La tristesse durera toujours

“La tristesse durera toujours.” These were Vincent Van Gogh’s last words to his brother Theo, while Vincent was on his deathbed. This translates to “The sadness will last forever.” Well, wasn’t he right? Happiness is indeed fleeting, like a passing affair. Momentary bliss. Sadness never leaves your side; it's always present in your grief and your loneliness.

Today for me feels like I survived a massive storm and am just trying to lick my wounds. I’m not feeling joyous in any way, because I am bracing myself to face another storm that’s heading my way in a few days. It will be a bloody one and most likely will push me into the dark pit. I will have to wait and see how that goes.

I was wondering what my last words would be. I want them to be just say the same. “The sadness will last forever…”

No way out

I need help. Like I need to find a way out of my mind. 

I wish I could meet Plath’s ghost someday… would have asked her to help me figure this out. Probably she would’ve suggested baking my brains out like she had done. 

Dunno, probably one day I might follow her path. When I had asked AI, to review my writing, it said that the style is somewhat similar to Plath and Woolf. Both were mentally unstable, to put it mildly. Weren’t they? Well, that explains it.

My mind is burning like a furnace now as I am writing this. Anyway, I need to stop now, and probably think of a good day to bake my brains.   

trapped

How to console an anxious 89-year-old insomniac that she was not entirely the reason why her 31-year-old son died by suicide? While she wasn't entirely innocent, the circumstances compelled him to take that step. It's been over 20 years now. I really want her to sleep peacefully for a few hours, for at least one night. 

It's so difficult at times to deal with her anxiety, the endless vicious loop her thoughts have fallen into. She's in depression and needs therapy, but lives alone. She's so terribly lonely, and living with such a mental state that it pains me. I can never understand the grief of losing one's son, but I can definitely see her pain, and I cannot do anything about it. It scares me sometimes.

She's a tough cookie like that, my grandma. But istg I am extremely worried about how she's dealing with her anxiety and insomnia. She's diabetic and can't walk properly now. We both have never really been fond of each other. She always favoured my brother over me. Always favoured my uncles over my mother. But still, she's family. My mother loves her regardless, and by extension, probably I love her, too. 

I wish I had the ability to be nonchalant when it comes to these things. I don't know why I have the habit of carrying that pain along once I leave her by the door. She seemed so fragile. I'm finding it so difficult to carry that pain in my already damaged heart. It takes one to know one, they say. I can see how she's struggling to navigate her life in a pit of darkness that she's trapped in, and I can't do anything about it.

I just hope one day she will be free of these intense feelings and darkness and sleep well in peace. 

Hibernation

If only humans could hibernate. I would take a couple of weeks off my life every month. Living in an overcrowded, chaotic, dirty, and smelly city like Mumbai makes me envious of the people who are geographically privileged. 

I'm realising how much my intolerance has increased towards noise, incessant chatting, gossip, and people hovering around. I'm struggling to make peace with the fact that these things are beyond my control. Why can't I be zen about it? WHY? 

I know it's a me-problem that I get so overwhelmed and anxious about these things that it simply shuts my brain down. I simply can't function and feel like sleeping forever to escape the world. I long for a silence that I know I would never get. I have always been surrounded by extroverted energies who, problematic enough for me, get charged by social interaction. Why are people so unaware of how loud they are or how their actions bother others? Why do people have to gossip so much? Why can't they mind their own fucking business? Why do they have to feel good when someone else is having a bad day? Why does their "compassion" feel performative and more like a nosy curiosity? Why are they always thinking and yapping about themselves so much that they are not considerate of bothering people in public spaces? 

Why is it so difficult to stay emotionally controlled all the time? Why? Sometimes, I wonder why I live in this city, which feels like a living hell sometimes.

What should I do about this increasing intolerance of mine? Die? Or maybe burst my eardrums so I go deaf? I really don't care if that turns out to be fatal. We are all going to turn into dust anyway. 

Are you okay

I woke up in the middle of the night yesterday with a horrible nightmare of someone watching over me. N saw that I woke up and went back to sleep. At that moment, I wanted him to hold me and ask a simple question: "Are you okay?" I would have maybe hugged him tightly and gone back to sleep. He was tired from his travel. I understand. He didn't ask me and went back to sleep. A wave of emotion I can't name now washed over me. Something heavy sat on my chest; I tossed around, got tired, and fell asleep.

