality out to play, knowing that other people’s proclivities, insensitivities & unmanageable emotional expulsions are theirs and not mine.
I use my authenticity to gauge who is healthy for me and who isn’t.
I go slower, not faster.
I tune into what my heart is speaking. I listen to its misgivings, its alarm bells, the slights it feels.
I tap into the infinite wells of love that exist for me.
I become fearless because of that love. I have nothing to lose.
I trust in time, and myself.
***
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
To wake up as if everything is normal, good even, and then have it hit you like a ton of bricks. It doesn’t come with words. I wish it did. Words you can negotiate with, words you can reshape. It invades like an oil spill, rising from your feet, past your thighs, to assault your gut, restrict your throat, grip your heart and settle like thick molasses under your skull. Black sludge overwhelms you and all you can do is surrender. You want to stay in bed forever. The thought of food churns your stomach.
You don’t want to die but could life itself stop for a while?
You're not 25 anymore. Or even 40. You’re not someone who can be defeated by a man’s betrayal. But you’re not someone who can summon hope for the future quite as easily either. Everything tastes of rust in your mouth. Who knew that a heartbreak-in-progress would leave such an aftertaste?
***
I journaled everything. Every sweet lie, every contact made on skin, every misgiving and every gut feeling. I don't know if I learned anything from it. Resilience maybe? Maybe how to carry the scent of foreboding in every shared delight?
I would've walked the plank for you, K. I would've made egregious errors. I would've crossed the line for you, my love. I would've purged it all.
Your betrayal saved me. But please, no more. No more.
Ya should've seen the gym-bro images that popped up when I googled 'photos of walking the plank'
I had to leave the streets where men prey on us. I am ugly but I have these breasts, you see.
I don’t have breasts but I have this skin, you see.
I cover my skin from head to toe but I have this stare, you see.
I don’t stare but I have seven decades on me, you see.
I am 12 but I have this un-policed gait, you see.
I have eyes, teeth, feet, nose, mouth, hair, ears. I have nails, you see.
There is nothing you could have done, Moumita. I want you to know you lived bravely till the last second. Because when did being scared ever save us? There’s nothing we could have done for you either, Moumita.
And so I entered the forest to find you. I sang loudly so that you would hear me on the tops of trees, where they kiss and weave into each other. I looked up at the sky and then I looked at the wet moss below. You were everywhere and nowhere all at once. I think you were at peace. I think you were with me, your parents and everyone who loved, cried & raged for you, all at once.
The grace of god by which it was not-me, brings no comfort today, Moumita. Because, here in this forest as we walk together, you whisper into my heart that you actually are me. You are me in this forest. I was you in that seminar room.
"How could you not be", you whisper from the highest branches of the trees I pass, "We are together in this aloneness now, Purnima. I will never not be a part of you. Don’t you know what my name means? Moumita - sweet friend."
Very gently, before he realises what he’s agreeing to, she has sought and received permission to lay him down and swing one leg across his torso so that he's safely scaffolded between her thighs. Then she lays her palms down on his bare chest.
“Will you do something for me?”
“What?” he asks, his face grimly professorial, wondering how this moment qualifies as a valid, logical experience.
“Will you let me rest my hands on your heart? Will you close your eyes and listen - really listen - to what I’m about to say?”
“Hmm”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes, yes,” he says, annoyance already creeping into his body. She can feel it between her legs.
“Ok, close your eyes. Listen.”
The heat from her palms warms his chest. He draws comfort from it. He feels trapped.
“What if I’m not a mad woman? What if there's a world filled with people like me, who feel deeply and live by that? Where people rage when they’re angry and love when they’re truly ready to love? What if in that world, you are the mad man? What if your words & performances fall flat, lacking the weight of sentiment and truth?
“What if I’m not actually overthinking? Or underthinking? What if I am thinking the exact amount required for the moment? What if it’s ok to be this person? Not just ok, but rational, sensible and good? What if it's a superpower which allows me to see everything you struggle to understand? What if this way of being, and my appearance in your life, was designed to help you heal?”
His lips curl up into a smirk. He is indulging her, she knows. But her palms are warmer now.
“Stay open, love. Just a little while longer.”
He stops smirking.
“You're missing out on the best of me when you discard me as a mad woman. Maybe mad women are who you need. I am proud of my madness, I cultivated it with love and fought to keep it alive. It allows me to see your heart, how hard you try, how tired you get sometimes and also how strong and steadfast you are. It allows me to see how fiercely you love your son.
“Understand this - the part of me that unsettles you the most is what'll make me your faithful ally. Trust me, this is the woman you want to be loved by”
Her thighs tighten around him. He squirms.
“Why does a woman showing you her full self, make you angry? When did me being me, become an offense to you?
“And what if it’s just me, love, showing up for you?”
He opens his eyes. He is angry. She knows she doesn’t have much time left.
“Close your eyes. Just a little bit more.”
He shuts his eyes again. His jaw is rigid. She wants to hold his face in her palms and kiss him. But not yet. She can feel his heart beat in her hands.
“So listen. This could go two ways.
You could choose to continue calling me crazy as though it were a disease. You could choose this moment to run out of patience with me. With us.
OR you could choose to listen to that one, lonely voice inside you that wonders if I’m right. That maybe, just maybe, trusting this mad woman might bring you relief. Choose this and I promise to protect your heart with every fibre of my being.
“But if you pick option ‘a’...,” she relaxes her grip around his body, “then you’re free to go. We've reached the end of our time together.”
She lifts her hands off his chest.
“You can open your eyes.”
She touches his face gently. There are storms raging in him. She is nervous now.
“So what will it be, my love?”
He takes a long breath. She feels him rise and fall under her. He opens his mouth to answer.
Somewhere there is someone for this ugly girl. Someone who speaks completes sentences containing feeling words and honest truths. Somewhere there is someone who remembers to stop, breathe and listen. To her. Somewhere there is someone who remembers how she said she was sad, she was sick, she needed time. Somewhere there is someone who wants to be unbroken before they reach for her. Somewhere there is someone who sees her ugly and because of it, calls her beautiful.
1. Inference One: Undiagnosed Problem with Alcohol & Gymming
Men posing with boot-shaped beer mugs
Men posing with 2 boot-shaped beer mugs
Men posing with boot-shaped beer mugs against a backdrop of a boot-shaped-beer-mug neon sign.
Men posing with muscles (their own & others')
Men posing with sweat
1. Inference Two: Aspirational Poachers
Men posing with tiger on leash
Men posing with white tiger on leash
Men posing with dead tiger on wall
Men posing with one leg on dead-tiger carpet
2. Inference Three: Good Morning Afficionados
Posters of red roses and 'Good Morning'
Posters of yellow roses and 'Good Morning'
Posters of 'Good Morning Life Is Too Short For *fill in the blanks*'
3. Inference Four: Lovers of Simplicity
Men who desire 'simplicity'
Men who want 'non-judgemental' partners
Men who want 'transparency'
Men who use Hritik Roshan's face as profile pictures
4. Inference Five: Seekers of Domestic Bliss
Men who pose with unidentified children
Men who pose with their own children
Men who pose with their wife and children
5. Inference Six: Highest Education
Men from IIMs want clean nails
Men from MIT want to fight misandry
Men from IIT
