My Toxicity and I

It is no wonder that people possess toxic nature within themselves. The toxicity does not always come out on its own. When we share a mutual bond with someone, our toxicity has ways of showing up at our doorstep. We love the highs that our toxic sides radiate. We somehow nurture it every time it shows up. People have a way of displaying their toxicity at the worst of times and only towards the people who care about them. I have always believed that I deserve a love that stays, that can stand beside me when I hit the high waves of life. The love that sees past my eyes and feels me for who I am. But I had always believed that when I would come across a person who would really love me, things will get complicated and life would be an emotion of rollercoaster but little did I know that love isn’t always a hurricane or a thunderstorm. Love can be as gentle as the breeze at night and calming to our hearts. I always think about what the other person has to offer me, whether or not he can be patient with me, and whether or not he can accept my flaws. But I never wondered what I would bring to a relationship. It has been way too long since I have been in a relationship. Always divided among attraction, like and love I can never wrap my head around what I really look for in a relationship. My indecisiveness always gets the best of me. Despite all of this, I have been quite happy lately as I have started prioritising loving myself and treating myself with care. But does that process involve letting someone in and stepping out of their comfort zone too? I always felt that I had a void within me that I needed someone to fill it with love but love doesn’t work that way, does it? We cannot love someone until we feel whole within ourselves. Believing that someone would enter our lives and sweep us under our feet does not work in real life. They say when a person is right for you, you will know that he is perfect for you. But what if you have spent your whole life running away from love and when you finally have someone in your life who says that they want to hold your hand, how do you know if you’re making the right choice? We never realise the true essence of being with someone who cares for us until they walk away from our lives. How long can you make a person wait until you decide whether or not he is right for you?

There is a coldness which lives inside me that drives people away from my life. The walls that I have built around my heart are too frigid to crumble down. I wander around wondering how long I have to wait until I find myself tied to strings of love and find myself pulled around the gravity of the person whom I would call my lover. I have always taken myself to be the one who falls in love hopelessly, desperately and completely. Deep enough that would dissolve all my sanity. However, I am lost in the fog of uncertainty as to when to take the first step and how to let someone in. Finding the right person is not something that we come across in an instant. For me, friendship is the foundation of every beautiful relationship but how is one to build that foundation when one is reclined to the very idea of meeting and talking to new people? My life has become a train station, with people constantly boarding and departing from my life and I always wonder what could have been if had I been brave enough to ask them to stay. This thought crosses my mind right after our paths have already been separated. I fear that if I meddle around too much I would get my heart broken too easily. But is it worth getting your heart broken to find the one and only one? I had recently come across a phrase which said, “It is better to fall into like and walk into love”. But I care too much and judge a person too much to fall into the first step of attachment. I have a cruel way of taking someone’s kindness for granted and driving them away that I often catch myself feeling lonely even if I am surrounded by a throng of people I love. I chase the thrills and let myself get caught up by high tides that I have forgotten what it is like to stay still and watch the waves drift slowly by the shore. I expect people to appreciate my deep emotions, hold onto me tight and be patient with me when I’m anxious, but I never know I if can do the same when they’d need me. I never know how to accept a good compliment and even return one back. I struggle to value others. When a person loves having long conversations with me and notices all the little things about me and is there for me in my vulnerabilities, the coldness of my heart persuades me to run away. A voice within me keeps telling me that I am not meant to dissolve the walls around my heart and shield myself from the vulnerability of love. I am lost in my own tapestry of thoughts without a clear pattern. 

For what it is worth, I can have this profound feeling in my heart that I will never settle for a love that is fleeting. I yearn for a love that weathers all kinds of storms. A love that is patient enough to listen to all my entangled thoughts, a love that enjoys dancing with me under the moonlight, a love that shares silent conversations with their eyes and smiles. And above all, a love where I am not afraid of sharing my vulnerabilities and getting my heart broken. I cannot trick myself into believing that I am ready to feel all of this exactly at this moment of life for I know that I am yet to let go of all my fears. I am happy the way I am right now even if it feels I need someone to accompany me. But the truth is until and unless I learn to enjoy the blue and pink skies of my life by myself, all my other relationships will be fathomable to shallowness. I am on a voyage to love myself and dare I say not a soul can breach my heart to make me settle for anything less than I feel within.

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Letters from Normal People

Humans are wealthy to feel millions of emotions every day. Humans face a lot of things in their lives. Life can be as easy as breathing for some people while it can be as ocean tides for some with their highs and lows. The tides never rest and never flow in the same wave. Sometimes it feels calm to watch the flowing tides but it is the tides that truly know the storms it had to fight with to get to the shore. Although we see each other’s lives externally and though they seem easygoing and uncomplicated, the people living their lives and going through the actual emotions have a lot to bear and face. Normal people is a show that is about the lives of two individuals who portray the emotions one goes through in each phase of their life. Their inability to feel and adjust to a new environment suffocates them and separates them from the crowd. The never-ending journey of feeling any and every emotion and still moving forward in life is what the drama is all about. Sometimes it felt like the characters stood still without progress in their lives and other times their lives would turn upside down in the blink of an eye.

