postcolonialmigrant

(not-so) Dear shikha,

You always do this. You always chicken out at the last moment. In the past 2 months, you have canceled 7 dates and left 3 after 10 minutes of being there. You stuck around for one because Arcade Fire was playing in the background, this is madness. Remember how you stopped talking and said, “this is my favorite song,” the 4-minute silence when he tried to hold your hand, but you recoiled so swiftly, it was insulting. 

 You are now sitting down at 7:30pm on a Sunday night, ruminating about canceling another one. The message has been typed and deleted about 3 times now. You have not given this person any chance, yet you have given him more chances than you have to Charles Dickens (yes, I know, it is digressive, but also a classic).

Your list of reasons of why not to go grows every day, and, let’s face it, most of it is speculative and some of it delusional.

• What if he does not like my playlists?
• What if he is a predator?
• What if he has an Indian fetish?
• What if he is dumber than me?
• What if he is smarter than me?
• What if he is religious, or worse, a conservative?
• What if my parents think he sucks, or worse, think he is wonderful- that is worse right?
• What if hates hipster home decor?

What if none of this matters at all? What if, the only what if is- what if I give too much and get broken again. Like last time. The last time really messed me up. I cried for months, changed cities, joined therapy. 

What if it is not like the last time? Where every conversation was a debate and dancing at midnight was routine. Where every text was an intellectual battle and every moment magical. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times- I know this is a Charles Dickens quote, and I do hate him but come on, this shit was god-tier. Even the people you hate can have unexplained beauty- just like last time. 

“I would rather they just come home, fuck me and leave,” is what you are saying right now. You say, “fuck me and leave,” thinking you are the new-age one-night stand girl your friends are jealous of. You are just a scared little girl who does not know how to handle yourself once it is done. That is not true, though, you want to say. Well, walking someone out the door and immediately deleting their number is not “handling” as much as “escaping.” You think this might be how you fall in love. 

 Well, sorry, sweetheart, modern human relationships start with a conversation, where you spend an awkward 15 minutes answering questions no one wants to hear about. They stare at your breasts and scope you out, they do that in the first 30 seconds, and your mind yells a resounding no. Then it is an hour of graceless exchanges while you think about how much better it would be to have a cheat sheet on the person in front of you, so you can avoid listening to how many siblings, dogs, degrees, albums he has. Because who the fuck cares, right? 

Then you leave. They message back, but you, oh you, never respond. Now that you have met a person once, your commitment-phobia has set in. It is like you think that a second date means buying a house together. If it is someone mildly interesting, you ghost after 2 messages- as a sign of respect.

“Can I just find a fuck-buddy from the people I have already befriended” is your next point? How many times have you typed and deleted that text? How many drinks is that going to take? Your contract is less charming than you think it is. My dearest indelicate Type A flower, you cannot create a syllabus for your body.

“Fine, I am just a horrible person then.” I guess you are. I guess when people know what you want from them, you really truly are. Have you wondered why these past few weeks have been a chaotic fight with your own feelings? Because maybe, just maybe, you have forgotten to feel. Maybe, you have been hurt enough times that now you have moved to being stoic. But we know that is not true. You still get bitterly affected by actions from a forgotten chapter of your personal history book, and your escapism is going to be added to the DSM book of mental disorders.

An emotionless mess of anger and impulse, then? Maybe that is where we are now.

It’s 8:04 pm, you know you are not going on this date. You are typing the message right now, “Hey, I am so sorry, but I am not in an emotional place to do things like this right now. I hope you can forgive me for this.” That is all. With that, you will stay home and watch a pretentious Swedish film that you are not sure you even like, till another day comes by of carrying your own mess.

I can’t believe we are still talking about this. I can’t believe I will have to talk about this all over again.

“I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please”

I have learned that there are two kinds of sadness, one that looks forward and one that looks backward. I have not figured out which one hurts more yet.

The one that looks backward is so much more focused on memories, nostalgia, and wistfulness, the belief that things could have looked different, that things could have felt different, things could. I could have been better, you could have been better, I could have been less intense, I could have been more aware, I could have stopped at the right time, I could have saved myself, things could.

I have started to think more deeply about the one that looks forward, the pain that is yet to come but is on its way. When I stop caring, when I finally shake this whole thing off, when I finally say “fuck, is this all you are?”. I am starting to worry about the pain that comes next. The last seconds before you give up on someone once and for all. I think that will hurt more, its anticipation hurts more.

The sadness that is looking forward has a way to it like a sorcerer, it finds itself existent in the dark parts of my mind without explaining itself, without showing its tricks. It comes as a warning sign, the loud bleating of goats before a storm. I have started to talk to the apparitions of the sadness to come, ask them why they are preparing me, why they are stopping me at strange points around the day making me delete conversations and move away from people.

The sadness that has gone is a story, I can read it, think about my place in it, and sometimes, on a rare night, cry again to feel. to remember feeling.

But the sadness to come is a prophecy, one that is bound to come true. Sometimes it is so close I can touch it, sometimes it has no temporality.

In India, we believe that all the knowledge of the human mind can be achieved if you sit under a banyan tree and just ask. When I was a child, I asked, who is going to cause the sadness to come? I think I heard “you are”

I am looking ahead, I can see some hairpin turns, some dropped baggage, some broken connections. The sadness to come is waiting at all those points, with a glass of water in hand, just to say, “this is a story now”.

“I buried a hatchet, it’s coming up lavender
The future’s unwritten; the past is a corridor
I’m at the exit, looking back through the hall“