The only thing that envisaged this post, again, was a Facebook
memory pop-up. Yes! Again. Because I had dropped the idea of putting something
impulsively gloomy. As clichéd and horrendous as it might sound for the
people who know me, it was a mere memory of a previous blog post that urges me
to jot this down.
Honestly, there have been many
valuable bits that I wanted to pen down recently- all happy, extravagantly
happy and a few sad ones. Bangalore, sure has been torturing and nurturing in
its own way. It has been evolving me in ways unexpected. The only reason I have
not been writing is the hectic schedule. The oldest and most unacceptable
excuse one could ever make but hold on; I swear this is not a lie. This post,
dear friends, is a manifestation of the Human Physiology class on a boring
Thursday morning.
As you get the hints of this
being yet another post describing a birthday celebration, I confess, some of it
is but I promise you shall pick up bits and pieces for yourself too.
Reel.. reel.. reel..
Rewinding life to 20 days back:
As angry and frustrated as I
could be, I wanted to break loose of the virtual chains that I felt held me for
more time than I could bear. I found myself stuck. Stuck in the air of partial
allowances, partial freedom. This air choked me. I always felt like I wanted to
break free of the chains that I cannot see but only feel. The chains that keep
me tied, though I do not know to what. I fail to comprehend the answer to this
question. At times, I feel the unworthiness of being at peace with these chains
that hold me. The ones that ask me to shut up when I speak loudly, or the ones
that ask me to wear skirts less often, or the ones that ask me to be home
before the sun sets. "I wanted to break free and I shall do that and not
regret it under any circumstance", I thought.
I was trapped in an illusion of
dependency, an illusion of a lack of freedom.
To all the people who have felt
the same ever, this is what you need to do- A. Tell yourself that you are stupid
and you are beginning to weave a story which shall be a trap. B. Sleep on it.
I cannot fathom the way to make
you appreciate the authenticity of this suggestion, but that's what I was made
to do and it worked wonders. However, I emphasize that it wouldn't
have worked this wonderfully lest I decided to apply it. I started reading
a book titled, "The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind" by Dr. Joseph
Murphy and came across a really nice anecdote I could relate to. Here it goes-
"Once Enrico Caruso,
the great operatic tenor, was struck with stage fright. Spasms caused by
intense fear constricted the muscles of his throat. His vocal cords felt
paralyzed, useless. He stood backstage, already in costume, while perspiration
poured down his face. In just moments, he was supposed to go out on stage and sing,
before an eager audience of thousands.
Trembling, he said, "I
can't sing. They will laugh at me. My career is finished."
He turned to go back to his
dressing room, then suddenly, he stopped and shouted, "The little me is
trying to strangle the Big me within!"
He turned toward the stage
again and stood taller. "Get out of here," he commanded, addressing
the Little Me. "The Big Me wants to sing through me."
..... When the call
came, he walked out onstage and sang gloriously and majestically. The audience
was enthralled."
I had read this long back but never really gone deep into it. However, I followed that suggestion and the next morning when I woke up- I was the same but the urge to escape was a little less, the comfort in the air was a little more and the aura of acceptance within had increased several fold. The dust had settled after the emotional turmoil. I wish I could recall in detail what was the process of the huge transformation in that one small afternoon. All I can do is, sum it up in one sentence: The 'Little Me' always tries to strangle the 'Big Me' within. It was the little girl in me whom I killed. That's what we need to do at times. Once you kill it, you're free. You have the power to do almost anything that you set your mind to.
In both the cases, nothing in
the outer world had changed; it was only the mindset within. It is about you,
always. This is what I learnt in one afternoon, but actually in years of
craving for independence.
Moving forward to my Birthday:
Apart from the Facebook pop-up,
I must admit that it is a word of encouragement from a friend who led me to
something that you read on the screen before you. It is also to recall how
amazing a birthday celebration I've had. As one of my friends rightly said,
"We will not just celebrate this as your BirthDAY... Let's make it a
Birthday Weekend." I remember the post published last Birthday and reading
through that somehow amazed me that how happy and beautiful life has been. How
each person on my priority list continues to be so loving, living up to all the
expectations and dreams that we weave through. Hence, my dearest bhaiya, I
cannot tell you how much I missed you last year, Oh wait, not you. Only the fun
that we had this time. And before I go ahead, let me please steal a moment to thank all the people who made it a day worth remembering and a life, worth living. To the friends who arranged a surprise party a day before, thank you that you moved your lazy asses on a holiday and went that extra mile to make me feel special. To the long distance friend, who struggled for a month to find my kind of tshrt for me, I'm sorry for being a trouble but you know how I love to see you working hard for these little things. To the roommate who arranged cakes, gift and card all by herself just to show how much I mean to her, I'd say I am glad to have you. To that idiot who woke up early just to say, "Good morning, birthday girl" and to the person who wrote the beautiful poem for me, thank you! I shall cherish that life long. To the siblings who are yet to send in their gifts, I'll thank you later, but you definitely make me laugh a little harder. To my lifeline here, I cannot thank you ever enough because you will never be able to comprehend how beautiful you make my life here (apart from the nasty scoldings when I was ill). That little cupcake with wishes scribbled by the spoon was the cutest thing ever. Thank you for the paramount attention and time that you render to me. Also, to all the people who flooded my inbox with so many good wishes, thank you so much! I know this gets a little too personal here, but, dear readers, the purpose is to make you realize that there are little things in life that we need to be happy about. There are times when people will make us feel special and there will also be times when we need to tell ourselves that we are important and our existence should be worthy. My brother says that we are like a speck of dust in the universe and our existence shall make little or no difference to it. But, here we are, not to make a difference to it, but to make a difference for ourselves.
Let me not drag this like most
of my conversations, the reason to connect this is that just a few days back
the air choked me because I thought I had no freedom. And look at the irony,
the girl who cribbed about freedom was doing all that she ever wanted to do,
having an almost perfect celebration for Birthday. Of course, we all have our
own definition of freedom and I remodeled mine too.
PC:Google Images
I wouldn't get into the details
of how, what and when but all I want to say is that I just decided to believe
that it was a false story my mind was trying to make up. Guess what, the universe did manifest to prove that all those were just false stories and there was nothing that I was bound to! Nothing changed and
yet everything did.
The "Little Me" is
present in all of us. It will always try to belittle us, tell us that we aren't
loved, we aren't capable and we cannot have what we wish for. All we need to do
is Shut it up as all the
beauty and love in the universe is just waiting for us to grab it.
