gift ~

I realized after a long time, today. the gift of kindness. something that is so rare in this world. . this “dog-eat-dog world”, like you say. i’ve missed home, and mum dad so much in the past few months, especially during the time i was sick. i was grateful to weasel and monica for their kindness when i couldnt stand, sit, bend, walk without support, not even sleep except on my belly. . i felt grateful everytime you came with me to see the doc. . you had to miss classes but you never complained about that to me.

before coming here, i now figure i only knew kindness from my family. they have done for me so much more than i’ve deserved. and i could never return in gestures, nor words ever. they have protected me as much as i could have made possible with all my stubbornness, and they have healed me in the most soothing manner possible, letting me grow, letting me fly, and yet binding the beast that i am to a hearth, that always warmed me in mum dad’s unconditional love..

its been over 6 months i havent seen mum dad.. i havent been in the simple comfort of home.. when most of this span was when i needed that the most. but i guess the Lord has his ways of making us strong. . of being it when we havent any other option.

today after a long long time i felt warmed by a gesture of kindness. i dont know how this sounds. stupid maybe. but like all other things i feel that sound stupid, this was a beautiful and important realization for me. . i remember my whole began with school. getting beaten up by bullies in kindergarten, coming back home with stapled fingers. eating lunch after lunch year after year sitting by myself. . and with a book, or with a notebook and pencil scribbling to glory pretending i didnt need anybody and i was sitting alone out of choice. but i would feel so ashamed, i could never read more than one page of any book in those 20minutes, it stung me to feel other prying eyes boring into me. growing up, it never helped being a teachers pet, assigned that hideous job of “helping the other girl” who didnt do well enough on her papers. i always thought i was no one better to teach somebody else. and i know all those girls i hesitatingly “helped” through elementary and middle school. . also felt the same. i could tell with all the silly pranks and afflictions i faced at their hands, that now do seem silly. sometimes i used to wonder if it was because of the strange stringent environment that a girls’ convent offered. maybe it bred ill feelings for girls for other girls… i could never tell. but i had no choice anyway. but being in a convent till 17, i do know was one reason i always imagined myself dying an old maid, a Virgin Mary-plain-jane at some nunnery.

but God seems to have had a better plan for me. and it seems almost happening since i met sire. atleast if not more, i know i wouldnt die an unloved unkempt, awkward old hag.

when i was 12 i met this bunch of girls who didnt criticize me for who i was. if some of them didnt like me, they never made it vocal. . and 8th and 9th standard were the happiest time in my school days, relatively. i made a few friends who liked me. even though i dont hear from them anymore, that was some days spent well. even though i never spoke at all in those days, i know they didnt mind and understood i was that way. even thought i cracked no jokes out of my pathetic painful shyness, i did get a lot of laughs.. and that was really rare for me. 10th 11th and 12th were a pain in the hole. that was the time when my submissiveness, and the morbid shyness morphed into what people today call placidly, “snobbishness” and “aggression” ! i dont know how it happened, but i guess i got to observe a few human specimens up too close. . and i guess the unpretty sight simply got into my wiring system and messed my circuits for life. i learned in those 3 years. . especially in 2003, the year of my life when i spoke 10 words a day only to my parents on the dinner table. . that life is far from a safe haven, that meanness is comparatively kinder than all the cruelty one is exposed to when their fate wills it. that submission makes things worse. that shyness is the world’s easiest weapon to hurt one who is too humble to say it out loud. that, the more i fear, the more it ll haunt me.. that its inevitable for us to go through all those lessons that life wishes us to learn, in the form of people it wills we meet. and as puppets we meet them, love them for their masks, and lie in dark for years afterward despising ourselves for having trusted blindly, for seeing all that should be burned. for still thinking of demons as friends. one morning we just wake up with a mask on our face. and then it takes another eternity, to find somebody to bring you back . . who can make you look you in the mirror and not hate yourself. . i waited everyday to find that soul who would bring mine back. undo all those spells and bring me back as i was when i was one sunny morning when i was 8. i didnt care that i hadnt a friend. i didnt mind that i was hated. i wasnt embarassed that i wasnt stinking rich. . every morning i held my head high and went to school, came back into my mums arms, played with my brother and ran to greet dad when he returned from work. i was rich ! i had everything i wanted. love, mum and dad to rescue me from nightmares, my brother to give me al the answers, delicious comforting food every single day. . mums hand stroking my hair. . and mine clasped around dad’s. there was no other world i imagined could be safer. . i was richer than any other kid i knew. . after all my wait, i met sire.. and he saw more than my mask. . and gave me my most precious gift..the infinity of all the happiness and peace i knew as a child. that i knew when i was 8.. and i ran barefeet on green grass everytime it rained just for the joy of it. . the year i decided i would become a novelist. . the year that was my happiest. . until 2008. . 2009. . 2010. . my 3rd year living with and falling over and over  in love with you everyday, sire.

