I have written a lot about my journey in the last decade. Some friends who have seen me go through it know how harrowing it has been for me. It occurred to me earlier this week that since 2011, this has probably been the most sane and calm year! I am so very grateful for this. Not sure if I have turned a corner and that this is a new reality, or if it is just another lull before the next big storm. Who knows? But at this moment, I feel a sense of relief that I hadn't felt in a long time. There is a slight rise in my self-esteem and the faith in my abilities have been renewed. Doubt does not feel like the predominant fetter.
This realization came after a friend recently asked me to write down how far I have come. She insisted that I jot down the worst years of my life and the bright spots. So here it is. When I reflect back, the two worst years of my life till date has been 1993 and 2013. Those two years are exactly 20 years apart, and I am not sure if it is a coincidence. There have been really trying situations in other years too, but somehow I managed to work with them. These two years were exceptionally dark and dank, when I felt extremely helpless and friendless and lonely, with severe dark clouds. It felt that there was no light anywhere and I was exhausted. Of course there were many reasons for such a feelings, most of those were reactions to external conditions of my life, and we can go analyzing those to fine shreds. But to what end?
Yes, I managed to walk up the hill, Somehow. Only I know how much I panted, how many times I felt I could not take another step up the steep curve, how many times I was going to give up and die, how my muscles ached and it felt unbearable. I kept moving, because that was all I could do. Standing made the situation worse, as if I had mange, so I had to keep moving, often for the sake of it. And all of the climb was uphill, for I had really fallen into a deep funk of a canyon.
Today I feel a sense of exhilaration. There is a sense of discovery. As if I am finally growing up. Learning to see myself. It is a delightful pursuit. There is something under every rock, and I lift each up one by one and feel the child-like thrill of discovery. It is very scary too. For I have lived a very scripted life thus far, and did not even know it to be so. For the first 20 years I was a caged bird, yearning for freedom and only knew of it from poems, songs, and dreams, but there was no way to realize the truth of the word, I was shackled with heavy iron chains and did not have strength to break them. After 1993, I escaped that jail and forced myself into a new form. I was determined to create a new and beautiful life, write my own story. Then for the next 20 years, I now find, I lived a caged life too; the difference was that I had built the gilded cage myself complete with shiny gold shackles, for that was the past conditioning. I did not know any better. I built a great life in the conventional sense, using the ingredients that I had, but it was still scripted by the vocabulary of the past experiences and framework. I lived in delusion of perfection. There was a small voice which sometimes asked deep questions, but I quickly shut her down, because I didn't have the answers and the unknown scared me. Script was good, cage was also okay, it was safer than the unknown. Until it shattered too, in 2013. Again I found myself in desperation. I couldn't work out why all the effort I put in, and vocabulary I acquired over the years, did not make any sense anymore. How can it be thus? How did this world turn upside down again? The castle I so meticulously built out of sand got completely washed away in one large wave! It was another rock-bottom experience, an extremely excruciating and ugly one. Nothing made sense anymore and I was yearning to find some meaning, a reason, an explanation, and none was available.
And today, four years later, I feel I have finally climbed out of that deep canyon. There is a sense of fear with this. The future is unknown. I cannot script it, and I choose not to script it anymore. I have thrown away the dictionary. Now starting from a clean slate is very thrilling. It is also very scary for the unknown is wide and open. The best simile I can give is this: I feel I have jumped off an airplane without a parachute. And as I jumped off (it took great courage to do that), I realized that there is no ground underneath that I am hurtling towards. And as there is no ground to fall to, the idea of going splat on the ground without a parachute is not a reality. I will not go splat or splash (in water). There is nothing down there. And I am in free fall. I have not reached terminal velocity yet. So I am still tumbling about in the free fall. There is the weird feeling in my tummy, the feeling of zero gravity, of being weightless. I don't mind the tumbling, there is a strange security in knowing that there is nothing to fall to anymore! It is a weird kind of happiness. I cannot explain.
This realization came after a friend recently asked me to write down how far I have come. She insisted that I jot down the worst years of my life and the bright spots. So here it is. When I reflect back, the two worst years of my life till date has been 1993 and 2013. Those two years are exactly 20 years apart, and I am not sure if it is a coincidence. There have been really trying situations in other years too, but somehow I managed to work with them. These two years were exceptionally dark and dank, when I felt extremely helpless and friendless and lonely, with severe dark clouds. It felt that there was no light anywhere and I was exhausted. Of course there were many reasons for such a feelings, most of those were reactions to external conditions of my life, and we can go analyzing those to fine shreds. But to what end?
 |
| I managed to walk up the hill!! |
Today I feel a sense of exhilaration. There is a sense of discovery. As if I am finally growing up. Learning to see myself. It is a delightful pursuit. There is something under every rock, and I lift each up one by one and feel the child-like thrill of discovery. It is very scary too. For I have lived a very scripted life thus far, and did not even know it to be so. For the first 20 years I was a caged bird, yearning for freedom and only knew of it from poems, songs, and dreams, but there was no way to realize the truth of the word, I was shackled with heavy iron chains and did not have strength to break them. After 1993, I escaped that jail and forced myself into a new form. I was determined to create a new and beautiful life, write my own story. Then for the next 20 years, I now find, I lived a caged life too; the difference was that I had built the gilded cage myself complete with shiny gold shackles, for that was the past conditioning. I did not know any better. I built a great life in the conventional sense, using the ingredients that I had, but it was still scripted by the vocabulary of the past experiences and framework. I lived in delusion of perfection. There was a small voice which sometimes asked deep questions, but I quickly shut her down, because I didn't have the answers and the unknown scared me. Script was good, cage was also okay, it was safer than the unknown. Until it shattered too, in 2013. Again I found myself in desperation. I couldn't work out why all the effort I put in, and vocabulary I acquired over the years, did not make any sense anymore. How can it be thus? How did this world turn upside down again? The castle I so meticulously built out of sand got completely washed away in one large wave! It was another rock-bottom experience, an extremely excruciating and ugly one. Nothing made sense anymore and I was yearning to find some meaning, a reason, an explanation, and none was available.
And today, four years later, I feel I have finally climbed out of that deep canyon. There is a sense of fear with this. The future is unknown. I cannot script it, and I choose not to script it anymore. I have thrown away the dictionary. Now starting from a clean slate is very thrilling. It is also very scary for the unknown is wide and open. The best simile I can give is this: I feel I have jumped off an airplane without a parachute. And as I jumped off (it took great courage to do that), I realized that there is no ground underneath that I am hurtling towards. And as there is no ground to fall to, the idea of going splat on the ground without a parachute is not a reality. I will not go splat or splash (in water). There is nothing down there. And I am in free fall. I have not reached terminal velocity yet. So I am still tumbling about in the free fall. There is the weird feeling in my tummy, the feeling of zero gravity, of being weightless. I don't mind the tumbling, there is a strange security in knowing that there is nothing to fall to anymore! It is a weird kind of happiness. I cannot explain.
