Bittersweet

Always knew I could write only when I had to. Probably a good thing I didn’t take up that offer to go to Missouri to study journalism huh? *wry smile*

I am tempted to start this just like I start everything else I write – by looking inside me. It usually means understanding how circumstances affect me, and dealing with the ramifications. It usually involves some shaking of fists at the cosmos and a few mean words muttered under my breath. I think that’s the easy way to see things through – be angry at the universe for not giving you enough control that you can move the pieces of destiny around a little now and then. Then again, after watching how the universe was born, and really getting a glimpse of how beautiful it is in its vastness (Courtesy: BBC’s Hyperspace series and an interesting little toy called the Hubble), it becomes a little difficult to stay angry with it. Even with the planet, actually. I rather warm to it when I completely ignore one species among the 10 million that populate the place. Digression.

Sometimes, just when you’re beginning to think that most people around you are capable of hurting you, that they don’t care any less whether they do, and that you’re better off doing what you do best and not letting them, something comes along to spark the possibility that there are those who would not hurt you… who would give anything not to. That it reaffirms the faith in humanity would probably be too strong a declaration, because it is not easy to ignore all the evidence to the contrary, but it sure comes a close second.

At times like this, it becomes a little difficult to reconcile pure emotion with cynicism. It’s probably a good idea to feel glad that some of the things that make you unhappy have to put up a fight at least, but I seem to be doing something completely counterproductive. I seem to be finding it that much harder to forgive other people their insensitivity… because they’re up against a force that for a long time I thought was non-existent. A force that can see inside me – a myth, I’d thought.

If it is powerful enough to make me see that there is no sense in mourning something that made me happy, a connection strong enough to seek me out whenever I needed, to assure me that it would linger, then I believe it can easily withstand time, and the vagaries of my fickle mind. Life throws you assorted frowns... and a few wry smiles. I’ll take a bittersweet thought over regret any day.