All By Myself....

A social being, yes that is what we are…We, humans are social beings…We like to socialize; we like to be with people of the similar or likeable nature, genre, culture, cuisine, language. This was not just a pleasurable thing, but also a necessity.

But as time evolved, as we progressed, as we became technologically more and more advanced, we learnt how to be able to survive even if we are left all alone in a cocoon of our own for weeks or months at a stretch… I was in one such cocoon for the past one year. I don’t mean to say that I cut off all contacts I had with civilization all together and that I went to hibernate for one whole year hoping to turn into the neo age Valmiki. I was certainly not admitted in one of those high end rehabs to recuperate from terrible mental depression. I was just staying alone all by myself 5 days a week as my hubby moved out to a different city for work.

The regular expression I get from my friends and families about me staying alone is “Awwwhh…that’s so sad” “Oooh…How do you manage…?”, “Are you all right by yourself”…and the worst… “Can’t you just quit your job and go stay with your hubby cooking and cleaning for him?”

I politely smiled and tried to nod to most of the above people, except for the ones who asked the last question. I served them coffee with surf detergent in it, so that they never came back to my house…

Now that I have one full year experience of staying all alone in a far away country, I decree myself as qualified to blog about the 5 best things about being All By Yourself. If you look at it the right way, it is not bad at all…Read on if you were looking for the pointers…

1. Silence: The beauty of silence…the intimacy of silence, the depth of silence.. You need to be alone to experience this. When you are walking all alone on the streets and the wind blows lifting with it the fragile dry leaves from the road sides…have you listened to the quiet murmuring sound that those leaves make? When you are sitting in the park, have you listened to the chirping of the birds that merge with the tripping of the leaves from the tiny water fall near by… You need to be alone to experience these things.. When you lie on your couch and you flip through the television channels quickly, have you listened to the eerie silence that fills in the room? At times when you are back from work after a hard day, all you want is some silence and the need, not to explain things to some one why all you need is some silence…

The silence has so many different forms that I feel it has a personality of its own…if you give it the time, it can start talking to you, in silence !!

2. Be your wildest self: No matter how much of an open book you are, there will certainly be some pages that no one else, but you, can flip through in every person. You can be at your wildest self when you are all alone…The one thing that stops every one from putting forth your real self, is the fear of being judged… The fear is more if you don’t want some one you are close to, to judge you. When there is no one around poking their long noses into your personal business, you let yourself free… you can be in your grumpiest mood or you can sing your favorite love song at the top of your voice…without being concerned about whether or not you are hitting the right notes and beats…You can throw away your clothes and be naked if you want, or put on your best make up and take ever lasting classic pictures of yourself… You can talk to yourself in the mirror as much as you want and you can just cry your heart out without trying to explain to some one why you are crying…the list goes on…

3. You are the boss: Those who are used to planning and coordinating and communicating with various people and groups at work on a day to day basis, would agree with me how nice it would be to know that, for once even if you don’t plan anything, things will happen your way. You don’t have to communicate to or convince some one why you have the urge to do some crazy thing at a craziest of times…you can just go ahead and do it…

Cook if you want, don’t cook if you don’t want…go for a drive if you want, stay at home if you don’t want…go for shopping, walking, rent a movie, talk on the phone non stop, read blogs till late night, chat with old friends non stop, sleep on the couch with TV blaring loud, hog the entire bed and all pillows in he middle of the night, take the entire closet space, stay in the bathroom for hours perfecting your songs… you can do what ever you want with out being concerned about what or how it may affect some one else’s plans for the day or the evening.

Of course, I am not talking about taking any major life changing decisions being taken at the spur of a moment and moving ahead with it…I would still consult my entire family tree, the branches and the roots even, before doing any such milestone reaching things…but what I am more interested in, is the simple things in life…the things that give you immense pleasure at the cost of nothing…the things that you don’t want to spend your energy planning, talking, coordinating , convincing or compromising…You just want to do it, or not do it…for the pure pleasure of it….

4. Brings Clarity: I never thought I would be writing this…but yes, I feel that being alone gives you more time to self retrospection and bring more clarity to those things that were previously air brushed!

You priorities seem to get clearer, you start depending less on others to form and opinion about yourself…you develop the skill by which you can measure yourself to the exact micro meter and decide whether the way you have turned out is what you really want or not…As a person you start realizing and acknowledging the various things that are important to you, and important to those who are important to you. I agree that all of the above revelations is just a part of growing up and you would have attained them anyway even if you were living in a 20 member family or in a dormitory with 50 other persons around… So here what I am trying to say is, when you mentally learn to be alone, even if you are physically surrounded by a huge mob, you learn to think with better clarity and precision…

If not the fruit if the Bodhi tree, you would at least sniff some pollen from the precious flowers in the breeze…

5. To Miss and be Missed: Finally, being alone gives you a chance to miss the people you love and be missed…it is beautiful and painful at the same time…when you are away from home, away from the familiar faces, streets, scents, furniture, tastes…you realize how much you love them and how much you miss them…how much they were a part of you, though you probably would have denied it in front of public!!

