Letter To A Girl Who May Not Read It: You Will Heal

“You’ll have moments of weakness, emotions running amok, potpourri of tears, frustrations, anger, but in your heart you’ll know each time that this is a process, that you’ll heal.”

Dear Girl, you doing good?

So I am told.

And your heart wants to just rip itself up and go…boom? Nobody even trying to see how the circus is making you feel? And you finding yourself vulnerable? Perhaps, all of the above in varying combinations at different points through the day? Like a neutron wandering freely, with a deep desire to catch at least some thread to hang on to.

Well, even if you continue to assume something different, please know, in this struggle – the everyday one that you and you alone have to fight through, you are doing really good.

Perhaps, since we are all humans, we require certificates at times – acknowledgements, back-pats, a whiff of understanding that it is an uphill task, day after day, at times each moment. But hey, aren’t you still there? Head up, chin up, shaky, rattled, scared – but in the process, in the middle of all belligerences – standing up for herself.

Obviously there are charges to be paid for all this courage you are showing, this situation of being in your circumstances, apparently surrounded by keen watchers, who intend to show that they are experts on matters of pain and heartbreak, of challenges and dealing with setbacks, even claiming to specialize in the antiquity called – you. But are they, really?

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How many times would you have heard from them that they have had enough of your theatrics, your silly outbursts of insecurity, of the unsteady wreck that you can be in the aftermath of a carefree you that once was in the picture? Think, what do they really want? Your pain to go away, yes, but also, peace – so that you don’t bugger them with your slip-ups.

It’s nobody’s fault actually. You can get tiring, with all the continuous, frivolous acts you put up. The people, your people, perhaps for your well being, they want you to have your act together and see things the way they do – from a distance, from their eyes, their perspectives.  You should do that. To eventually see that at the end of the day, at the end of the week, month, year, ages – the onus of the decision would be yours- good or bad or amazing or neutral – you live with the consequences, not your well-wishers. But, you’ll be fine. Trust me.

The strategy is not that you have to stop trusting, listening, allowing yourself the comfort of the company, but, that it is for you to see that the initiative to cross each threshold has to come from you, not by pressing the undo or delete buttons, but by having taken the wind, the storm on the face, for your own self. Choose yourself, choose your well-being.

You’ll have moments of weakness, emotions running amok, potpourri of tears, frustrations, anger, but in your heart you’ll know each time that this is a process, that you’ll heal. Things will take time, the journey will be nothing short of the weirdest of adventures, but you’ll live though it all. Just stand for yourself in your own eyes, stand with the knowledge that like a modern day phoenix, you’ll rise each time you shatter into innumerable shreds.

May be you’ll wonder what a distant person like me, would know about your story, its intricacies, its valleys, its shores, its peaks. No, I don’t. It’s your story after all. You have lived it. The investment, the risk, the reward, the mislaying – it was all yours. Neither me, nor anyone else has an iota of an idea of what it feels to be in your shoes in your story.

But, may be you’ll find solace in the hypothesis that I have lived a similar story once. Many like you, like me have traveled the road to pain, albeit with different, most unique experiences. Some of us are humans. We make investments – in hope, in relationships, in attachments, selfish investments at times, but we do have stakes in there. So had you. It didn’t work out? Allow yourself to cry then, break down. You have the right to be shattered. Do that, you’ll survive.

May be you’ll lie awake through the nights, analyzing the situations, possibilities, all permutation-combinations; may be you would consider finding a way to erase a few uncomfortable things, or want to block out all the inconveniences. Try that as well. I did.

What I discovered in the process was that till the point I tried to push it all away, it kept coming back. The night I decided to sit and have a heart-to-heart with my vexations, the conversation stretched to many such nights. Over time, I was friends with it all. Even the most tricky of the parts. I could function again, it was difficult, but I could. I thought I was brave. Not the quintessential sense of being brave, but, capable-of-facing-my-own-self brave. I was scarred, tired, scared even, but I was. Please, trust yourself.

Maybe you’ll hear that you are way past your grieving period – the ideal, scientific one – I was told it is one year, anything beyond that is self-inflicted, self-invited hurt. Please know. It’s your personal process. Take time, as much as you are comfortable with – one year, three years, anything.

You won’t always get the flowers you desire, you’ll be pushed, challenged, tested. Stay put. It’ll seem like a whirlpool, your closest ones telling you to give up on your feelings, abandoning your instincts and be ‘normal’. Don’t be – normal. Stay abnormal, if you feel that’s what you need.

You’ll fall, hit the bottom of the bottomless pit, but you’ll grow – roots in your heart, wings in your soul, love in your being. Prepare yourself, for your own self. Because, when life comes for you with its peaces and calms, its beauty and homes, how do you want to meet it? What if life’s best offer for you is right at your doorstep, waiting for you to redeem all the coupons your journey gets you?

Be ready. things will come, love too, light too.

You deserve a lot, you deserve you – in all shapes, in all eccentricities, in ecstasies, in exasperations.

Just, hang in there.

Believe in yourself.

Because, you are doing great.

Really.

Yours,

 R.

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