It’s her birthday today, I keep refreshing my Facebook messages,
hoping she’ll reply. But she doesn’t. She hasn’t in a long time. There
are no pictures to tell me what she’s doing, no updates and absolute
radio silence.
This story isn’t about me, it’s about two people who meant the world to me.
I met her on my first day of college, she’d walked into an empty
classroom, same as me. We quickly bonded over missed lectures, her
spontaneity and my fascination with her life. She was as dramatic as
someone could be. She was an atheist, something I’d never expected from
someone who comes from a conservative Muslim family. One day she met a
boy, Zakir.
Within a couple of months, they started dating. They never labelled
it though, which I’d always found fishy. On her first birthday with him,
she dared this shy boy to get her a bra. On another day he went her
brought her food in the middle of the night and stood under her house,
because she was craving a McDonald’s meal.
On the third day, she looked at me in all seriousness and said, ‘One day, I’m going to marry that guy’ and I believed her.
In 2014 they’d been together 8 years. They intrigued me as a couple.
One minute they’d splurge on each other like money was never a problem,
another minute they’d fight like cats and dogs. One minute he’d love her
like she was the only person in his world and another he’d be as
distant as he liked. I knew it was a love for the ages. They needed no
label, they needed no validation and still they were the only couple who
seemed to last.
2 years ago I lost touch with both of them, life moved on and one day her name flashed on my phone.
A short conversation later, I met her to catch up. What she told me
that day, still haunts me. She got engaged. But it was to a man who
wasn’t Zakir. I couldn’t control my tears when I saw her’s, something in
me was sinking. Zakir took it upon himself to save his distant cousin’s
reputation, when she was mistreated, abused and divorced. He married
her and moved to Dubai. She couldn’t bear this and got engaged to a guy
who lived far away from this country. Her last words to me were, ‘I
can’t be 8kms away, knowing the guy who’s made me fall in love, is never
going to be with me’.
She moved away and I still keep hitting a button, hoping things would magically refresh themselves.
- Desha Seth
In the recent past, I had stumbled across two very interesting set of
people. This encounter stressed the need for healthy relationships in
my life once again.
Some people can just self-invite themselves into your life. Neither
do they know what it takes to be your friend nor do they have any
genuine interest in knowing or understanding you. All though I cannot
truly understand their intentions behind such uninvited walk-ins, I
guess they just like to see a long list of friends in their social
media.They start to call themselves as your friends and expect you to
love them back like a good friend. They get hurt if you fail to meet
their expectations as a FRIEND. They do not know what a good
relationship demands. Two people can never become good "FRIENDS" over a
couple of drinks. Relationships that are born out of selfish intentions
will have to see an unexpected and an early death. It takes time,
understanding, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, knowing each other,
love, care, genuine emotions and connections, interest and compatibility
for two people to become good friends. These people will always be
under an impression that they are favoring you by just being in your
life. Imagine some stranger just walked into your house, unpacked bags
and started to share your living space with you. You might even accept
and try to make a good partner. But what if this uninvited guest just
didn't like your way of living and starts whining ? Find faults with
everything that you do and say? Refuse to accept you for what you are?
How long will you try to make a good partner or a loving and a caring
roommate ? Why should you be the one who is always yielding? Know when
to walk away ?
Then there is this second set of people. These people are born with a
great ability. Ability to change their views and opinions as per their
convenience like how we change our footwear. Sometimes we prefer flats
and sometimes high heels only our comfort matters at most here. For
these people everything is their convenience and comfort in life. Their
relationships, opinions, how they feel about others everything. They can
stand by you at your hard times only if it’s convenient for them and
they can treat you like a stranger if that is what is convenient for
them. They can easily understand you sometimes and can misunderstand you
with the same ease if that’s what their comfort demands. They can even
go to an extent of using your emotions and confrontations against you to
defend their inconsistent attachment. They are only capable of loving
themselves. They can never come out of their comfort zone and be
emotionally available for others. Do not make them one of those people
whose opinion matters to you in your life. Their relationship with you
is always driven by your phases or their phases of life. They are not
the people you can count on all the time. They cannot hold your hand
during all kinds of storms in life.
People can carry any kind of disposition, but it's our responsibility
to choose the right kind for us. It is very common mistake to let a
wrong person get close to your heart. It's not only waste of time to
invest emotions into unhealthy relationships, but these investments can
lead to a greater emotional stress. Our mental health is our
responsibility and no relationship should be worth enough to loose it
for. Quality of our relationships define the quality of our life. Don't
be in those relationships where your intentions are not self-understood
and your explanations are often misinterpreted. Invest your time and
emotions into relationships where there are meaningful and fruitful
conversations, love and concern, where there is no pressing need to have
that last say, where you cannot wait to re-conciliate, where you make
desperate efforts to break the silence and cannot fall asleep without
wishing each other a peaceful sleep. When arguments become part of life,
when hurting each other turns into a every day routine, when the pain
caused from constant wrangles stops affecting both, make time to revive
your relationship. Do not keep that wheel moving too long, understand
that journey will not yield any destination. Know when to walk away.
- Sandeepa Kolli