college was another nightmare in its ways. i hate to even think of it now.

but it got over. . . and so did everything i had to do with all the people i knew in those 3 years. . barring one girl i still love talking to when i can. she married and has children now, but i will always remember her as the golden haired, pale-skinned, thin, beautiful and graceful biker-chic typo . . who loved to sketch, wrote poetry. . loved where she lived. . the green grass at her feet, the breeze in her hair, the lambs and goats she chased in happy abandon. . the one who dreamed of playing the acoustic, and loved Bon Jovi. she always understood.. she was another child i knew who loved nature. . and still does in form of a beautiful baby that she cradles in her arms, and another that she’s carrying. even though she could never express it, she was one prson through out my misery of 1st 2nd and 3rd year. . who listened. . and who never broke my heart. everyone else did. and did it perfectly. something i know will never let me feel the same for them again. . no matter what. be it shanil, be it varun, be it anyone else.

i dont know why i revisited all those old years gone by. . being myself in front of others is so difficult for me now. . like im impaired and sometimes i wonder if its my handicap. . but its got so ingrained in all years to hide behind a stone faced mask. . simply in self-defense that i just cant help it anymore. today, i am so adept at feigning aggression, it comes easily. today i can frame myself according to the people im with, and according to every whim my mind wants to indulge in. there are times i know im not myself in front of my parents either, cause despite loving their loony wild child. . they never understood me quite exactly. . and its alright that they never will. i dont have any girlfriend like other girls do.. to sit and chat up, to gossip with. . or simply to be myself with, tell her my deepest fears and my darkest secrets. . some of the things that never interested me. . maybe because they were things i never got to do. every guy i have met and been friends with says they have never known another girl like me. on the other hand, every girl i met either took me for a doormat while a played along, or hated me because she could not understand me. i didnt know who i was. i didnt know what was wrong with me. . i was so alone, and i was starting to get really sick of it. i just wanted to talk, and i needed someone to listen, and not judge. . but with you i feel so myself. . i can talk for hours without thinking, say the stupidest things, make the silliest  noises. . you’re the only person besides myself who knows everything about me.  . the only person who can make me smile. everytime i see you walkin around the bend in the road, towards me.. my heart skips a beat, and i feel my cheeks flushed warm… you re the only person who can make me smile, and laugh. . doing it with anyone else seems like a chore and gives me a headache doing it more than 5minutes… you re the only one who can make me the happiest girl. you re the only person who can make me feel like a woman at the same time. the part of me that was dead until i met you. . the part of me tht dies for the world outside of you. . and that aches in memory of your touch. . every single day every single waking moment when you re not with me. . maybe the reason i love slippin my hand in yours the moment i see you. . it has the power to calm me instantly. pretty much like my feelings that flow freely, without barriers. . when i know you will read my letters and understand, and when i bury my face in your chest and cry.

Lord answered my prayers with you sire. . in you i found all the missing pieces. all the comfort that i longed to feel. the freedom i had missed since than sunny morning when i was 8. . and i found it all back. most importantly i felt loved, and i knew there is someone in this world who loves me for who i am. . and not simply because they are biologically programmed to do so, like my parents. . i love my parents. . they made me. . they nurtured me inspite of all my stupid ways. . they loved me. but you had no obligations.. you had no reasons to bear with me and my stupid ways except the fact that you love me… thats all i can think. i was touched today when you slipped that money into my hands this evening. . not because this time i went the longest without cash. . i ve had to forgo needs that cost meager amounts. . not because of any other thing except that i felt like your own. i know a thankyou will never be enough. . and no amount of gestures will be enough to return this feeling. . i dont know. . it simply made me feel so loved. it was something only my parents have done with me… being given without asking for it. . and today u did it. . despite not being naturally programmed to do it. . despite the bad person that i am you love me so much. . and its not just about today.. not the past, not the future. . but simply the fact that you do. . and that you’re there for me no matter what. . i can fight any battle in the world just knowing that much.

thankyou for everything. maybe i ll never be able to make u understand how happy and gratefu l i feel that you are with me. . something i will always guard with my life, besides guarding you. i feel so happy to be alive. in these 2 years we spent together.. i forgot that old feeling of wanting to go to bed and never waking up. i wish i cud do half of some like tht for u.. i would be the happiest person to have lived..

i love you sire. the most.