Dear Marianne,

I know you’ve suffered a lot and I utterly understand the emotions that you go through in your life. From the sunshines you absorb to the night sky you stare at, I see a part of my life vicariously through your eyes. The tears you shed and the little freckles that formed around your eyes when you smiled reflected back my own emotions like a mirror. You truly are one extraordinary being. I’m truly sorry for the things that you had to face in your life. I cannot imagine moving forward in my life with that huge pain that you always had around your chest. Despite the fact you felt lonely, you still found yourself and discovered your heart. You are like the sensitive petal of flowers that everybody loved. At first, it was difficult for me to understand why you couldn’t feel love but as the years went by and as you grew and learnt new things in life you taught me how difficult it is sometimes to receive love and a lot more difficult to feel it. You had been addicted to feeling a ride of emotions that went through highs and lows. You liked when people inflicted pain on you and that was the most heartbreaking thing to ever witness as no one deserves to bear the pain as much as you had to. It’s okay to let people into your life. You are known to forgive people easily but forgiving yourself was the bravest and toughest thing you did in your life. You letting Connell in and feeling love was the most beautiful unfolding of your life. The moment you said you loved him back for the first time not only reflected your love for him but also your step towards self-love. That wasn’t the only best part of discovering you. The best part was when you were ready to spread your wings out in this world and let your love flow from your hands and live your life being only you without anybody’s support.

Dear Connell,

You are one of the rarest being I have ever seen. So quiet and yet so full of emotions. Your eyes carry an ocean of emotions and staring into them feels like it stops time. A person with a smile on his face and kind enough to always think about other people’s well-being. Though you look tough from the outside, little do the people around you know about how fragile you are. Little do your family and friends understand you on days when you crumble and break down at night. You are on the outside always looking in. You are a person who never has had someone understand your true emotion and potential until Marianne came along. She always saw right through you. She was your muse though it took you a long time to realise it. You were addicted to her presence and she to yours for you always brought good out of one another. I think you never understood that you were whole even when she was not around. You had a tough time fitting in a new place but that’s not your fault. It’s not your fault that people didn’t understand you sometimes because you felt a little more than normal people do, you had wonderful hidden life so full of emotions and thoughts a normal person could barely understand. Your kind deeds are the most underrated throughout your life experiences. You never ceased to amaze me through your delicate smiles and care for people. The way you always looked after Marianne had me wondering about the depths one can reach in caring and loving another person selflessly.

Dear Reader,

The seasons of winter, autumn, rain and summer visualised through emotions in this show through Connell and Marianne’s life is like a sonata being performed with all the high and low notes of a piano. One having every physical resource and still being emotionally empty made life seem shallow and lonely. Normal people is one of the most emotionally captivating series that opens up a person’s vulnerability. Although life seems difficult at times, the presence of just one person who understands us makes it all worthwhile. How simply an emotional knot can unfold when we are able to connect with someone on a deep level.

Marianne and Connell are like adjacent sides of a see-saw that lifted one another up. Who carried one another through their difficult times and rose above every calamity in life. Their being together always left a scent of comfort and understanding between two souls and how easy and uncomplicated life feels when you are with someone who gets you when they look you in the eye. When two people are good for one another, nothing else in the world really matters and love flows and grows into a beautiful tree whose shade protects you from sun and rain. Their love for each other never held one another back. It was a flowing river that captured them in its flow and helped them catch their own pace and heal in life. They learnt that love is a fleeting thing and one cannot hold onto it. One has to learn to let go of it to welcome new amazing things in life. Although it may seem difficult at first, that is what life is all about. Going through all the tough times to experience amazing moments and hope for beautiful things. After every rain, a ray of new sunshine arrives and after every scorching heat, a breeze follows. Life can get tangled with emotions and problems but that should never stop us from believing that good things will come into our lives. Working hard and never letting go of our dreams will take us on wonderful journeys in life.

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You and I

Your eyes carry the depth of an ocean, I can't stop looking at time and again. 
But for me, the time encounters a comma and lets me turn back the pages of our chapter. 
I can't express the intersection of my tranquillity and anxiety at that moment. 
For it lets me imagine your hands intertwined with mine but also leaves me utterly vulnerable. 
The longer I stay in those bittersweet memories, the more it stabs me right in my heart. 
You have become more than a memory to me, 
You are that verse that fills the void in my poetries and that brings life to my poems. 
But then again the cruelty of time comes spinning around to remind me that memory cannot love me back. 

F.S.