Heart’s Having a Hard Time

I imagine that every new year feels like how I’d expect my potential boyfriend/husband to feel — the pressure of being fantastic is unimaginable. After all, everyone has such high expectations from it. As far as I am concerned, these two weeks have been characterised by a lot of discord and hurt. I wasn’t going to write about it because to say it is to make it come alive. It now exists in the realm of consciousness and you can’t take it back. But the truth is that I’ve spent enough time walking back and forth between times of placidity and times of being hurt. Of course, I don’t get to choose how people behave but whoever the hell is Bandersnatching my life, can you please pick the timeline where I am not in conflict with the people around me? Thank you. Now, we have that out of the way.

Someone recently said to me that when a person is being hostile/aggressive/upset with you, it could either be because you’ve done something to warrant that behaviour or because you are an indirect recipient of something else that has happened to them. Of course, this is not an exhaustive scenario. But we’ve all come to situations when friends disagree, lovers part, family quarrels. It’s just that it has been a while since I’ve had to deal with so many conflicts. I remember the times when swathes of times were marked with arguments and quarrels.

Especially when the Internet became omniscient in everyday life. We had just discovered we had opinions and we could share them, and people had opinions and they could share them too. There was a book club, and hobby groups, and long-distance relationships. There were spending hours fighting over issues, forming opinions, using words to hurt each other. I still know of people who were friends and are not friends anymore because of the things we said to each other at that time. We were growing up, gaining a sense of self, airing it in public. And of course, there was family being family. There were love interests being difficult. It was fucking insane.

Then, suddenly, came a time when all of us got tired of this madness and of life. We accepted each other and each others’ flaws. Ever since we have lived in harmony. Now, we spend time educating ourselves and let our loved ones do the same. We have come to the conclusion that not everyone can grow at the same pace and we hold each other close because we know that love is beyond these things. It was all well and good. Then, this bloody year happened. (I need to blame it on something. I know it doesn’t mean jack.)

Today I had a disagreement with someone and it made me feel terrible. Then, as it happens, I thought about all the times I have felt hurt in the past two weeks. It really bothers me that I have not equipped myself to deal with this. And then, I thought this is not how I want to spend my days. I don’t want to be the person who sits behind a screen trying to make a point or solve a situation. I don’t care about making a point. I don’t want to invite myself into people’s lives if they don’t want me to be there. I want to have honest, healthy relationships where, if there is conflict, there is reaching out to resolve it.

I’m not here to win an argument. I’m not here to prove anything to anybody. I’m too old for this shit. I’m just immensely sad that I’m on the brink of losing friends or at the line where I have to prove myself innocent. I’m just sad.