The Rain Must Fall

*Technically, this post is about yesterday*

This morning I told someone I had a feeling today would be an extraordinary day. I had enough time in the morning to lather myself with copious amounts of Bath and Body Works moisturiser, which meant that I ended smelling of fresh eucalyptus (and I still do). Something gave me the idea, today would be extraordinary. It wasn’t. I just had to get that out of the way.

Twice I’ve written about this girl whose blog I used to avidly follow. Her writing is scintillating. I know no other blogger who has such an erudite command over her adjectives, her poetry. However, over a course of time I started to read her less and less because she became dispirited and her writing almost always pulled me down. Her honesty on the blog is sometimes scary to me as well. Her life is up for scrutiny and most of her readers are unkind. However, I wanted her to be the Sylvia Plath of our generation. I wanted her to have that courage. I still hope she does. She’s quite fantastic. If she wrote a memoir, she’d do as well as Elizabeth Gilbert.

The reason I bring her up is that while watching her, I have learnt not to say certain things on my blog. I’m scared of the interpretations people might make. So, even though, this is a personal blog, it doesn’t have my whole life plastered on it. Unlike her, I’m not all that brave. My life is not up for scrutiny. I am chicken. In the current phase, of course. I have been brave, broken a few ribs and what not. So now I’m just gonna sit in the corner and be chicken. (If I were feeling optimistic right now, I’d say that in this storm I am bending like buckwheat so that I don’t break like the oak. But no. Ab toh bas rehne hi do.)

The truth is that I am feeling really low. So, I went over to her blog because I wanted to read her words to distract myself. But I found out that due to some personal reasons she has stopped blogging. For now, I have no idea how that makes me feel. So I came back here because instead of her, I want to be honest. In any case, there is nowhere else to go.

I feel terribly alone tonight. I feel like whatever I touch turns to dust. No matter what I do, it comes to naught. And it scares me. I know my friends and family are all well-meaning people who love me and have the best advice for me. But here, at this time, I realise my aloneness and the empty space around me that keeps me away from all help. I know the words they’re saying, but the words don’t reach me. I know that I’m surrounded by life, the universe, and everything, but I am all by myself and acutely aware of it, too. Remember the story of King Midas? Whatever he touched turned to gold? Whatever I touch turns to dust or comes back to hurt me. And God knows I’ve tried as hard as I could, to believe in myself and follow all that great advice. It doesn’t help. (You guys are great, but none of your advice is working.) I’ve spent so much time wondering what I’m doing wrong. I’ve done all sorts of things. Nothing has worked so far. I hope that this is what they call ‘time’ and ‘time’ will change. But what about days like these? When I am far removed from everyone who can comfort me. When I don’t believe I can do this. When I’m walking on eggshells around my own self.

So I wonder, how do I even get the God-damned courage to believe I can have an extraordinary day? What is it inside me that allows me to think of good things? Who am I, really? It’s laughable to me. How do I dare to hope? Just how? I read a Brainpickings post on the advice Ted Hughes gave to his son. Essentially, what he said was this:

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.”

Come to think of it, this is the man whose wife and son killed themselves. Not to say he’s accountable, but do you see the irony here? Sometimes a feeble voice inside me tells me to be brave, but as soon as that happens, a more authoritative voice booms and tells me to just go sit in the corner. I don’t even rage.

What is, is.

Here I am, at the opposite end of the spectrum. Indeed, acceptance is a small, quiet room.