It's that time of the year again

I killed the love of my life.

T.
That's what i used to call him.
He was invariably the first person on my mind when i woke up, and the last before i went to bed.
He changed my life in ways i can't begin to recount, and he made me what i am.

He was the one person i could do anything for, live and die for.
He gave me hope, made me feel secure. The one person who i thought truly cared, and always would.

We had our issues, we used to fight. Everyone does. Perhaps we did that a little more than was healthy.
But then we had our good times too. We stay in different cities, but i would go to him or he would come over and for a few days, he would define my existence, be my world.
When we were together, i would have eyes only for him. The smallest of things would bring a smile to my face.

Just looking at him and knowing how much we loved each other seemed to be enough. He was the reason i lived, warding off the plague of existentialism.

His love was enough. That was all i really wanted.
His love, the knowledge that he was mine. Only mine.
And then he took it all away.

I got a call from him the night before, apparently a mistake, and i heard him make out and then have sex with this girl. Heard every word that was once said to me being repeated for a different girl.
He said he did it because of things i had done a year and half ago.
He told me that now i'd know what he has been feeling for so long.

He said he was sorry that i heard all that and told me that it'll hurt a lot when it does finally sink in.
He said he knows what it'd feel like from first hand experience and said he'd be there, standing by my side, through this.
He said that while he went through the same, i was too self absorbed to look beyond myself, to his pain and anguish but now i would know. Because now i'd go through the same. He ensured it'd happen.

He was right.
I have been heartless, even as i love him to death.
I have never been able to understand him, even as he was the core of my life.

I was wrong, but that, somehow, doesn't right his wrong. I can't bring myself to look at him, to believe that the man i heard making love to that girl is really the man who has held me through thick and thin for so long.
I refuse to believe he's the same man. He can't be. After all, that man loved me too much to see me in pain, least of all be the one causing the pain.

I asked him what happened to my T.
He said T is dead. For good.

But only i know i killed him.

Back

I want to go back,
back to a happier past.

A past where smiles outnumbered tears,
and each day had something to look forward to.

A past where future was a mystery still,
But none that was with tears filled.

I want to go back,
back to a happier past,

Only, i cant remember one.

Of life and death

I’ve been thinking, is there a fixed number of smiles and tears that are spread and shed in this world? Or is there such a fixed number for each life? Is it that for every hour that you spend smiling and being truly happy, there’s another hour in the offing that has to be spent being angry or perhaps regretting, even crying?

P.B. Shelley did write “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” His purpose may have been to give heart and hope to those who needed it but I have come to know from experience, that the opposite is equally true. After every bright, sunny day, the cold, dark night is but moments away. Happiness and melancholy seem to be alternating… Even as many like to believe that leading a happy life has a lot to do with destiny and one’s karma , I can’t shrug off the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there’s a pattern to this randomness. It is not simply about luck, people’s behaviour and outlook towards life but something more. Something none of us have been able to put a finger on.

I know it’s a pretty surreal, almost obscure thought, but it seems to be leading somewhere…I don’t know where. It seems to be one of those life’s unsolvable mysteries, another one of which is what happens after death. Is there life on the other side? Is it a better life? Philosophers, religious leaders, saints and sadhus all have their own version but how does one know the real one? One can’t.

I guess that’s what life is: inscrutable, indecipherable and ever-changing. And I believe it’s best left that way. The more one prods, broods, questions things that clearly aren’t meant to be known, and not even that important, the unhappier one is. Ignorance is bliss after all, and some knowledge/power is just not worth it. Yes, I’m thinking of Dr. Faustus too.

Mann ke matt pe mat chaliyo ye jeete ji marva dega?

I've been thinking. In matters of love, who should one give more importance to : the head or the heart? It's a critical question since they both seem to be saying the exact opposite things in my case, more or less all the time. Since i still have a relationship, clearly, the little, love struck, romantic voice of my heart has been outweighing the rational yet, i must admit, littler voice of my head. Until now, that is.

I've been thinking of going the pros-and-cons-list way but that's always my last option and i'm not sure it's time for that just yet. I don't feel very comfortable with changing my life drastically on the basis of two lists i arbitrarily drew up; partly because life isn't black and white like that, but mostly because it sucks that i always want to do what i shouldn't be doing according to the list. So i decided to write here.

Do i stay because i like to believe that we can still be good together or do i get out because a small part of me knows it won't be the same ever again? Does it make sense to be with a man who's almost expecting me to cheat on or break off with him unsolicitly as soon as i get more exposure, meet more men, translation : come across better options? Do i take it as an insult? Is he saying i don't have options and i'm desperate and promiscuous by nature(which i guess he thinks all women are, by virtue of their two Xs)? Or do i oversee it as a manifestation of his insecurity and empathise?

What are the implications of expecting promiscuity and inevitable break-up in a relationship? I don't know the answer yet, but i know it has more far reaching consequences than i've been able to expect or even understand.

I do know, however, that all's not well when noone trusts noone anymore. At least one of the two has to be the blind fool who believes everything--genuinely and unquestioningly. When this one person takes off the blindfold too, you know you have trouble on your hands and it is perhaps, only a matter of time from hereon.

Move on?

I've been wondering... How do we know what it is that we really want out of a relationship?

How do we figure out if our relationship is really on a decline, or if it's just one of those minor speed bumps that one encounters ever so often in a passionate love relationship?

Perhaps the number of speedbumps encountered per week is a sign, but can emotions be quantified and dealt with mathematically? Could it be that the fights are a sign of increasing closeness, a marker of that uncomfortable period of transition after which you emerge a more mature couple?

How do we know if we should stay because it's fulfilling and makes us happy; or get out because there is no future in sight and any later could be too late? Besides, how can one be so sure that there really is no future? Even if there isn't, is having a future and a marriage really all that important?

Why is it that we are okay with moving on to more "stable" relationships with guys who perhaps earn more or are about our age or are cuter, instead of staying with the man we love and seeing our love through thick and thin? Is finding love really like finding that perfect job, almost unattainable without switching a lot at first? Is love really the stuff of the lost Eden, no more to be found in this fallen world, or can a girl still hope?