Not An End, Merely A New Beginning

A realization has been made. Not by me, by, let’s call her, Fuzzy. Apparently, I tend to look at the darker side of things. A pessimist, she called me. Now, I may not be a very Oh-everything-is-good-in-the-world kind of person, but I like to think of myself as being practical, rather than pessimistic.

Now I that I come to think of it, though, I AM prone to thinking that the sky is falling rather quickly, aren’t I? I mean, God knows, I’m a huge hypochondriac. And yes, if I stub my toe, I’ll feel obliged to go in for an X-Ray. So I guess, yeah, I am kind of a pessimist.

But this time (When the sky is, believe me, really is falling) I’m going to keep a smile on my face and my held held high.

Yes, Ali’s going away. So far away. Why must people go to college anyway? Like there isn’t enough sex, drugs and rock n’ roll in his life already. And yes, it’s going to be weird not being with him any more, but still loving him and knowing that he still loves me. We promised that if it takes eight years for us to be together again, we’ll wait, but what am I supposed to do till then? He can’t possibly expect me to hang around, single, till he deigns to re-introduce himself to my life. On the other hand, I can’t possibly expect myself to be with someone else and still love Ali. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t love someone else and love Ali at the same time, either. And I can’t be with said someone and not love him. I know that I’ll love Ali forever.
And then, even if I DO somehow manage to figure out a way to be with someone, what happens when Ali comes back? Do I leave the current flame for a past flame? Or do I break my promise to past flame and be with current flame? Neither one seems to be an option. The only thing that might work out is to be chronically single till he comes back. This is the point where, if you know me, you’ll be scoffing this idea. Yes, I know I’m not known for being able to remain single for a prolonged bout of time, but then again, I wasn’t known for sticking to just one guy before Ali came along.

And then there are friends. I’ve always been a fairly popular person, not that I ever tried. It’s just the way I am. Or, rather, the way I was. What with everything that’s happened in the past couple of months, I’ve lost the desire to keep in touch with more than a couple of my best friends. Of course, the best friend clique has changed as well. Earlier, Snow White, Bunny and Nosy used to be ‘mah bitches’. We used to live each other’s lives quite literally. But then, they were always the popular girls who got into trouble all the time. the ones who were never in class, dated practically every moderately good-looking guy in the school, always in the teachers’ bad books, called ’sluts’ by haters, of which there were many. They were always having fights with other ‘popular girls’. I was the nice one in the group. I never fought with anyone. I was nice to everyone and liked by most people. There were a couple of people, okay, one person, whom I had a, let’s say, tiff with. But I was never the golden girl either. And for me, it mattered that the teachers hated me as much as they hated them.

So I decided to clean up my act. I started attending classes. I did all my work. I stopped hanging around so much with the in crowd. Which is not to say I became an oily-haired, goody two shoes, loner. I had other friends. Fuzzy, Morbid and Hyper were my new bitches. I found that i had more in common with them, So I started hanging out with them more and more.
Eventually, one day, Mehr said, just in passing, “Well, we’re not really best friends any more, are we? I mean, you’re always hanging out with Fuzzy, Morbid and all now.” And you know what, I was cool with it. I hate confrontations, so I was glad that this was out in the open.
I do kinda feel the loss sometimes, but I’ve realized F, M and H are much better friends than the others could ever be.

So, I’ve decided that all this was my choice. I made it this way. So I’m not going to be ‘practical’ (read: paranoid and pessimistic) about it. Head held high, bitch.

So is it Alright to Let Go?

It was the 5th of May. A Monday. Everything was everything. Morning, cereal, notebook, everything. And then the phone rang.
“Afiah?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Chachu there?”
“No, but I can take a message.”
“You guys need to come to St. Vincent’s as soon as you can.”
“What happened?”
When I look back, it’s like I already knew. He hadn’t come back the previous night. He wasn’t the type to disappear and re-appear the next day.
“It’s bhaiya.”
“We’ll be right there.”
I didn’t need to ask what had happened. I knew only too well. How many times had I seen this? In movies, on the roads, in my nightmares. It was always the same.

The emergency room was practically bursting. ‘Seems like a good night for business’ I remember thinking sardonically, only to berate myself the moment I’d thought it.

There he was. A couple of casts, some bandages, but nothing looked very bad. It looked like a minor accident. Nothing to be very worried about. Sadly, you can’t really tell when someone has a coma. ‘This isn’t happening. What are we in? A fucking saas-bahu serial? Accident? Truck? Coma?’ I thought to myself. I guess I was deluding myself. I never thought something like this could happen in real life, to people I loved.
And love him, I did. Bhaiya and I might have lived in separate continents, but we were always close. It wasn’t the typical older brother-little sister relationship. There wasn’t much ‘I’ll kill the guy who even touches you’. There was no over-protection. None of the typical things. He was more of a friend than a brother. I could talk to him about anything, which I did. He was always ready with advice and solutions.

I sat by the bed the whole day. I talked to him, when everyone else was outside, or getting coffee or talking to the doctor. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t hear me. All that mattered is that I had so much to tell him, in case I didn’t get a chance again.

That evening, the heartbeat-machine-thingummy started beeping abmormally. Nurses were informed, doctors paged.
“It had to happen eventually. There’s nothing we can do.”
*beep, beep, beep*
“Not even try?”
*beep, beep, beep*
“I’m sorry, but this is it.”
*beep, beep, beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*
I didn’t break down and cry. I didn’t fall to my knees. I just stood there, numb and vacant. I couldn’t take it in, I didn’t want to. I envied those who were crying, it seemed like the right thing to do. i couldn’t cry. How are you supposed to grieve someone when you don’t believe they’re really gone?

It took me a while. To come around to the fact that this was really the end. I still didn’t cry. Maybe I did, once or twice, but I spent most of my time contemplating.

I guess, at some level, I still don’t believe he’s gone. I know he’s dead, to put it bluntly, but that doesn’t mean I really believe it. ‘Were 14 years really enough? The 14 short years of my life? Were they enough to get to know him? Enough not to miss him?’ But of course not. I’ll always miss him.

Lately, though, what with everything that’s been going on, I’ve had less time to contemplate. Less time to spend in the past, and more of a reason to live the present.

Does it mean I don’t care any more? Or is it really alright to let go?