In the End

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could.."

The End draws near. '6 years!' almost like what a prisoner would say. But it was nothing like it. Here, I wasn't forced into not was I unhappy. Of course there were moments when I 'knew' I should not be here and moments when all I'd do was lament over my 'unwise' decision. Worst of all were those moments when I hated myself. Self loathing, it can't get worst than that. Overall, at a glance, it was sunshine and rainbows. That's perhaps the best description I can muster with my tiny vocabulary now further shrunk by technical terms, diseases and medications the name of which mean nothing to the everyday traveller.

When did it get so beyond return? When was turning back and walking away not an option? I would like to think it was perhaps never too late but that's not right. The moment I stepped into medicine, the day it all started was the day I knew that I could never turn back. How could I? How can anyone leave behind the opportunity to be a part of something so grand? Grand. Majestic. I remember the day as if it was yesterday. The anticipation of what is to come and what to and what not to expect. I remember telling myself, ' Enough screw-ups! Now focus. You have to give this your everything.' And, I did. I am glad I did. It wasn't just me, don't get me wrong but one person could never do this alone. The teachers, each and every one of them did their fair share of job educating me. I remember my biochemistry teacher consoling me with his most soothing voice. I didn't like him very much. He used to teach a lot of things that I couldn't understand. But that moment all I could think was, 'I am the one who did bad, why is he behaving as if it was his fault?!' Perhaps it was then that I realized that he was as much into (or, more perhaps) my success as I was. That was the kind of care I obtained in 6 years. Even the ones who seemed to hate my face suddenly behaved, if only in their actions, like my older brother and sister when I needed them to. That was weird until I realized I would do the same in my future. Nobody can make it through on their own and who better to realize this than the ones who have been through this? It was nothing short-off a second family and I loved, if not all, most part of it. I hated the exams. I doubt anyone lives who doesn't. I assume even the examiners hate the exams.

Ha!

But, the best part of it all was in the friends. Six years would have been a lot more like actual six years had it not been for the friends I had. But this is nothing new. Be in the same field for six years and you are bound to make friends and some grow so close they're bound to stay with you for a lifetime. So, I was no different. I had friends and they had me. The 'illegal' things we did together, studying together, getting frustrated with the other gender for their weird quirks and lament over the lovers-that-went-wrong together; all of this helped me get through.
With my choices, decisions, I got here and I know I'm not yet ready to conquer all but I'll get there too, in time. Every time I leave the other me behind, I'm setting into a journey the alternate end of which I'll never know except perhaps in my leisure, lost in thoughts pondering what it could've been like.
And, thus, the journey concludes in memories sweeter than any I could explain in words. And, onwards I march into the unknown knowing full well that there are countless faces, disguised as friends and teachers whose conscious wish is for me to succeed and be the best me I can be.

'"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference."

-The Road Not Taken, R. Frost

The Other Me

I, sometimes, wonder where I would be without those god-awful moments I have had to live through. Those tiniest moments of embarrassment that prevented me from standing before that one girl and asking her if we could go out. See, they might be tiny when the grand-view is in place but they make a huge difference. We cannot modify the past but our future propagates through our mistakes, our successes, our achievements and our failures. We are the culmination of years of chaos and in it we will perish one day. Though little is our significance, and little our time, this is all we have and in it the 'even little' make all the difference. In Frost's words "Two roads diverged in an yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both..", we have this entire alternate us left out from existing just because we took one of the two choices, failed to approach that girl and therefore left out on an entire experience - perhaps of hurt and pain or perhaps of eternal love, I will never know. And that is that. I will never know how it would've been like. It bugs me sometimes. It does feel unjust, doesn't it? It makes me feel unjust in that I didn't give that entire life a chance to exist. But a lone traveler, it was beyond me.
And, this applies for the good too. What if I didn't study this particular subject? What if on the day I was to be enrolled into college, I decided to give up studying and started running, say, a shop instead? The routine curses I'd throw at myself for that stupid decision, the dark future of self-loathing, inferiority... that life.. it is all beyond my reach now. In deciding a path, we set a future and the alternate us dies.
Perhaps in some dimension, I am a cruel dictator. Perhaps in some other ones, I am a movie director or even an actor.. the glamor, the fame, the flashes.. It's all beyond me now.
How, so one must ask, would I be if me changed places? Let's say with a better me? A me that has accomplished everything the here me assumes is the ultimate? Just switching places. What would I feel? Would I be happy in living that life or would I feel empty and therefore sad and utterly depressed in that I had nothing more to aspire to achieve (at least for the here me)? How would the other me feel? Would he try to change my here life into something better in his terms of betterment (like all the rich do.. charity, perhaps) or would he acknowledge that my lesser place in here is at least an opportunity to change and thus already an achievement? Would I try to change the street vendor me into becoming what I am here or would I accept that life is different for all and that all and everyone make a difference so I am important and thus the only change be in terms of positive energy? Would that wear me out? I could hold on to the feeling of awe and spiritual enlightenment for days perhaps but what when I break down which I do occasionally? How would I cope with that in a lesser status quo?

