“Let’s waste time
Chasing Cars
Around our heads.”
~ ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol
***
She entered the restaurant with
her new lover. Sitting across three tables was him with a new woman. Maybe his
new lover too. It seemed so unreal, the present moment…just like some surreal
dream. The situation felt like a Woody Allen movie only with undertones of deep
emotions and regrets. They didn’t know why they let each other go. Actually she
did know but she was in denial. They promptly let each other walk away. It hit them
later. She sat with her new lover by the window-side table overlooking the
street outside which was bursting into life. She left it to her new lover to
decide what to order for dinner. In the meanwhile she looked at the world pass
by outside the window. It was her favourite thing to do. She thought about all
the people out there who were living their lives and were getting by every day
and facing life as it came. Why was it difficult for her to do the same?
She looked over to him and the
memories came rushing back. Past became present. Her thoughts were racing at a
blinding speed. Believing in past and living in denial. She always did that.
But what about him drew her so closer to him? Maybe it was the fact that she
thought even he was equally damaged as she was. Even he had a darker side just
as she did which would enable them to bond. But a relationship which
rested on the foundations of misery is very fragile. She explored and visited
the dustiest corners of her soul when they were together. She broke down all
the walls for him and let him in, one room at a time which was full of
melancholy. She often felt lonesome in his company.
She loved it when both of them
got high on drugs and had the most touching conversations. She never forgot the
things that he said to her. Not because they mattered, but because they made
her feel like she did. Sometimes the silence that pervaded was comforting.
There was no need to talk. But there was always something that lacked in the
relationship. She could feel it all the time but could not pin it down. She
thought of herself as the ocean. He was fascinated by her depth and emptiness. Except that he simply was a tourist and not an explorer. She did not blame him for it one
bit. She often had to apologize to him for the way she felt. She realized that
she need not apologize for feeling sad. That wasn’t a sign of a weak mind. It
was just that she felt too much. There were things inside her that no one else
could see. They held her down like anchors and they drowned her deep in the
sea. And that was okay. But he didn’t understand an ounce of it.
***
Dinner
was served. She wasn’t really present in the moment but she managed to put up a
show. She engaged in half-hearted conversation with her new lover. Now it was
time to leave. She glanced at him for one last time. Even he looked at her.
Their eyes met which seemed to talk a language which only both of them could
understand. She left the restaurant with her new lover and gave him a goodbye
kiss. She took a cab back home. She loved the city at night. Amidst the entire
chaos and hustle bustle, there was a sense of calmness that permeated her
exterior and managed to make her soul stir.
She
entered her apartment. It was absolutely clean. Without even changing, she went
to the kitchen and made herself a cup of green tea. She poured the tea into her
favourite cup. She went and sat on the sofa. She kept the cup on the table
beside the sofa. She grabbed a paper and a pen and began writing –
“I just hope, for your sake that you one
day find a deep sense of promise in yourself. That you manage to brush away the
rubble in your head and find a way to love, and to be loved. It’s something
you’ve been without for far too long. And as far as I am concerned, I will live
life as it comes and hope for the best.”
She folded the paper and put it
in a blue envelope. She sealed the envelope. She felt elated. She found that it
was necessary to let things go; simply because of the reason that they are
heavy. In the midst of hate and misery, she found there was, within her, an
invincible love and hope. In the midst of tears, she found there was an invincible
smile. She sipped the tea. She was finally at peace with herself.
***
“Is it even possible to think of somebody
in the past?”
~ Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre