Would there be such a day when I could feel free from this emptiness, this vacuum that has taken over my heart? asks Aarti David.
Are we ever fully able to let go? Whether it is the painful end of a relationship or the loss of a loved one due to sickness, ill health and death.
After all, we invest so much of ourselves in people that we love, that the mere thought of having to live without them for even a day seems unfathomable. And yet, loss happens and life continues to go on.
But the real question is whether we too move on. True, we continue to breathe, sleep, wake, eat and repeat cyclically, almost as if life were on autopilot and happening to someone else and not us.
I have experienced this more and more through the pandemic and after.
There have been losses that completely changed my life and my belief system.
I felt completely distraught and helpless and at one point, I even wondered, how will I be able to carry on. And yet, here I am still carrying on.
Nothing seems to be working the way it ideally should. But life continues to go on meandering on its path.
I figure I have control and suddenly I find I never did. I'm just a mere puppet in the hands of fate living out each day and carrying on the ritual of life.
Could then one term this, mere existence or would one view it as survival? Wasn't Darwin's theory about the survival of the fittest? Well, if that were true, I'd be disqualified on every account.
As one crosses the half-century mark, one starts viewing life differently.
It's not something that happens overnight. But one's perspective changes completely.
Don't get me wrong, I haven't turned into a seer or a philosopher who knows what the future holds.
I just feel I don't belong in the drama of relationships. And I no longer wish to be a part of that, which doesn't want me to be a part of it.
I don't feel the need to fit in anymore. And though I find myself being alone many a time.
I feel it's better to have bought my peace at whatever cost it came than to put myself through emotional upheaval for the sake of society and the world.
I'm not anti-social, nor am I a loner and neither do I intend to be one.
I enjoy the company of loved ones and friends. But I do choose to steer clear of people and places that would add to my grief.
As time has passed by, I have matured, but a part of me has still not healed from the turmoil and losses I experienced and encountered.
As I tried to find answers for myself, someone suggested I read Notes on Grief, an essay by the famous Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which she wrote on the loss of her father.
This passage from her essay really resonated with me and almost seemed like an absolute representation of how I felt or continued to feel 'Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language.
'Why are my sides so sore and achy? It's from crying, I'm told. I did not know that we cry with our muscles. The pain is not surprising, but its physicality is, my tongue unbearably bitter, as though I ate a loathed meal and forgot to clean my teeth, on my chest a heavy, awful weight, and inside my body a sensation of eternal dissolving.
'My heart -- my actual physical heart, nothing figurative here -- is running away from me, has become its own separate thing, beating too fast, its rhythms at odds with mine.'
I wonder how long it would take for me to feel better and whole again.
Would there be such a day when I could feel free from this emptiness, this vacuum that has taken over my heart? Will I be able to feel like I did earlier, once again?
Or is this all a part of growing up and growing older and perhaps wiser? Is letting go and moving on into the unknown without expectations is the only way forward?
I guess the answer lies in letting go of what we cannot hold back and moving with the flow of life with complete faith and conviction that the best is yet to be.
Just like we can't hold back those who are no longer a part of our physical space or world anymore.
Not living with any regrets but with gratitude for having experienced the joy of being with the people who shared life with us, whose presence mattered at one point and those whose absence will continue to pluck at our hearts no matter how much time goes by.
As Yann Martel wrote in his book, Life of Pi, 'I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.'
Life doesn't always offer the opportunity to bring closure the way we imagine it to have been.
You feel anchorless without these connections that once held you together. But somehow, one has to find a way to look beyond the immediate and accept the unpredictability of it all.
If we can acknowledge and overcome the fact that nothing lasts forever, and everything in this world is transitory and impermanent.
We may be a bit more at ease and peace. This doesn't mean one has to adopt a fatalistic attitude and start living in fear of death or loss of any kind or start living under a rock.
The revelation that this has brought for me is not to take life and its occurrences too seriously.
To take each day slowly and make steady efforts to move forward with the hope that things will get better or I will get better at dealing with them and in turn, be happy.
In his book Stillness Speaks, Eckhart Tolle expresses beautifully, 'If you can learn to accept and even welcome the endings in your life, you may find that the feeling of emptiness that initially felt uncomfortable turns into a sense of inner spaciousness that is deeply peaceful. By learning to die daily in this way, you open yourself to Life.'
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com
