Vanity Card

What doesn't kill us makes us bitter. I used to believe that to be both funny and true. Years later I learned that pain could also be the touchstone for personal growth, which of course points back to the original saying, "what doesn't kill us makes us better." Not funny, but perhaps closer to the truth. Or at least the truth I choose to believe in these days. So, having recently experienced a bit of pain, am I better? Well, let's review: I think I'm fairly immune to name-calling now. I'm not sure I could have made that claim a few months ago. I've also come to see that the things I used to think were big deals, are not. Problems appear to be relative. If you have a big one, it makes all the others seem almost charming in comparison. And finally, when your life takes a path you could never have foreseen, it's humbling. In a good way. It's kind of like a friendly reminder from the universe that while you may think you have the starring role in the movie of your life, you're actually just a bit player trying to grab a quesadilla off the craft services table when no one's looking.

So, to sum up: I now have a thicker skin, I'm less likely to sweat the small stuff, and, perhaps most importantly, I have a renewed sense of humility. All in all, better.

Doesn't remind me..

Have you ever lost somebody close to you? somebody who was as integral a part of your life as the very air you breathe (dramatic.. i know..). When do you miss them the most? I've realised off late that its the little things you miss.. A certain way they felt when you touched them, a particular habit that was unique to them (that drove you nuts when they were around but now makes you miss them like nothing else in the world.)..

But more than anything else, its the things you shared, a book you both loved.. a tv show.. a trip you took together.. your private little jokes.. a drink that defined some unforgettable yet insignificant moment that you spent with them, the sort of moment you can only have with people you love.

I was watching an episode of a certain TV show we both loved and spent hours discussing and deliberating over; and it ended at a bit of a cliffhanger. My immediate reaction was an immediate desire to spend an obscene amount of time picking out the significance of every scene with the person I am talking about; till it hit me that it wasn't possible anymore. And in that moment, that moment when you walk into a room expecting unconsciously to see them but you suddenly realise you never will again, you feel the void they've left behind.

There's a song by Pink Floyd called What Shall We Do Now, that appears on the album The Wall. Well, actually it appears in the movie and is featured on the album as a shorter version called Empty Spaces. Anyway, the song has the protagonist (Pink) ask the question that haunts me now.

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces where we used to talk?

 Makes you wonder if Tennyson was bullshitting when he wrote In Memoriam A.H.H.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

But then, he wrote it over 17 years. Maybe all it takes is time.

Slip to the void

Sever the ties.
Trip the wire.
Dig your hole.
Doubt is alive and you know.
You were once led to believe,
You were young and so naive
But now no longer
Well its all in the way
You turned your back today.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Reality check..

You know what's the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? Is when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they're thinking of you. You know, you'd like to think you're both in all this pain but they're just like 'Hey, I'm glad you're gone'.