Hi..
In the words of Cheryl Strayed, this letter is coming to you from an anxious little peach.
You know how most people have a chair, stool or a table in their bedrooms to keep their stuff on if not sit on it. I have a sofa in my bedroom too. It keeps piling on with clothes that have been washed or ironed, clothes that need repair and sometimes clothes that need washing. Then there comes a day when I clear it all up, clean up my room, dust off the corners & light a candle. I create a vibe for myself which makes me calm. This setting lasts for 3-4 days or at max a week. Today I looked at that stuffed sofa after a meltdown and wondered how on most days I'm piled up with emotions, complaints, hurt, anger - everything that needs to be mended. Rare are the days when I feel at peace with myself, when I've cleared up my chest from all these heavy emotions that weigh me down. The problem is that this pattern just doesn't seem to end. Maybe that’s how people go on with living their lives, maybe this is what a regular routine is for most. But all I really want to know is what it would be like to always have an empty sofa.
This breakdown that I’m having today is caused by multiple things that had been piling on & was sitting beneath me like a ticking bomb. It ticked its final tick today & exploded on me. I worry if I’ll ever be able to know myself. Like what makes me truly, sans social media validation, from deep within happy? What’s my favorite color? Which is the next city that I want to travel to? I traveled to Bombay for my birthday. I think of that trip and ask myself, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much joy did that trip give to you, Riti? It’s hard to admit but it’s quite low. Why am I not bringing music back in my life? Why am I giving such a hard time to myself? Why am I putting myself into situations I’m not totally fully into? What am I scared of? What does love feel like? I want to know. What does it feel like to be loved by someone without a shred of baggage? I want to know. Because I too want to know how, I, someone without a shred of baggage would love someone. I want to cry with arms wrapped around me, because it’s easier to cry that way and I truly really want to cry.
Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow. I’ve been lingering in this shadow for far too long now. I thought this month’s letter would be about my happy trip to Bombay but who was I kidding. The illusion of happiness I had created in my head for the past few weeks broke the very day I sat down to write about happiness. Words didn’t come to me at all. A writer can’t lie to her paper, Chico. :)
I rummaged through my bookshelf and randomly took out books to look at the sentences highlighted by me. That’s the only thing at the moment which helped me come out of the draining rut, even if for a short while. Sharing some of these with you.
From Writers & Lovers by Lily King:
On the way back to red Barn we called out all the funny names of Massachusetts towns we could remember. ‘Billerica’, ‘Belchertown’, ‘Leominster’, ‘Kadkaddooma’.. just kidding, this paragraph reminded me of a conversation I had with someone & this word made me burst with laughter. It’s an area in Delhi.
I’m both the sad person and the person wanting to comfort the sad person. And then I feel sad for that person who has so much compassion because she’s clearly been through the same thing, too. And the cycle keeps repeating. It’s like when you go into a dressing room with a three-paneled mirror and you line them up just right to see the long narrowing hallway of yourselves diminishing into infinity. It feels like that, like I’m sad for an infinite number of my selves. This paragraph hits me every time I read it.
It’s a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, of loving a book with someone.
I think of Holden Caulfield, wanting to catch children before they fall off the cliff, and I get it now. Catcher in the Rye reference
Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed: (i call it a bible for lost souls)
But transformation often demands that we separate our emotional responses from our rational minds
You loathe yourself, and yet you’re consumed by the grandiose ideas you have about your own importance
Fear of being alone is not a good reason to stay
You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all.
The course of love by Alain de Botton
We too often act from scripts generated by the crisis of long ago that we’ve all but consciously forgotten. We behave according to an archaic logic which now escapes us, following a meaning we can’t properly lay bare to those we depend on most. We may struggle to know which period of our lives we are really in, with whom we are truly dealing and what sort of behavior the person before us is rightfully owed. We can be a little tricky to be around.
may there be love in our hearts & stability in our minds
Riti
Sending you hugs around which you can cry as much as you want 🌻