The Art of War

There are days when you get up in the morning and you know that you just have to do something, take care of a pending task. The urgency owes more to an inner peace rather than to an emotion of anger or to an upheaval. Maybe it owes more to the bevy of relatives you interact with, more comments about your health, your parents’ deteriorating health, the general quality of life, that ingrains something deep in you – an itch.  I arrived at work, wrote a terse two-liner to the ex-fiancé, basically in which I cursed him – all the karma, rot in hell stuff. I sent it off and then went on with my day to day business, forgetting about it. Sure enough! The next day, there was a two- pager bullshit reply, a rant of “how dare you reject me, its all your fault, you should v kept quite about my black mailing and demands…you never wrote back, u never returned my calls stuff. [and above all] u believed in making things worked, u used to advise others to do so, why u didn’t do that urslef and ended it all” Blah blah… Some of the people around me asked why I broke my resolve, why I wrote to him after all, why was I choosing indeed to indulge in a battle where only I was prone to get hurt. Someone question me how I was handling all these situations, was I keeping silent, keeping my distance and torturing myself? Or did I retaliate in any way? Of course in this case I chose the former path, but it wasn’t going down all that well with me recently. Also , a couple of emails arrived from the coordinator ala’ alligator, and that indeed  was a pretty stupid day, I was trying to write reply 5 emails simultaneously and wasn’t able to do any of them. Lack of sleep, low blood pressure, anxiety….delirium…a nagging headache. Finally, I went home. The next day, I replied to all the emails – the professional ones first and then finally the personal email. I wrote a scathing reply to the ex and blocked him from each of my email addresses, so his reply to that wont reach me anywhere. The purpose of this communication really wasn’t to seek any answers, as a psychopath and a low life like him have no answers for his action. The purpose was to sow a seed of discontent in his mind and heart. I addressed and played upon all the insecurities he had about his looks, about his economic prospects, all of which I used to underplay, but I guess the joke was on me, as becoming tooo smug, he started to make me insecure about myself, about my family. Knowing him to the extent I came to know him, I hope that my recent remarks would fester in his mind, make him bawl like a namby pamby in front of his bytch of a mother (sorry – u hurt my parents, u made them cry, u deserve to be called that and any other cuss word and u deserve to rot in hell).

In retrospect, Sarah’s comment to my last post and a recent event has indeed made me reassess if I am indeed guilty of being too available for people – friends? Another friend snapped at me when I tried to share with him what I was going through by telling me about the “no more depressing talk. I am depressed enough!” Hearing this after all the while I have been available for this friend – all the way through was a slap in the face. Thank you so much!

Expiry Date

How long would it take for paradise to fall, for the long-brewing trouble to come full circle? As predicted, the moment of peace and contentment passed too quickly all together. One has to work very hard to achieve that inner sense of peace; yet it takes nano seconds to lose it all. Pain, anxiety, despair come – in waves, washing in one after another – leaving you barely hanging on from the edge of a cliff… One finds one self standing where one started, sometimes even further behind from that. It was one hell of a terrible and terrifying work week, which didn’t seem to be ending. Monday started with me being literally thrown in a new office, in a new building block, with a new roommate, feeling the displacement Diaspora. Even the walls seemed to be caving in, the sulfurous fumes of the newly painted walls and newly carpeted room was choking me. I don’t know maybe this was what induced the ugly migraine that raged in my nerves for three days…..i ate nothing, drank little, had nightmarish sleep and was constantly exchanging stupid emails with people at work in between. All day at work, I was writing stupid emails and replys, picking up phadas…. and dreading the knock on the door or the alert in my outlook…then I would be going home and start doing the work that I am actually paid to do…….Well this happens when you land up with a new boss and a new coordinator. Yups new building, new room, new room mate and new boss…..it’s ironical now, how I am scared of sudden changes, though I have lived through them….like everyone else….tried to put up an affront of acceptance and dignity …if nothing else….in fact I was braved for this quality to ‘embrace change’ by a boss, who was very thrifty with compliments. And yet…this entire  week – I feel tired…. Of changes, of ups and downs….things that are not meant to be – happen and then they are over, yet they suck whatever inner peace you have – they leave you empty – bereft of positive emotions. Only pain and remorse… this week, I stumbled onto a forgotten fragment of my past, a glimpse into the ‘other’s’ life and it again caused so much hurt, so much grief…..of standing where I was – years back. Life comes pouring down like a hailstorm…..can someone account the time I lost, in wondering, in wandering, in being in pain??? Is god keeping a ledger of this?  This week, I realized that I might leave this job, walk out of my comfort zone and look for other options….. so I try not to be afraid now, when someone influential tries to mess up with me.  This week, I wrote the final chapter on an old friend – after she viciously attacked me online, unprovoked (i asked about her lunch plans). In the last post, I talked about leaving certain friends to their own devices, if they refuse to listen to you. I tried that for a while, yet I was struck by the bailing out and abandoning her, and I again tried to make it work by avoiding things we don’t agree on. It worked for a while, then it crumbled again….and this time, burying me underneath the hubris…I was shocked on the spewing, the harshness of her words, the level of her annoyance…I silently closed the IM window and then the water work started, and then the severe migraine. I didn’t retaliate, didn’t reason, didn’t say anything, unlike other times. I was done, I realized. At that moment, I had the urge to talk to someone, anyone, who could tell me that I didn’t deserve any of that…I really had no one to reach out towards this way (not that sort of a relationship, where u can holler even in the middle of the night and know that the person would be there)…because she used to be the one …long long ago, in some other life time….then she decided to chose love over her friends (Mansoor wrote such a kickass postie on this)– over and over and I was there to pick up the pieces whenever love fell apart….Over the course of years, I have picked up the pieces of my own heart, of my own life, and of others……for many years, it’s been pretty much – me , on my own, alone. What hurts me is that the two friends I chose for life are the ones who aren’t there for me anymore – now. I chose them right away, when forced – in a heart beat. The relationship wasn’t meant to work out, it was apparent from the start. However, I never bailed out on my friends, no matter how hard he tried to make me do that. That’s where the bitterness springs from. One broke off in an instance, the other was adrift for years – or maybe I was holding on to a dying friendship – because it’s the family I chose for myself.    I guess, all things have a shelf life, an expiry date, relationships come with an expiry date, so do friendships – I have realized. I am usually told: “Oh you are too emotional!” Right! I agree, but then aren’t these the very emotions, which allowed me to care for my friends, to be there, sometimes to even bear the bullshit of others around them. We might say that one shouldn’t expect anything but is it really possible to do so? Anyways, expectations are always to be broken…so are hearts, so is trust, so are family ties, so are friendships….they are strong but they aren’t invincible; they are fragile too….