For Love (Or Not) Of Books...

Its ironical when you send a not so complete post to a friend before publishing it, and later you tell her to not to read it because its kinda personal & crap and two days later you come up with a post that you consider quite personal and publish it to the world. The former post was probably a hundred times more casual than the one you published. I have always been very reluctant to share the inner me. May be it stems from the experiences when I tried and was misunderstood & perhaps because I fear judgement on my deep inner emotions or insane vulnerabilities as has been earlier, though in a not-so-serious manner. Or may be this reluctance was always there. Whenever I would write something, a part of me would be screaming yells of pain when words would form a sentence but those sentences together lack the feeling that I ache to share. Though on a personal blog, you are, kind of, supposed to rant, I don't know but any post on personal life or on that deep inner side of me used to always send me on guilt trip, as if by writing them here, I am making an open display. A part of me would go on and ask and curse myself for being an attention seeker or begging for someone to hear me out. I am sometimes so difficult with myself.

Day before yesterday I didn't have an option.

I don't know how this starts; its just that you start feeling sad & alone and the sentiment grows to an extent that you want to cry. I have had such episodes earlier also. A random stare on a group of friends, a general remark of a friend, cousin or a relative, a beat of a song, a dialogue in a movie, a sentence in a book sometimes has been enough for this strange emotion to come to the fore, to overflow and envelop me inside its embrace. There have been times I have even felt at home during the phase because it made me weep at the times when it was necessary to. I would say it from experience that the most dangerous situation is when you can't make yourself to speak or even react to any big-small thing because you just don't understand anything anymore. Most times, I was left to ask myself the question of "what the damn do you want, why don't you tell me?" I have screamed this question to myself more than once. I have had days of thinking & thinking & thinking about it that my head would ache so badly but won't stop thinking and there also came a time when once things went kind of abnormal with my sleep & appetite completely gone and our doctor had to prescribe me pills to relax for two weeks. Well, at this particular two weeks wala time that happened during mid Dec 2012 and Jan 2013, there were a lot many things life threw at me but that's a different story. I am over it I assume and its a thing of past now.)

Only that, day before yesterday it was different. Day before that when it started, I could feel when this negative emotion started to surface subtly. I was aware of subtle changes in my feelings. I didn't resist it (not that I had a choice to back it off) or fear it coming, I was aware that it's taking place. It kept on settling inside me and I kept on becoming depressed, alone, sad, hurt, anxious slowly and gradually. I felt the first pang of it on my way back to home from class, though subconsciously perhaps even before that. I made myself to sleep and I got up with anxiety, restlessness, anger- and it had started. Hours after that were spent cyclically. One hour would be where I would be thinking about it, analysing it, cursing it and every next hour was spent trying to figure out ways to vent out or share. I would pick up the phone and throw it. I would ache for a call from a friend and be furious at everybody that nobody cares. And next moment I would be telling myself that how would they know what are you feeling. (I am not gonna write all crap I felt, I fear that would make some crap permanent.) and I would again stare at phone and the whole thing would repeat itself. I would walk slowly because I feel tired. I would convince myself to take some food because I know I didn't eat properly in the morning and slept as I came back from class. But I can't eat because I just can't eat . I would make myself sit and wait for my mom to bring food but as food would arrive, I would eat slowly and it would not go down the throat after half a loaf. I asked for some lonely time from my mother and sat alone in the room downstairs. I had understood by then what is happening and I sat, realizing it is futile to do anything. I again felt sad, depressed and hurt over the helplessness of it all. From picking up phone again to going online and from text messaging to email, I tried to go to everything where I could to talk it out, except that there was nowhere much to go. And then having left out like that, I buried my face in my hand and all I knew next that my wet hands were on keyboard and wet eyes on screen. Most abnormal thing was the pace at which I was writing, erasing, correcting and re-writing. I was at my patient-best!

I just had to vent out. I needed to tell my feelings, even to myself. I was tired of my inability to express.

The usual guilt of posting it besides every other thing was very much intact the next day. Writing out something like that- I just could not digest that. I felt bad about it even during the fitful sleep and later next day. A part of me hoped that no one has read it yet and the other part was not reacting at all. I did not open my PC when I came from class the next day. Later I made myself to log in and I got a mail from a fellow blogger and a message over fb from another fellow blogger. Though I did read them, I was still 'unreactable' to feel anything for the mails.
They say that you feel light after writing. I have always cribbed about this my friends that I can't write or it doesn't come out the way I want, when I want to write about anything.

Its even more ironical when from quite some time, you were cribbing about your unedited posts and the fact that when you write, words overflow and later you don't have the patience to sit back & edit and you publish as they are. And when you write about a rather emotional thing, the write-up come out to be quite structured. I realized that when the fellow blogger who mailed me personally after reading my blog if I wrote the post for the sake of writing or I really really feel this way. This mail came the following morning of my publishing the post. Perhaps the post did not look like a spontaneous spell-out. After reading the mail, I was not sad. I read my rantings again and asked myself if it had an element of unreality in it. I read it again to understand. I was too unreactable (if thats a word) these two days to some external things that I read the mail some two three times until the words were imprinted in my memory. I still didn't feel good or bad about the mail. Later I got a long comment from blogger friend and though she really understood everything and wrote to me, I felt so embarrassed and hurt and angry over the whole display that I had done. I cursed myself for everything and I shifted my blog to unknown address, deleted the facebook page, shutdown the pc and went upstairs.

