I look back at my recent past. I have left a trail of ashes where the bridges I have built carefully have burnt. I haven’t set those fires, they have burnt by themselves. I have tried to hold myself culpable, as I always tend to — but I have always believed that it is not my burden to carry.
Friends who were close turned on me. I listened to them in stoic silence and realized I could not figure them out. I have been myself with them, without any filters. I have been told that this is the problem. I don’t wear masks, but I have been told that friends aren’t friends as I think, for everyone has an axe to grind. If they are silent, they are sharpening the axe.
It leads to an interesting question — so do we trust people? I have been told that I am hypocritical, but I know I am not. There is one problem though — I have an urge to share — share things that are supposed to be in the proverbial cupboard. This is the veneer of professionalism with which one wears those nice gloves and doesn’t leave fingerprints.
“Longed for him. Got him. Shit.”
― Margaret Atwood
I think the above quote summarizes people’s experiences with me. It is hard to accept this, but here I am — accepting this verdict without remorse.
The people who have left me in my humble view, have left because it is their turn to do something. Life with me is always a struggle in the deep waters. I am proud of being deep and persistent, but it turns out that people like the dream but partaking in the efforts.
Some people think it is high-handed, but if you look at their work — they are not outcome-focused or timebound, but mediocre. As the low tide occurs, the rocks are exposed. Well, that is my view. For a moment, let us turn the mirror toward me.
Why would people be disappointed in me? The question remained with me for some time.
“It was one thing to make a mistake; it was another thing to keep making it. I knew what happened when you let yourself get close to someone, when you started to believe they loved you: you’d be disappointed. Depend on someone, and you might as well admit you’re going to be crushed, because when you really needed them, they wouldn’t be there. Either that, or you’d confide in them and you added to their problems. All you ever really had was yourself, and that sort of sucked if you were less than reliable.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care
So let me break this down. Either it was my bad to believe in them that when they had to be there, they would not be; or I confided too much in them that made me a burden to them. I could not read more into that. I saw myself staring in the mirror without an answer.
All I was left with, was me. So it was only prudent to understand myself as I prepare to move forward. So, I am reliable to myself. A truth test now.
What others say is my image but their filter. So where can I get my unfiltered image?
“Let’s tell the truth to people. When people ask, ‘How are you?’ have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know, however, that people will start avoiding you because, they, too, have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don’t want to know about yours. But think of it this way: If people avoid you, you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter
Let others carry their pain, and that includes their opinion about me. I will not be able to carry other’s views about me for the simple reason that I intend to travel light — without regrets or guilt.
Time to dissolve the ashes of the past and watch the water flow past
If people leave me or avoid me, it is their loss. It is their story to tell, but it is their story to tell. My story stays mine. I have to spend time with myself — and I don’t need a coach for that. All I need is time, focus, and a dash of honesty in that cup of truth I hold in my hands.
I have been nice, stoic, and silent to those who have come at me — that is the first part. The second part is to let things happen around me, like sitting on the banks of a river and seeing it flow. Sometimes, all people need is to flow in their natural rhythms — there could be twists, twirls, and turns in their methods, yet that patience, where I will just be, watching rather than trying to act as their propulsion.
My urge for action and communication is what makes me incomplete. The control that I have to establish is to let people figure things out and they will come up with their versions. This letting go should give me the space that is needed to do things I want, rather than what I think I need to.
“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”
― Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
A few pieces of my life are still works in progress — but it is time to let go of some broken, yet beautiful pieces of the past. It is time for me to look into the present and then let things come to me, rather than me chasing things.
The Universe, they say, listens to your needs and not your wants. But I would let my life tell me what I need, and then let the Universe come to me.
“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
There are ashes left on my trail, but those shall dissolve into infinitesimal particles as I strew them across the flowing river as a ritual of letting go. Then I shall sit still along the banks and listen to the flowing water, the voice of my life and the voice of my being.
