And So, I Decided to Stay.
Dear Friend,
Not long ago, I found myself sitting by the beach, watching the waves crash onto the shore. The soft hum of the ocean felt timeless, yet I couldn’t shake a single question that clung to my mind: Why do I still want to live? I’ve often entertained thoughts about the meaninglessness of life, but this time, the question felt heavier, more deliberate–almost as though I wanted to lose the argument. The waves seemed to echo the storm within me and I began to wonder how I had reached this point in life.
I don’t know, or rather don’t remember, where things started going wrong. I was a happy child one day, and the next, I was this careful, pretentious liar scared of what people thought of me. I found myself incapable of forming connections, even as I realized that connection was the secret to a happy existence. So, I reached a crossroad: I could either do something and fix what was broken, or I could just give up altogether.
Believe me when I say, I didn’t want to give up. It somehow seemed wrong–immoral even. I spent years contemplating whether killing myself would solve my problems, but the magic-8-ball of my mind–with its cryptic answers and uncertainty–always settled on “highly unlikely.” People often consider suicide the easy way out, but it never felt that way to me. There was so much I liked about life: people, places, things, and maybe even some experiences. Yet, I felt like I could never do justice to any of them while living in a state that always made me question whether I really wanted to be here.
I always remember this one time I took a beautiful boat ride on the Ashtamudi River. The sun was about to set; a gentle breeze made my military-cropped hair flow for some reason. I sat at the bow of the boat, staring at the gentle ripples in the water. Yet, there was a raging storm in my mind that this beautiful, peaceful scene couldn’t drown out. There I was, experiencing a moment of complete peace and happiness, but I couldn’t feel any need to live this beautiful, confusing, and sometimes scary life. This pattern followed me through my teen years and into college, where I began wrestling with these thoughts more seriously.
One summer, two years after starting college, I met a friend who had been struggling with similar issues. I realized how much easier life could have been for me if I had chosen to open up. I can’t guarantee that things will get better immediately–or that they’ll get better at all. But I can promise you this: you will learn to deal with these feelings better as time passes. Like a long-lost romance, this pain will eventually find a quiet place in the back alleys of your mind. It won’t ever truly leave, but it won’t bother you either.
I eventually walked away from the beach that day, and that about sums up what I have to share with you. It may seem impossible right now, but you’ll find it within yourself to walk away from those beaches which tempt you to end it all. As I drove away from the beach that day, I had a smile on my face. The same worries still plague me sometimes, but I’ve realized that I can assign whatever meaning, however unconventional, to this mess called being alive. Don’t make the same mistake I made, even if for a little while, of assuming that there is nothing in this world for you. You may be misunderstood by many, but don’t assume that nobody ever will truly understand you. And if you ever feel like no one does, I give you my word: I’ll always be here to hear you out and the worries that follow you. I can’t promise that I’ll relate to all of them, but I’ll try my best to understand. Like the friends who unknowingly sat with me by the ledge, pulling me back from giving up on myself and my humanity, I want to be that for someone too. I may not be as good as they were, but I’ll try my best.
And if you’re still wondering whether you should live, here’s what I’ll say: I don’t know about tomorrow or next Monday, but today, I chose to live. And I think you should too.
Strip Malls, Soul Searching & a friend writing after a long time
Dear ************,
I could come up with a thousand excuses for not writing to you any sooner, but I think it's better that I don't make up excuses that neither of us would believe. I have so much to tell you, so I think I better get to that. And I can guarantee that it's all hot news (Okay, I wouldn’t consider this to be an absolute truth and it's all about perspective anyway).
It's strange, but as I write to you, the only song that plays in my mind is "Escape" by Rupert Holmes, reminding me how, much like in the song, I've settled into a 'dumb routine'. I find it very hard to find a point in most of the things that I do most days. From the monotonous classes to the horrendous weather, everything sucks. Even the occasional weekend escapades that I try to include to my pretty empty weekends turn out to be not quite it when I look out of the windows of the Ubers just to see strip malls stretching into oblivion. But the good thing about it is that you can find a Taco bell or a Mcdonalds almost everywhere you go (I'm pretty sure they'll have it on the moon as well when we get there). The rational part of me knows that I’m being stupid and not admitting that I miss home a LOT, but the part that's almost always in control finds it hard to admit these things, scared of letting myself be seen. It’s funny how I want to be perceived, to be seen, to be comfortable enough to let those walls down. But this ridiculous fear that seems to run my life usually kicks out courage, much like what Bouncers do to freshmen with fake IDs.
And to raise my annoyance rating from a very unrespectable 4 to an unholy 5, I have developed a habit where I call family just to say the randomest of things. I once expressed my concern to my mother whether whatever I said made it look like I was trying to be smart and vague, like an artist who would throw in words like ‘chiaroscuro’ or ‘contrapposto’ into a conversation just because they can. Luckily (or sadly, I’m not sure at this point), I was assured that no amount of abstract concepts or fancy words could make up for my inherent foolishness, which I had made very obvious to the people around me over the years. But on a serious note, I’m happy that I want to talk more. It doesn’t feel like I’m carrying the weight of the world all the time now. I want to listen more too, and I now get fidgety when people don't get to complete their stories. Whenever I finish a movie these days, I can't help but wonder about the characters-did they ever get married? This burning curiosity really has me blurting out gems like, 'But what about Amal Davis? Did he ever jump over the walls of IIT Roorkee?’ (subtle Premalu reference, yes I watched it). That pesky Aditya in my head, always dressed in plaid pants and white shirts would then promptly proceed to ruin things. That dude makes me say things like “ohh the human condition! How wonderful would it have been if we could peek into people’s minds”. Ahh who knows, the sentence would probably be a banger if I had a top hat and a monocle.
Well that's probably all you want to hear for now. I'm happy that I could write to you. I could make more excuses like my Tiger’s stomach ache and you could make equally ridiculous ones like the aliens hacking your email. Or we could be reasonable adults and accept that we kinda had different things going on and that we drifted off. That reasonable adult part of me also wonders how different we are as people now, whether my stupid jokes would still crack you up or whether we would be able to argue about national laws for a minute and then switch to which Payasam is better. I wonder whether your go to ice-cream flavor is still Rocky Road or whether it is some bourgeois bullshit like Black Truffle Honey Lavender. I wonder whether we would be able to agree on a playlist for our Spotify jams and sit quietly without either of us feeling alone. Those days are however gone, who we were is gone. But deep down I know that you’ll still be someone who can see through my layer of self-deprecating comedy, someone who made it a little bit easier for me to live during the hardest of days, someone who made me feel seen for the first time in my life. But hey, we’ll always have these bittersweet memories to look back on, from a time when life was much simpler. I don’t think I want to see this as where we go our different ways, even if you never end up replying to this. Who knows, maybe the aliens actually hacked your email?