It had been 2 days and 17 hours since they last text-talked, 1 year 4 months and 16 days since they last talked and 4 years 2 months and 23 days since they last met and today they were texting again.
They looked good, together. Yes, ‘looked’ good, they are not together anymore, not like the way they were. They talked, they laughed but not together, she did it with her new guy while he did it with the memories. They play the games now – hide ‘n’ seek, cat ‘n’ mice, lover and ex.
They know each other, they read the other like a book, their auras match, their waves meet and they know what the other thinks, they are in love and yet they are not together, because love and compatibility are two different things. They talked while he was gaming and she was bathing, they skipped nights to talk and they failed exam together, in different schools but they did. There were no boundaries.
They were the high school sweethearts people thought would last longer than their lives, they shared passwords, they shared accounts, they never went to a date because each day was a date when they were together and they made people jealous. But today they were just texting.
“You know Y & K got back together”, Aisha said.
“Yep, Y told me too.”
“Yes, of course, he must have told you. You know who got them back?”
“Y proposed to her again”
“Yeah, but who told him to do that?” She asked.
“No, his gut?”
“No, I did. I told him if he wants her so much, he should just give it a shot.” She said and he could sense her grinning from ear to ear, looking at the screen and waiting for a text of appreciation.
“And he heard YOUR advice?”, he could not let her have what she wanted.
“He had to. You know, we were talking the other day and he told me everything about their relationship. I’m no expert at love, you know that I’m messed up, but you could sense it in his voice. He loves her a lot, I don’t know if K loves him too or at least as much as he loves her, but Y is in deep deep love with her and might even die without her.”
“That’s… um… nice.”
“What happened to you?” She asked.
“You know this, proposing again, will it work for anyone?”
“It should. It will all depend on how much you love someone. If you love someone a lot, you should try, they will eventually see and it will all fix.”
He stared at the screen and smiled at how oblivious she was. The words never made him smile, neither did sympathy nor the condolences nor did the words of hope, but who said them. He flipped his phone on the bed and his slippers under the table, reclined in his chair and stared at the loading screen.
“Why did you ask?” Aisha texted after a few minutes.
“Because story you just said, about Y loving K a lot, it sounds familiar.”
”
‘Cause I wished you the best of
All this world could give
And I told you when you left me
There’s nothing to forgive
But I always thought you’d come back, tell me all you found was
Heartbreak and misery
It’s hard for me to say, I’m jealous of the way
You’re happy without me
”
– Labrinth, Jealous (2014)
“I’m not going to move from this chair until I’ve typed 2000 words… or I have to pee, whichever comes first.”
Most of the days you sit back on your chair staring at the blank white screen or just lines on a paper. You want to push forward, make your career happen, make your company to get out in the market and be a Fortune 500 but you don’t see anything except roadblocks everywhere.
You come to a point where you cannot think, there is nothing but… but ‘Silence’ ringing in your mind. You cannot think, you cannot come up with a plan, you have no ideas and you cannot brainstorm, because all you have is silence.
So at times like these, what are you supposed to do stand back and wait for the silent storm to end, or wait for the storm that follows the silence or connect with the silence and make your peace with it. Find a silent place where your silent mind rings and make a breakthrough?
You don’t know what works, you don’t know if you are even going to get anywhere, but all you know is that you have to try.
This has been your little daily talk of the day.
“Don’t look at me like that, I have to pee.”
We all start somewhere. Some place that is green, grassy, has water around it, or we might start on a rocky terrain, or even in scorched earth, but we all start somewhere and then we start building.
We have a spot, a spot where we kept our feet and then we see the hill. We try to get there, it takes a few days, month or even years, but we see it and we wish to get there and we get there eventually.
And then you get addicted to it. You’ve tasted the heights and from the little hill you were on, you’ve seen the peaks. You know where you want to be now and there is no stopping you.
You see you way up, you get at the foot of the hill and then start grinding. Slowly trying to get to the top. It sucks at first, you fall multiple times, each fall worse than the one before and more disheartening. And for once you cross the barrier where from where kept falling.
Most of us stop there. We are done, but some of us, grind further. And then it happens all over again. You fall down, sometimes even below the first big barrier. Some of us climb up again to the first and then give up. Some of us give up after a few falls and then most of us stop at the second barrier.
At times like these, disheartening times, think about your dream, think why you started and climb. “To Get Over It”
What hurts more, staying by the side of the person you love and never being able to confess it? Or being with someone for years and then never be able to see them ever again?
Talking to the girl you love every night, laugh with her but it is always over the phone, or hugging someone to sleep to never find them by your side ever again.
Watching her pictures and stalking her on social media, even after she tells you how did her day go, or never finding the user while everyone is her friend on social media, and hoping her day went well.
Dancing to your favorite music and then walking back home alone, or changing your complete playlist because someone ruined it for you.
Hugging someone for ‘Mississippis” every day, or having hugged them for hours, years ago.
Knowing who she is interested in, who is she dating and who she won’t, or just battling your wild thoughts to sleep every single night when she starts dating someone.
Listening to her boyfriend stories and about her dates, or just wondering what she’s doing right now and hoping she doesn’t kiss someone into the new year.
What hurts more, waiting for her to finally be interested in you, or waiting for her to come back to you?
What hurts more, loving someone or loving someone?