Past Forward

It was raining. I was humming away to “Mann Mohana” while doing the dishes. And then out of nowhere, I thought of him. Maybe it was the rain or maybe it was the song, which he used to make me sing almost every day. It is funny how my heart beats faster when I think of him. Even now. After all these years. Whoever said love is sweet only in the initial stages probably didn’t actually fall in love. Or maybe it was a guy. I don’t know. But for me it has always been sweet. To know that there is someone who loves you in spite of your flaws. To know that there is someone who will listen to your confessions and still not judge you. To know that there is someone who will not hang up on you when you just woke him up at 2 in the morning to cry about a fight with your best friend. To know that, that someone still loves you even though he knows that you are a little childish. It is even sweeter when all these someones is one person. And that is what he was for me.

Standing there, looking at the slight drizzle through the window, took me back to those days. The long talks on the phone... the bike rides in the rain hugging him tight… silly fights… long chats… stolen kisses… It was all so special. He was mine. My life. The sole reason for my existence.

But then, one day, everything changed. I watched him walking away from me. He was helpless. He knew he couldn’t give me the life I wanted. He had to let me go. And so he did. Leaving me in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly, I had this big hole in my life. All I felt was a numbness. Lot of time at my hands, but nothing to do, no one to talk to, nothing to live for. The same robotic schedule every day. The same monotonous timetable. Fake smiles, pretended normalcy, I was in that black hole where no one could help. Where I don’t let anyone, not even my close friends come near me. That phase, when I just wanted to die crying. I didn’t want anyone to help me. I wanted to be miserable. I wanted to bleed. I wanted the pain. Coz that’s all I had left of him. The memories, the pain. I wanted to die. I wished I would be terminally ill. I wished there was some way I could just stop living. If only there was a way to just die. I still don’t know how I climbed out of that misery.

Years passed. Life changed. Priorities changed. Abhi happened. I still don’t know if I loved Abhi when I accepted his proposal. It was definitely not a love match. He did not sweep me off my feet. I did not feel butterflies in my stomach when he smiled at me. But I felt comfortable with him. I told him about him on one of our chats. I don’t know how I expected him to react. He patiently listened to everything and at the end he just said, “It happens. You have got to let it go. It was not your fault. Stop punishing yourself.” Maybe that is when I decided….

I was pulled out of my muse by some movement behind me. Before I could turn around, he hugged me from behind. “Good morning”, he said nuzzling his face in my hair. I just stood there, relishing the moment. Yes, somewhere on the way, I had started loving him. I had finally made peace with the fact that he belongs to the past. He has no place in my future. My future is this man.

Image Courtesy : loverofsadness.net