The fall

Why can't every heartbreak in our lives be like an unexpected fall off a chair? You lose gravity, time stands still, your body is momentarily suspended, hanging in the air, holding on to the ghosts of the threads that broke away seconds earlier. You know how you were, with exact precision, before the fall. You know what went wrong, what led to the fall. You can't anticipate how much the fall will hurt. You just have to wait, till you hit the ground and estimate the cause and effect. And all along, you think to yourself, how could you have been so stupid? How could you not have seen this before? Then you get up, brush the dirt off, probably brush off the tears if the fall was pretty bad, embarrassed at first that it happened to you of all people, you, who is so self assured and cautious and never slips up. And then several tense moments later, you laugh it off. It all seems so silly in retrospect. You reflect on it, think to yourself, what went wrong, how it happened and how can it be avoided on the next occasion. And in the following few days, you forget about it. Except for the little bruise on your palm when you supported your fall. A little conspicuous reminder of what happened. Just like the little dent in your ego after a heartbreak, a little splinter of grief you carry forward after you are left behind, the little precautionary note when something like this is bound to happen again, the generous pang when faced by the past. Yes, I wish heartbreaks were this easy.
P.S- I am updating my blog on my college computer. This is bad!
P.P.S- This post inspired by Poonam when she fell off her chair accidentally. She's all fine.

Boo

What are we scared of?
-The dark.
-The unknown.
-The heard.
The unheard of.
-The unsaid.
-The misunderstood.
-What we have become.
-What we could have become.
-What we might become.
-Means.
-Ends.
-Maybes and in betweens
-What you might discover in some one's mailbox.
-What you might find in the closet on a lonely afternoon.
-The fluttering curtains.
-The half opened door.
-Looking back to find no one.
-Looking back.
-The discovery.
-The discoverer.
-Scared, perennially, of looking at a black screen with grey lettering being the only witness to your life.

ACK

In 4th semester, between yawns and sighs for a better career option, I managed to learn ARQs in Data communications. For those lucky people who don't know(and probably won't care) what an ARQ is, it stands for Automatic Repeat Request/Query.It is an error-control method for data transmission which uses acknowledgements and timeouts to achieve reliable data transmission over an unreliable link. The basics are pretty simple. You send a frame of data to the receiver, set a timer, wait for an acknowledgement from the receiver. If you receive the acknowledgement from the receiver before time out, it means that your frame has been delivered and the receiver is expecting the next frame. If the acknowledgement is not received, then the sender re sends the frame. There are several things that can go wrong(and will go wrong in all probability) and these exceptions are handled accordingly. There are several types of ARQs but let us not get into specifics. My focus here is on the acknowledgement.
What is a person's first instinct when he/she receives genuine appreciation? Is it surprise? Is it gratitude? I feel both of these. Somehow, I'm very vocal in appreciating someone and also acknowledging the fact that someone appreciates me. There are times when I genuinely mean something and wish good for another being and express it in all earnest, yet it goes unacknowledged. It just makes me wonder, are people that self assured that they can't even be thankful for the fact that someone recognises their worth? I am always surprised when people pay me a compliment or tell me how much I mean to them. I'm not such a great person in real life and listening to phrases pertaining to appreciation with respect to yours truly always makes me think about how phony people are. But then I feel guilty for being sceptical and petty and I respond with genuine thanks for realising that I aren't all that bad sometimes. Maybe I suffer from low self esteem(which many people have pointed out) or I am too dependent on others' approval and any that comes my way seems like a cascade of affection. But yet, even if a person is self assured and confident of his/her own worth, it's nice to acknowledge. Just a simple 'Thank you' will suffice most times.
P.S- I never thought I'd come to a stage where I'd start comparing information science and engineering to ANY thing related to my life. I have come to a stage where I use programming terms in day to day life and care about things like ready queues and scheduling algorithms. God help me!
P.P.S- If anyone ever pays a compliment regarding my hair, it is promptly followed by 'I know!'. So much for genuine acknowledgement.

The comma between maybe and maybe not

Yours truly has sore eyes(not conjunctivitis; just red, puffy eyes that hurt and urge me to blink too many times) and no patience for formalities.
1) There should be licences issued for being a pedestrian. People should take a hearing test and an IQ test to be allowed to walk on the road.
2) When you're undergoing a certain emotional turmoil and discover a new song, more often than not, the song somehow summarises your situation and seems apt for the time being. Has it happened only to me or is Scott Adams really a genius? (The song in question is 'Careful' by Michelle Featherstone. Discovered it on season 4, episode 23, 'How I met your mother'. Don't even begin to ask me about the situation. Trust me, you are better off. And reference to Scott Adams, please read 'God's debris'. A must, must read.)
3) How good a movie can be if it moves you to tears and sends a chill down your spine simultaneously? The movie in question is 'The Lives of Others'. One of the most endearing lines accompanied with brilliant acting was: “Can anyone who has heard this music, I mean truly heard it, really be a bad person?” Watch it sometime.
4) A good hug by a great friend is the best cure for any apparent status quo disturbance. Thanks vanilla bear. :)
5) Chocolate is god.
6) It has to be said twice. Chocolate is god. Not even god-like. Just god. The God.
7) People should not be allowed to use the words 'falling', 'in' and 'love' in the same sentence in the said order if they don't mean it.
8) Contradiction bites you in the ass sometimes.
9) I have forgotten how much I appreciate Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Time is moving in a circle again.
10) I thought I couldn't hide my emotions well. After today, I realised I'm probably getting better at it.
11) A good cry and a good nap can solve the trickiest problems.
12) How can I forget to mention a good piece of chocolate in the last statement?
13) Didn't anyone realise I crossed ten points for the first time with almost nothing substantial to write about?
14) Pity is the last thing a friend needs. Save it for your enemies.
15) I'm OK.
P.S- What's with so many links if you wonder, I'm pretty jobless.
P.P.S- I wanted to include a point about how awesome my hair is but why state the obvious eh?

