Somewhere between late night and late evening comes a time - two hours that can make you or break you, that define, redefine, test you and your character.
You are alone, in a new city, away from cushions of family and the good ol' gang of friends. Work is over, sleep is on its way, but still is a couple of stations away. You've left work, you don’t want to meet the walls at home today, you are in a taxi, crossing flyovers overlooking tall buildings in a city that has made tall promises to you, and you’re hoping they’ll be kept. There's a bombardment of thoughts, new feelings are rising and falling, you're growing and evolving and experiencing at a pace faster than ever before. You are tired, but not enough. You are hungry, but don’t want to eat alone. You are alone, but you’d rather be by yourself than be at the mercy of others you still don’t know. These two hours that can drive you away from yourself, and pull you closer to things you would in all sanity stay away from. Pain is intoxication; it takes away your sense of reasoning.
These are the two hours can make you commit the biggest mistakes of your life and leave behind a tangled ball of regrets. These two hours need to be conquered my friend, they are responsible for what you eventually turn out to be. Depending on how you deal with this time will decide whether you sink or rise.
You may end up compromising on your self respect and make an untimely call to someone you have been trying to stay away from, the two hours may ruin two months of hard work. The two hours may make you sit in a café all alone far from home, dazed and desolate. The two hours may also make you bitter before time. Your eyes may rain these two hours, whatever the season.
You need to get a grip, it’s crucial. Look at this in between time which has nothing fixed. No meeting. No schedules. No obligations. You need to make it work.
Go,
Take a walk down a busy street, smile at strangers, have hot coffee, read two chapters of the French book translated in English, buy a flower from the street urchin and make her day, make polite conversation with the cabbie, watch a Clint Eastwood classic, have tea by the dhaba and get to know the life of those who don’t concern you, go to the church randomly.
Conquer this time, don’t let it conquer you.
6 comments:
I am so glad you went.
This one is for Bennet!...It sure sounds like it is...beautiful anyway!
hey sue,
this post came from a personal experience, have been feeling a bit low since i've never really stayed away from family and friends. but it's a great growing experience anyway. and coincidently, as i have read, bennet too has recently shifted.
so i guess this must be a universal emotional for the living alone breed.
thanks for the compliment. you have not written for a while.
looking forward.
ranjan, hiii.
i am glad too. and i am glad that you are glad, because i am sure you have a good reason to say you are glad.
When I was new to the city and alone, I would stand in crowded places like bus-stops and look at people's faces to see if there was another one as lonely as me so we could both patch up. It seemed they all were, but they all thought they were the only ones. A very nice post, hauntingly similar to how I felt then.
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