Catharsis Part-XI: "I need my rest, dammit!"

My first thought was, "Damn, I'm pregnant". I mean, I have just made it through a quarter of life so, it can't possibly be old age that is making me sleep so much. But then, you just can't wake up thinking you're pregnant, you know-- you have to do something to turn up that way. But to account for the amount I'm sleeping, not working-- logging into Facebook, finding no new updates (because people are either sleeping or have work), logging out, and opening a new tab in the browser to log right back in about 33 seconds later, still nothing, and slide back in bed-- I think the term 'lazy' cannot possibly encompass or define the extent of my activity, or inactivity, if you may.

Honestly, these young bones. For past three weeks, I went about with 4-5 hours of snatched sleep. I felt so awesome, even with the glaring dark circles under my eyes, to tell people, "Ho oh ohh, I am sleeping, only like four-five hours a day, yeah, just that much, ha ha ha... you know, work, responsibilities, blah blah blah" with my voice tinged with the subtle oh-it's-nothing inflection, and the cool, slight, affected indifference. After all, there's no point in long hours if you can't show it off (lesson learned in grad school)!

So, I am not working right now. Which means I am sleeping. Of course the state of "no worries" really worries me, as if there's something I should worry about and I am forgetting. Of course I am a worrier. It gives an useless fool like me the ultimate sense of purpose. Like I'm important enough to have worries- in a list of worries that features the economic turmoil of a country, the hungry children in Africa, the new drug-resistant tuberculosis bug. No wonder I feel important when I have to worry- about cooking fish, replying to my boss, scheduling dates, finishing assignments etc etc.

But I am sleeping. Almost all the hours of the day till he shouts and drags me out of the bed. He grumbles about going to work, coming back and cooking, and washing the dishes. But I am a sleep-induced zombie as I mutter, "I'm on vacation."

And vacation equals sleep. Period. Argument closed.

I am a grad student after all.

---

My Nose in the Dark

The first thing I do is bump my nose into the wall. Years of pinching my nose to a fine, fashionable point never worked, but I am so sure that these bumps would invariably make my flat nose almost non-existent and after a while, you just might see it coming out of the back of my head. With tearing eyes, I grope in the dark as usual. It's not that I hate the light, but I never want to scale the wall like Spiderman looking for the switch that is never where it should be.

I always need to get out of bed, just when I am snug and comfortable under my comforter. Every night without fail. And the worst part is I sleep alone, so, I can't even curse anyone. I mean, there's hardly any joy in calling yourself "a foolish donkey" (yeah, you got that right- 'foolish' and 'donkey')- when you already know you are one.

Hence as a ploy, to save my lazy bones from being hauled from the embracing and warm bed, I pace my carpeted floor for fifteen minutes beforehand checking off a mental list of all the things I need to do before I turn in. And with a sigh of relief echoing of the effort I put in, in all the great things I had accomplished that day, I turn off my bed-side lamp, and smile as I get into the best position under the warm covers for sweet, sweet sleep. And just as the contented sigh crosses my parted lips as soft wisps into the cold air, I remember- I didn't turn the oven off. Or, I didn't latch the main door. Or, I left my phone in the car (worst case scenarios) or didn't lock the car at all! Everything that has to be done right then and there, and no procrastinating permitted, unlike throwing out the one-week old trash after it turns three weeks.

So, I get up again, cursing- the hands finding the walls just the moment after my nose crashes into my closet, or the half-open door or the grand walls themselves. And I'd still be lucky if it's something that's in the kitchen, bathroom, anywhere within my apartment. But if it is a chore related to all the things I forget in my car, I have to put on my boots, hoodies, jackets, gloves, caps- I mean, over my pajamas I am dressed to go out for a evening in the city. 

And I have to do all of these in the dark, of course- because I am sleepy, I have work the next day for which I'll have to wake up in the ungodly hours and light scares off my sleep (obviously!), so much so that I'll toss and turn all night long only to fall asleep in the early morning.