Troubled Mind

A grotesque landscape lies in front of us, in front of me. I see myself running for - keeping a distance from myself as I try to figure what bothers me so. As I turn, I see an old friend, my Anabel Lee running further and further from  me. I don't even call her back. I smile as if the drift is alright.  With reason, perhaps it is. But what of the next day? Do I keep on the mask and pretend my heart is still in one piece? I ask him but he is running further and further from her. There is still a string of hope binding them. a hope-less-lace. Like a fainting hue from a setting sun, it is fading as well. It is fading faster than my voice could recuperate the lace. What went wrong, really? They have started to laugh with somebody else. They are gone. She is gone.

A Year after the World's End

"...5 seconds."

Something saddening happened today.

Isn't it amazing how sometimes you're so content with the moment and then you see something, hear a new voice, an old song or glance at an old picture and the past which you seemingly have been comfortable distant from all this time suddenly blankets you, rattles your mind so much that you, so certain of 'happiness' a moment before, aren't even sure who you are anymore?

It's been just over a couple of years. Yet, it feels like there is a lifetime ignored safely into some old boxes of memories that'll remain untouched. But, they sometimes un-box on their own, it seems. 

How the comfort of a cold evening, a rather astounding evening, having learned all the new things you could have learned in a day having been learnt, can be so easily disrupted. How could someone be so overpowered by emotions that he suddenly stops watching a tv show about some detective and novelist walking side by side solving a murder case and unraveling evidences and conclusions and surprising logical speculations from 'em and just stare outside the window through the gap the incompletely closed curtains make and look into a star and remember that star and the past and the mistakes and the joys and suddenly loose interest in everything at once? What is wrong with me? Hopefully, nothing that doesn't effect everybody else.

There she was, right where I'd last seen her. Polaris, the north star, shining just like she does everyday. There was a time when I'd stay out watching stars and mapping 'em. Reading all kinds of books, watching all kinds of videos I could find of 'em in the hope that I'd understand her more somehow. As if learning the distance between us is going to make any difference! But, you know, it does. It does make a difference. It makes me more human. It's surprising how little she seems. I live in half a pixel, she lives in half. She is so distant from us all, so distant from me. So far away form me and yet the feeling that she is there and I am here and that we will be here for as long as possible and perhaps all though my conscious life and we'll see each other and that I'll attach her to some phase of my life and smile just upon her sight and recollect everything I've lost on this journey and turn around and start it all over again and that there will be nothing else but this mere vague attachment to her in some sorts somehow makes it all better. How petty! She is a enormous ball of fire and I am nothing compared to her and yet I talk as if she's mine to keep. She's a star. No, she's a guide star. She has shown sailors the way in the past and now she's showing me, a pirate of some sorts, mine. 

On a side note, I did learn of Juno Project to Jupiter today. Apparently, it's going out into an orbit around the sun then upon an entire rotation come close to us once again and then be shot out by Earth's gravity to reach Jupiter circling about its poles. That should be interesting.

Regret

In pain, I wailed her name, in tears I apologized,
Played the 'romance' so very well - just as I had devised,
Obsessed over her - more than was wise -
And, I knew her well enough to see through her lies.

Many new faces I hated, many old despised,
Isolated, made a fool of and yet, failed to entice,
Forgot many, forgot any - against she who advised,
But, grew still to know her too well to see through her lies.

Sacrificed everything, anything for her without thinking twice,
Really, I did - yelled at myself, cried and apologized,
And, yet, she's gone, drifted from me, and perhaps it was wise,
For she, I - we both need a better root from where to rise,

I obsessed over her though - more than was wise,
Knew her well enough to see through her lies,
Yelled at her, cried for, and gave up just as fast,
Regretted every horrible things I said, right 'til the last.
[I obsessed over her - more than was wise]