Hey you,
It has been long. I often wonder how I would start the conversation the day you decide to listen to me. You are taking your time, no doubt about it. But I thought I should drop my ego and send you a letter, and what better way to communicate with you than pouring myself out right from your brain to your pen!
I have been having some questions for you and you don't have to answer. I would know what you think by the time you finish reading this. How? Because I am you.
Have you wondered, why, off late, you are not feeling happy? Why do you burst out crying for no reason whatsoever? Today, in the morning, why did Chester's voice as he sang "Numb" make you well up your eyes? Was it simply because of his voice filling you up with nostalgia or was it about the truth behind the words? "All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you." Why did it feel so out of place when you did all you could to make the world happy? Why does it feel like you are carrying a rock on your head even when you lift yourself up, high and free? Because that freedom seldom comes.
Home had always been the soft landing after every long day, the warmth that supports, cares, lets us take the breathe we didn't know we had been holding for so long. It is the feeling of loosing the weight on the shoulders, your heart and your mind, letting yourself slump into a mushy ball of comfort. Sounds familiar? Yes, it is not just a place anymore, is it?
But sometimes, most of the times, when you feel a dread of being homeless, the persistent fear of loosing yourself, or worse, fear of never having found yourself, do you think of me... Do you think of yourself?
You do know right? That I do over 90 percent of our collective decision-making? I do not take orders from any external source, only from you and I do everything to protect you. If for some reason, I think you are doing something to please others, I automatically think you are afraid and under threat and I will not allow you to do it. I will sabotage your attempts by triggering feelings of resentment and anger and anxiety. Remember those sleepless nights of heart palpitations and short breaths, the time you thought of running away to avoid yourself? Yep, that was me, sorry about that. So the next time you decide on doing something to make others happy, you will have to fight me and we know that is not going to end well with you. No, I am not smug. Deal with it.
Don't you feel exhausted? It takes a lot of effort to be someone you are not. This fear that you are not good enough, that you do not trust me-yourself with you and you trying to be something you are not, is like living behind a mask. How long can it last? You will get to a point when you can no longer live like that and that moment would be a huge shock and more sleepless nights. You should realise that being yourself was meant to be the easiest and the most effortless exercise but being someone else is like living in a constant lie. Even the best liars in the world cannot keep lying forever, with all lies contradicting one another. So stop fighting, stop being afraid of being yourself.
But home comes to you sometimes, doesn't it? When you wriggle up your mind to put out your thoughts into words, when you try to connect the dots and form a picture out of it, but you ditch that picture in front of you for a thousand words to cover up your notebooks. Have you felt the warmth in your heart when you hold your pen between your fingers or when you open your note pad, filled with the scent of damp paper? Doesn’t it feel like you would burst like all those fireworks you saw the other night in your dreams when you hear someone say, “hey, I can relate to what you wrote”? Speaking of dreams, think about the liberating feeling you get when you let go of those pent up emotions of all those years that manifest in your dreams and finally, you let your story be ripped apart out in the open as you bleed through ink. Have you ever thought why writing makes you feel normal? Feel like home?
Writing makes you feel like you. Otherwise, you are always busy living others’ dreams, others’ expectations, just like they lived someone else’s. It is always about others’ perception of you, but the thing is that they have already set their standards, fixed the road, fixed the milestones and fixed the destination too… everything is pre-designed for you, and they expect you to surrender to it. The choice is yours. Either you do or you pull up your socks and kick those rocks, those milestones away to clear the road seldom taken, adjust your attitude to screw the ‘acceptable’ normal standards and you build your own rulebook, which you are free to tear apart. Know that I am there to watch you break it and eventually make it.