Things and such...

I got a new cellphone once. As a gift. I was very excited. It had all the features I needed and it was the first brand new phone I had ever used. True to my roots, I didn't even take off the plastic coating it had on its screen for the first few weeks. I took great care of it. I made sure all my keys and coins and pens and everything went in one pcket and the phone went in another. All this because it was new.

Then, a few weeks after I had got the phone, I was in a hurry to get somewhere. I quickly put my keys in my right pocket and rushed. I didn't realize the phone was in the same pocket. Later on, I saw some scratches on its surface. It didn't feel good. "But" I told myself, "its only the surface. As long as the phone works well, the scratches shouldn't matter".

A few weeks later, I was talking to someone while fidgeting with the phone. The phone fell out of my hand, on to the floor. It picked up some more scratches. And I felt bad. But less than the first time. The newness was wearing off.

Soon, the phone began to take tumbles more often. The plastic coating had come out ages ago. My keys left more scars on its surface and I routinely pushed coins into my pocket, rubbing it against the phone. I kept telling myself, "as long as it performs well...thats all that matters."

Soon, it wasn't just the cosmetic damage anymore. I spilt some hot coffee on it on one occasion. On another, I flung the phone towards the bed, missed it and it came apart. I didn't even bother to think about what was happening to the phone now. Because it wasn't new anymore.

Then, one day, I noticed the phone was in less than ordinary shape. It had scratches all over. The screen wasn't looking as bright as before. The battery had started dying quicker. I had no choice but to acknowledge that I had been quite shoddy. What started with just a scratch on the surface and caused mere cosmetic damage had grown to cause irreparable damage to the phone itself. And I had remained unperturbed so far because I was taking things for granted. I had gotten too comfortable with things and didn't bother about the upkeep of what was once a very beautiful thing.

I realized this. And then I realized something else. It wasn't just the phone...

"I am not sad..."

He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others - the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would sleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere, with someone. I am not sad...

Trapped

There ought to be a word to describe that inexplicable empty feeling that you feel in your stomach sometimes. When you just want to curl up and die. When you don't feel like living anymore, simply because there might be more misery than you have already seen.

If you don't have the guts to die, you want to do the next best thing. Leave everything and just go where no one can find you. You want hit that cold gray road, alone, and walk till your feet go numb and you can't feel them anymore. You want to walk on that road, emblazoned with sharp, spiky, jagged metal pieces and crinkled broken glass with shards so thin that you can't even point out where they sliced into your skin to cause you the intense pain you feel. You want the howling wind and the harsh sheets of frozen rain to lash against your naked chest. And you want the cold to pierce your skin and drill into your bones to make you feel totally incapacitated to fight. Just so that you can find out how much of this cruel pain you are able to take. When really, you wish that you cross that limit and all this just ends. You find that you are really really sick and hold a twisted desire to be a masochist. At least that would make you like pain. And there seems to be so much of it. Would it be a little better if you liked the misery? But most of all you want to resist the temptation of believing in all those colors, fragrances, smiles, happiness and beauty of this world. Because deep down you know, that all of it is just a very flimsy facade that shabbily conceals the vast ugliness of this world.

As you walk naked on that dead, dark, and quiet road, it all flashes by you. The misery, the pain, the suffering, the lies, naivette, the regrets, the censure, and the condemnation. And there are some flashes of the 'happy' times when the pain was missing. You are actually afraid of those times now because should you have to face them again, you don't how you would measure up. Happiness and positivity seem like such a big lie that you think you can never pretend to buy into it again. But you don't want to think of that. Right now you just want to keep trudging into the arms of the only loyal friend you seem to have. Pain. It always lurked in the shadows and you knew it would be there throughout your life. You can't imagine a time when it is not around and now you have grown to like it. That's the only truth you know. It is cliched, but while the going is good, your friends know who you are. And when the going is tough, you know who your friends are.

You hate yourself when you realize you are able to look at all the innocence and beauty around you and scoff at its seasonality and temporariness. You are unable to laugh a truly happy laugh and you can't enjoy anything anymore. You can only smile to yourself when you think of how all the beauty and innocence will die soon and pain and suffering will take over. The only constant.

Theres a new game you play with yourself. You enter a room full of happy people and start guessing when each of those people will die or become miserable. You make small bets with yourself and celebrate when you get it right. And then you feel sick and nauseated with yourself. And the cycle repeats.

"I know the pieces can fit together perfectly...cuz I have watched them fall apart."

Reason, Season, and a Lifetime...By Anonymous

"People walk into your life for one of three spells. Some come for a reason, some for a season...and some for a lifetime.

People who come in for a Reason are the ones we usually call godsends. Thats because they are. They come into our lives when we pray for something or need something desperately...when we need support, physical, emotional, or spiritual. When we absolutely need another person to come to the party and take the scene by storm, they arrive. We pray, and providence answers. These people usually have a stunning impact on us. We are unable to process anything around them. We reel under their charm and they make us feel ecstatic. Thats what they are there for. They are there for a Reason.

Then, uneventfully, they walk out. Nothing has to happen for them to walk out. Our relationship with them just ends. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they just walk away. The reason for them coming into our lives is served. Our prayers have been answered and now we both have to move on.

People who come for a Season do so because its our turn to learn something from others. It can be something we have not been fortunate enough to learn, something we have a wrong perception about, or simply something totally new. They walk into our lives and bring us experience or laughter. We realize, as we are with them, that we are changing into someone that we wouldn't have been able to, by ourselves. We learn a lot. And we grow. These people bring us tremendous amount of joy. But only for a season. And seasons change. People change too and it can't be helped. The experiences though stay with us for a while after these people leave.

And there are those who come into our lives for a lifetime. Their arrival is rarely ceremonious. They walk into our lives and we barely take notice. They may not have the most beaming personalities or a charismatic aura. They are usually regular people who grow on you and you get comfortable. You get used to having them around and a bond develops. Something that can't be explained but can be clearly felt. Our interaction with them teaches us lessons for a lifetime. Our job is to simply be a good student and learn these lessons well. We should love these people and apply the learning in all our relationships. These people will never walk out on you. You can try to shut them out, but you can do so only physically. This relationship, being one of a lifetime, will be fraught with change, acceptance, regret, and realization.

The key is to identify which persons in our life are there for reasons, seasons, and a lifetime. The catch here is that if we try hard enough, we can convert one kind to the other. Because, and the bottom line remains, people change. And yet, this conversion is time bound. Once people leave, it is very difficult to get them back.

The tragedy of life is that we often cannot identify some people correctly. Thats because the length of these spells cannot be predicted. Reasons may last for years and seasons for decades. A lifetime can be lived through moments separated from each other by years. Its not all clean cut and thats what makes it difficult to identify.

So make sure you let go the ones who were there for a reason, learn from the ones who were there for a season, and keep the ones who are there for a lifetime."