Knowing that you are equally missed is also wonderful.. In a world where people are looking for constant re assurances of love and commitment, the realization that you are missed, loved and wanted says it all. It gives you the energy and motivation to go on…

Not to mention the joy of brief and occasional reunions… the fun, the laughter, the sharing, the food, the compromises, the fights, the tears …everything that you share with your loved one during that brief reunions adds so many more wonderful memories and warmth in your heart and it refreshes your soul….

This has become much more emotional than what I had wanted it to be…Let me tell you a secret…I had started writing this blog as a 10 pointers to being all by your self…but by the time I came to my third bullet, I knew I was running out of my best things list….

I guess I’ve had enough of staying alone for one whole year and now I am ready to go back being together with some one again…

Sealing my book of wild cards with a double lock I am back to the world of not being so All Alone again…. I think I will love it equally!!

Spring is around the corner.. New beginnings, new blossoms..!!

Have you ever returned to a place that you really loved, a place where you thought you belonged, a place that made you feel at ease…after a very very long gap and felt that strange chill in the back of your neck and a tumbling feeling in your stomach…? The familiar spots, colors, faces. They all try to strike a chord with you…But the intimidating strangeness that has engulfed your familiar surroundings mock at you….

Which way do you walk…? Do you take the safety of the once familiar routes or do you dare to venture the never before visited alleys? Do you revisit the once regularly visited spots and bow to the familiar faces or do you just march on as the new mysterious persona in town, arousing all passersby’s curiosity..? Or would you just sit at one corner not knowing what to do next and end up recollecting the old tainted pictures from your memory..?

This is exactly where I am right now and this is exactly what I am feeling right now…Its been more than a year I penned down anything creative…its been so long I have even visited my once favorite bloggers…and its been a very long time….And just like that I am here again…!!

Its been a good exile…with lots of good and a couple of not so good stuff happening with the life.. Nothing highly dramatic like winning the Big Brother show or anything highly rewarding like inventing a replacement for fossil fuels happened in my life… Just the regular stuff…more work and less work… one good visit back home and great time spend with family and friends…one more birthday… more shopping and more shopping…more photos and more photos, gifts, parties, dinners, ever growing credit card bills and a bunch of fights and yelling and being pissed off which I would group together as miscellaneous.

Every now and then the feel good factor of blogging, comes in…Just like the feel good factor of working out…which also apparently was in a terrible screeching halt for a while!! In an effort to convince myself with genuine reasons or rather excuses of not blogging , I question myself , why do I blog…?

No, am not questioning the essence of blogging, or why others blog…? I do understand and appreciate the talent and commitment shown by various people in keeping alive their blog, whether it is fictional, scientific, technology related, art , music or anything under the sky…but why do “I” blog…? Oh god, I am coming to hate myself for the very artificiality and hypocrisy that question resonates…I know why I blog…it is because I love words, I think, I think non stop, I love to combine my thoughts and put it into words and then read them as they come out…I like when others also read it…I love it when people appreciate…Oh I am no good sport…I get so pissed off when I get negative comments and sulk..

If I know all this I shouldn’t be even asking that question…Or may be I should I ask, why is it that I gave up blogging ? Lazy , busy, occupied with other stuff…yes to all…But also, somewhere down the lane, I started to hate the fact that I had started wanting to write not for myself but for those whom I think might be reading my blog….

Even worse, I started not to write certain things, thinking about those who might read it and feel offended…

I know that the reason why I started blogging was because I thought, hiding in the anonymity of this veil, I could write what ever came into my, exactly the way I felt inside. Let me admit, I am indeed a chicken!! But clearly, being the attention I seeker I am, i made sure almost every who knows me, knew about my blog…There goes the cover of my anonymity…A puff and a smoke …ashes remain….

Now, I arise from the ashes…is this a new phoenix…with a bolder, daring outlook?
Which way do I walk…? Do I take the safety of the once familiar routes or do I dare to venture the never before visited alleys? Do I revisit the once regularly visited spots and bow to the familiar faces or do I just march on as the new mysterious persona in town, arousing all passersby’s curiosity..?

That is something I have to wait, watch and see….

Wishing myself all the best in a new beginning….!!