Unaddressed

I'm writing, yet again, to a person who won't care. And never for once did I think it would be you. Don't you remember those breathless days when we spoke so much we had no memory of doing anything else that day? Those moments of hushed whispers and 'OK, 5 more minutes and then I've gotta hang up!' extending to another half hour of smiles and memories, did they mean nothing? I remember your childhood, as I saw it through your voice, you as a scrawny little kid jumping from roof to roof. I remember your schoolboy eyes, scared of being bitten by a dog. I remember your moist eyes as you looked out your bedroom window and were in the moment, attuned to the happiness and stability around you. Your secrets, your hopes, your dreams...did you even realise how I never tried to make it about me?For all my talk about being selfish, for my clandestine need for attention, I hid myself. I closed up and gave you a chance to pry me open. You never tried, you never gave me a chance...I guess I am meant to go down that road again. Nights of longing and loneliness, a punishment for a little craving of a thing I liked to call 'intimacy'. You said you were lost. Now you've left me more misguided than I ever could be. I hoped this would be it, this would be the one I'd been waiting for,' impatiently' the way you'd put it I guess, and now it seems to lack the soul I fell for in the first place. It's better to be grounded than be taken up for a ride to the roof and then pushed away. You were real, as real as one could get and yet my dreams turning into nightmares seem better now. Your comforting voice soothed me, true, but you said a lot of things without meaning to hurt me. You never knew that words were the only thing that mattered. And words are probably, as the cliche goes, all I have left now to sort out another jigsaw puzzle where the centre was in the right place but somehow the edges got bungled up. And I loved the edges better...

The longest day of my life.

College reopened today and I can't begin to describe how much that sucks. You know when 4th semester started, I confess, I wasn't very majorly excited but I was at the very least willing to look at the subjects. Today, I wanted to jump off the window(which is easy because my new classroom has windows without bars). I'm shockingly indifferent.I have no idea how I'm going to drag through with this apathy on my back for the rest of the semester. I am terrified now at the prospect of giving a shit about it later when my internals come up.Oh man, I hate engineering. Seriously!

Well, three classes of pure, mind fucking boredom wasn't the only reason it was the longest day of my life.I spent three hours on the phone, wondering where this one's heading, a little happy, a little hopeful but a lot more worried and thinking and all.You know when I was in high school, I had a new crush every two weeks and I was happy!I dint have to think 'Where is it heading?' or 'Can I see a future with him?'. And now every single guy makes me think of what impression he'd make on my parents!Is this what growing up is supposed to feel like?I want to go back to high school again! OK, I probably think too much about silly things and make a big deal out of nothing but let us face the facts. I'm not getting any younger. Every time I 'make a connection' with a guy, I begin thinking about the future.I need to know the guy at least for two or three years to say that I know a lot about him.And I need some more time to be sure 'He's the one!'.And then think about the future, or rather live the future.And if I waste my time now 'making a connection' and find out that the line is busy and then later spend God knows how many awful days trying to move on, I'm just getting closer to being 26(the age at which I plan to tie the knot) and face the prospect of my parents finding someone for me.Ugh! Or maybe, I'm just proving to everyone around me that I'm more than just 'slightly neurotic'. Hm.

I had major issues with my friend and as I spoke about them to her and cleared the nauseatingly, awkward air, I realised how much she'd meant to me in the past and how much I don't need her now.Not that I don't like her anymore.I always will. But she used to be my safety net to bounce back on and now I've willingly cut the cord.It feels nice to place every single person involved in your life on an equal standing.It lowers your expectations from others, makes you stronger in facing your troubles(I feel so pretentious when I say 'troubles') and makes you more emotionally independent. It has made me so.And I love it.This is my 'happy place'. Finally!

I am a little sad that I might have come to a point where I don't care too much about what is happening to the people around me but I guess I'm happier and since everyone knows I'm quite selfish, I'll stick to this. Too many realisations in one day, no? That's why the title!

So back to today, I'm all fine now.No more mopey and depressed.Although I do miss being depressed.I think I wrote better when I was.

P.S- I might have gone a little crazy due to too much going on in 24 hours. Exhibit 1.

My feet, Devika's hand on the left and Kannika's on the right. I know my feet are horrendous. More about that some day.

Dus ka dum!

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