Is there no one I can go to when I want to feel safe? That one space or person where I can simply say anything without being judged? The one space that takes care of me for a change, asks me, "Are you really okay?" or reads and understands the giant heaviness that's made home in my chest since I was a kid. That one space or person who will care enough to actually read my soul? I know it's a bit too much of an ask. But I can do it here. Who cares anyway.

I was asked in passing why I don't share what's going on in my mind... why I bottle up my feelings. I honestly had no answer to that. Or maybe I did, and I was unable to articulate it, and they thankfully didn't probe further.

That's what usually happens. People never probe further or truly wait to listen. It's understandable. Everyone is so busy with their own problems and their own life; who would care to truly, patiently listen if you are going through something? No one does, unless there's something in it for them. 

I sometimes think of my childhood and wonder if I should write it down here to process all the memories that still trouble me. They sneak in and catch me unawares and linger, adding weight to my already heavy chest. Sometimes I fear what if anyone who reads it thinks that I am romanticising my pain or self-victimising? But then, who cares to read and listen these days? No one. 

Maybe doing this will help me heal in any way? 

I think it is this quiet space of mine that will help me get rid of this chronic heaviness. Dunno... Let's see. 

 

intimacy

Speaking to that one person through your eyes and expressions, knowing that they will understand what you want to say and respond to you with a blink or a quick tilt of the head and a smile...

 

their eyes searching you when they don't see you, and the relief that washes over their face when your eyes meet... and you see a quiet assurance in their eyes that they are here... with you. 

or the longing to see them as you stare at their empty swivel chair and dark cabin... 

how you felt their eyes on you, as they understood your silence, even when they weren't looking directly at you... 

or in knowing that you both love the same things but are never able to talk about it...

their watchful gaze, making sure you are safe... 

or tucking a pillow under your neck for support as you sleep... 

that sharing of comfortable silences, knowing they aren't going anywhere... 

or sharing a cigarette or a joint, feeling the damp traces of their lips on the same filter... 

searching their eyes for approval of the colours you're wearing... 

or speaking to each other in a crowd with words only you both would understand...   

the luminescent electricity that courses through your body as their fingers trace your tatts all over... 

or the burning desire to know what their lips might taste like when yours are only an inch apart from theirs...

or the sensual rhythm your bodies sync into when the romantic tension releases... 

Isn't intimacy an underrated word? 

disappearing sense of belonging

On my recent visit to my home, my mom quietly took out my engagement and reception photo albums and showed them to my sister-in-law. I was wondering why she got them out on that particular day, for no rhyme or reason. After gleefully watching the photos and riding the nostalgia wave, she told me to take these albums back with me. "We are decluttering the house since it's anyway going for redevelopment in a few months," is what she said later to me while I was stepping out of the house to head to my place. 

Maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic here, but I felt a small nudge in my heart. Over the years, as I got married and moved out, I could see how gradually the house I grew up in and once called home no longer held my scent. Apart from a large wall frame of my brother and me, and my trophies from my college days, there is no trace of me in there. I understand that they have to move out, and then gradually everyone needs their space. But the sense of belonging that I once had with that house... I could know where all the things are even if I am blindfolded; I can't do that anymore. 

It's not that my relationship with my parents or my brother is estranged. They are all there when I need them. The physical distance is, at times, painful. Is it possible to miss them even when they are around? My mother never really got me, and my father had his guard up all the time. He never let anyone in, nor did he try to form that bond with us. The only person I spoke to heart-to-heart was my brother. Now that he is busy with his own work and newly married life, that has affected the way we normally spoke. I understand; I am not cribbing about it. It's just that... all of this hurts badly. The sense of belonging which I once had is somehow slowly disappearing. Now that the building will be taken down for redevelopment, I will have nothing to remind me of the house I once grew up in. Somehow, I am getting this sense of rootlessness, not just from the physical place I once called home. But also with the people who share my bloodline. 

Again, this is not to say that I'm not happy for them. They love me to the moon and back; I am well aware and grateful for that. I probably miss my time with them.

I miss my father when I hear old Hindi songs, when I see how comfortable today's kids are talking with their fathers and how I still am not. How lonely he is and how I am so like him in so many ways. I miss him so much that it hurts. But I can't say this to him. I can't tell him that I love him and miss him. I miss how he used to reload my wallet with good changes of 10s, 20s, and 50s for my travel allowance without me asking for it. I miss him when the burden of problem-solving falls on me entirely at times and remember how he did it when we were growing up. I can see the loneliness in him and can somehow see the same reflected in me. Anyway, don't want to open that door of memories for now. Writing this as I am in the office, and I don't want to spiral.