When they say they can’t remember snowy Easter like this
one, I recall the Easter of 2008. March 23, 2008 was a cold day, and just as
this weekend, I wore a winter coat.
Did I aspire to be much more than I am today, five years
ago? Of course I did. Everything seemed still possible. True love, all the good
associated to it, and what not. It was around Easter 2008 that the dreams and
what was demanded of me individually to attain them started weighting on me, I
felt I had no support, and with time I stood more and more alone. To make it
harder, there was no one to turn to for advice. The feedback I was receiving
from my friends was also: they were tired, they were doubtful, or my “situation”
was incomprehensible to them. I bet they were being polite and would not have
told me what they thought: that I was hitting the end of the road. But I clearly
remember that I knew that myself upon
exiting the church on that morning of March 23, 2008. Would I, given a chance
of time travel, choose to return to April 2008? I might. The idealist in me
thinks that I could have been a bit more humble, and bit more patient than I
already was. The realist in me contradicts that “no”, my dignity had been
exhausted. I was fishing for positive signs, and I was very much tired.
If anything, I’ve learned a lesson: I was not, I would not
be given mulligans in my life. Ever. It’s just me, I can’t get them, or I did
not deserve them, or I was not showing signs of desperation, or I wasn’t
beautiful enough, maybe—I do not know about the true reason. And I’m ok with
that too. I accept the fact, not the injustice of it (which I still perceive). It
doesn’t matter that I had given the mulligans away for others. To celebrate my
knowledge, last week I abandoned the meeting spot when a person I was supposed
to meet did not show up on time. When she called me up, I made her look for me
elsewhere. After all, I was just giving away an old camera of mine. I was not
giving away my time or my friendship, or any part of me. It felt good to know that
I won’t be riding someone else’s trouble rollercoaster anymore. No cruelty against
me is allowed. Better never be loved (but better yet, be loved!).
***
At the end of the same year Slumdog
Millionnaire, the most impressive romantic movie ever, appeared.
Coincidentally, I watched it on TV yesterday. I watched it with different eyes.
And yet that reverse time lapse of events shown in the movie’s last scene is
what happened to me during these last years.