Later that day, my sister came home a few minutes after I resorted to hide under blanket. My eyes were a little swollen so I decided to let my mom and sister think that I was sleeping. But I heard when mom replied to my sis that I have just lied down over the bed. Again so slowly, I got up and went to her. She came for around two hours. All the time that we sat and talked, a part of me longed to tell her how was I feeling and as she kept looking at my swollen eyes in between our talks as if trying to figure out something, the other part felt that I came for showing her that I had cried & my eyes are swollen from crying and all I am doing is to catch attention and felt every other damn thing I could feel. When she asked I was looking weaker, I told her that I was having fever, consequently fitful sleep and that was why I could not eat. She said, "Yeah! your eyes are looking dark and feverish". 

On the surface I was okay, just having li'l fever and consequently tired; Inside, a plethora of opposing emotions were battling. My mom also knew that I was having mild fever like always because of the changing weather as its the start of winters. Only I knew it was because of all the above written shit & crap. Only I knew it was due to changing weather, indeed, both literally and figuratively.

The mails were very much in my mind. 'For the sake of writing' echoed in my mind for longer than necessary. I wasn't angry over the mail. There were comforting words too and it came from somebody I know would not intend to hurt. My soul literally mocked, "I told you so!" "Ha! Display!" I did not feel angry over it, I wish I did atleast for a second, that would surely have been better. I did what I had done these three days innumerable times, I buried my face in my palms. Not because I felt that someone misunderstood me but for "Why did I do that?" His mails did have a concerned & supportive tone to it, but sometimes you focus more on some things than others. He even sent me mails after that, to ask if I am okay.

I wish it was over by now. Later I realized I got the subscription post from my blog and I realized that deleting the blog is futile as the post might already be read. I could not take it anymore. Rest of the evening was spent in the myriad of anxiety, loneliness, hurt, guilt- all rolled into one. A part of me wanted to ask a friend if she has read it, a part wished not. Amidst all this, I went to bed quite early again with little eating. By the time mom returned from the market, I had already slept. I awoke around 11:30 and mom brought some milk and food. I told her that I am feeling very weak. I am not able to sleep. My head is aching and I could not speak all this without crying. My mom was so concerned already hoping that its regular mild fever only & not something else. I asked her to let me sleep for half an hour and requested her to sleep besides me & embrace me. She was adamant that I should eat first. Enough was enough. Perhaps on seeing me crying, she reluctantly agreed to my postponing food and as she hugged me, I cried like hell. My body's temperature had suddenly risen to around 102'C. Mom was concerned and angry. Soup came first & Medicines with milk & bread came next after a gap of an hour. Only when the high fever came, I could say to myself that I was not being attention seeker or fake. I let myself cry and took medicines and milk and slept. Due to the medicine, I was feeling relaxed & better.

I was still li'l unwell in the morning though the fever was not there. I could have rested but the class was important so I did go but I was an hour late when I reached. But I am happy I did not miss it.

We always feel a need to share and express. Figuring out your problems is the first step, spelling it out the next. Often we look for the the way to exact expression of our state of mind. Sometimes it happens sometimes not. We always feel that expressing it out would make us feel light and it happens too, many a times. We do feel better after it. But sometimes we do not. Many of us aren't even comfortable spelling out most of the things. I never knew I'd feel so apologetic on my own ranting. But I am okay about it now, kind of! As I just commented over a friend's post, "sometimes its becomes even more difficult when u kinda figure out what is bothering you..figuring out is just the first step, there is lot after that which is sometimes even more painful (sometimes)...journey of fixing it up has its difficult moments too...but yes, slowly things start to smoothen....and mind it, it may take years also or it might be a matter of a few weeks." Its so much in sync with the post so I took the liberty to copy it here!

Expressing is important (atleast to yourself) (and may be to people closest to you). We all have weak moments, but that shows we are human, not weak. Yes, there are all kinds of possibilities that your reluctancy to express was perhaps right or it did not have the desired outcome in the first place or for a long time to come. Whatever it is, expressing is an important step in the journey of healing.

I don't know at which point of my life, I became over sensitive at a few li'l things and I don't know at which point of time in my life I started becoming so difficult with myself. Keeping quiet on some things, however small, slowly eats into you and makes you over-sensitive gradually, I feel, for a few things. Anyways, I am feeling better today and I am too relieved to over-contemplate the hows and whys of this.

I felt the need to tell it all here. May be this is an attempt to explain the "whys" of my rantings being posted earlier, the sheer helplessness I felt. I don't really know if it's a healthy sign.

Thanks to the blogger friend who messaged over fb. Thanks for offering support.

Thanks to the friend whose mails came. You were genuinely concerned and thanks for all mails you sent after that. I felt really good at that. And thanks to the friends because of whom I am quite over all these.

A faint voice at the back of mind is asking me even now, if I am writing all this as an excuse to my earlier display of emotions. But today too, I know I just have to write. Talking it out with a friend (finally), even the excuse thing, gave that li'l voice at the back of my mind a much needed "shut the f**k up" and being okay with the rant-it-out and post. Thank you for listening!! (or in ur language-for your awesomeness) :-)