So, with a brave heart and all the courage I can muster, I throw the covers off me and get out of bed. And the first thing I do - I stub my toe on the dresser.

Sigh!

---

Goodnight

Hold me tight,
All through the night
Tucked under your face,
Warm in your embrace
Keep the monsters away
And hold the fears at bay.


Sail in distant waters,
Hike the tallest mountains,
Lost in deep forests
Or with crowds in forgotten cities-
Take me away
With you,
In all your dreams,
In adventures anew


Nights that have never been better
Sleep and dreams that no more scatter,
In your arms, held fast
Peace, at long last.

---

Because you can...

Have you ever loved because all the other choices been taken away from you?

Have you ever loved not to be, not to gain, not to win but just... just because it was what was to be?

Isn't it stupid to love and not care about what you get in return?

Have you ever loved for happiness and damn all the pain that was to invariably follow?

To love just because you can..... not for the rights, nor for the principles, not for the society, never for the things of the world but for the joy, the joy of knowing, even infinitesimally, of your life being touched, by that one person but the one who changes you forever...

To love- to laugh and cry, to burn with passion and pain, to have and lose and never have again, to fear and conquer, to know and yet be ignorant, to be and never be- to love...

Never matters -the trivialities such- like whether you are loved back or not...

Bad and wicked, beautiful and right-

It is a wondrous thing.

One day...

One day I will come back bigger and better. I had promised myself, even while I found myself slinking away, like sliding in the mud after a torrential rain, unable to gain a strong foothold as much as I tried... But I did promise myself. I will not be a mere human.

I had sworn I won't feel, I won't be weak. I wouldn't care, nor would I love. I wouldn't be hurt, nothing would make me cry. I was going to be great, the epitome of all that greatness possibly can be! You wouldn't call me human, I was going to be God.

But the lures of this illusion that I am trapped in, this wondrous, scary place called the earth- in all its glory, its beauty, its inhabitants and its sterling lies. My mind would wander and in a weak moment, get ensnared in the spinning tales of love and laughter. And there I would fall back again. I resolve to rise. I resolve to be. But a bit of my heart that doesn't know to keep shut says I can't be what I want to be. For I am already what I am destined to be. Always a human. Feeling, loving, crying. 

One day I was going to come back bigger and better, in a life beyond the petty, the irrelevant. But I couldn't make myself go. I couldn't make myself leave the illusion, the faith that this dry, wicked, uncaring world will love you back one day, one fine day. So, I stayed on. Or that cruel hope did.

Fall

A crack in the mind,

A broken arrow that pierced

Hearts, more than one

A slip in time,

Over a small weak moment-

One that snowballed,

And ran all down

Down, down the deep crevice-

Into the unknown

Of the forbidden, in a free fall.

Oh, but what a fall!

The heart wailed,

The mind assailed,

With fears tasting bitter

But no guilt,

Over what's done and dead;

Oh, but what a fall it was,

With no rhyme, no cause.

And when you find land

Finally beneath your shaky feet,

All you want is to be swayed

And swept away, again

Into the nothingness of non-existence.

The Pioneer

The world is what it is today for what you gave its people. Counting losses, like the selfish people we are, the world will be a tired place without your visions to drive it on and forward. But looking back, "connecting dots", the world learned to live through what you gave it, the way you forced it to own up to its dreams and turn them into reality. You always will be the fore-runner, the pioneer, the visionary- the one who rekindled hope and courage, and pushed us into a new era, a new world of exciting possibilities.

Today, on the fifth day of October, year 2011, the great Steve Jobs passed away. Heart-broken, and at a loss, the world mourns as one, and remembers with startling clarity the ways he has touched all our lives, in ways more than one.

We rejoice that we had the chance to be touched by your brilliance and inspired by your life, and death.

You live on, in our quest to be bigger than our dreams, beyond the limits of our imaginations.

Rest in Peace.

Steve Jobs is survived by his wife and four children. And generations of people, us, who will always remember him as the one who not only led, but paved the way, too.