Memories from the Red Book I rarely open
Today, I saw a little girl wearing my old school dress. She was coming back from school, a school I once used to attend. Would recognise those plaid skirts anywhere. It made me stop...and think, leading me to reopen Tumblr.
I had a dedicated study room in my house. Furnished with a big cupboard, an attached table and a chair, and a small bed. I used to spend most of my time there. From mornings to nights, coming out only to eat. Like a hermit you could say. It was my space. It overlooked the verandah from where you could see a green park. When my nose was not buried in a textbook I used to look out into that park thinking God knows what. I have so many poignant memories from that room. However, this time when I came back home, it took me four days to enter that room. Not because I didn't have time, but because it felt like invading someone else's space. Someone I once used to be.
I finally mustered the courage to enter. Old, dusty drawing books, dried out poster colours and gel pens, history and geography books I once knew by heart lay abandoned. It felt foreign. I also found my ghungroo. And my medals and certificates. A 10 year old abacus and a geometry box, both albeit in perfect condition. Rusty roller skates, worn out chessboard and a diary with a half written story. Everything was old, but not broken. (Funny isn't it? How the girl that never broke anything ended up breaking herself) You see, I was always a very organised child. Someone who knew what she wanted and had the zeal to fight for it. She was caring and empathetic, but would get angry if someone broke her crayons, even accidentally. Thinking back it was more of possessiveness rather than discipline. Now I don't recognise her anymore. This past year has been...to put it mildly, turbulent. And somewhere along the road filled with dhoklas and channa-cholis, I picked up a cigarette. (I hated smoking didn't I?)
So now when I entered the room what surprised me wasn't the lost potential staring back at me through layers of dust and cobwebs, it was the fact that I didn't even want to clean the dust and cobwebs. Maybe because I'm so broken that I no longer remain worthy of such an uncontaminated object. I have had some much needed life lessons, cried my heart out to kaavish, broken things (ironic), started laughing more loudly and stopped giving a shit about a lot of things. Did things in both proud of and (mostly) not proud of. But all for what? To be a stranger in my own room? What's the point of change if you do not recognise your own handwriting?
We are all murderers. We kill ourselves over and over again just to save ourselves when no one else does. But at least we keep mementos. Habits, interests etc etc. I kept nothing this time. Except the promise that I would never be her again. She got killed cause she was weak. Typical law of the jungle. I mourn her. In retrospect, I don't even like this version of myself. She is confused, aimless, abandons a project halfway and has no 'noticeable' talents. Or in other words talent that I can capitalise on...put on my resume...that kind of thing. 15 year old me would NOT be proud of me now. To think of it, she might even hate me. Actually no, she wouldn't. She would listen and understand because that's who she was.
It's not all bad. I did not turn into an evil incarnate. It might feel like it because I had very high people pleasing tendencies so lowering that standard fills me with guilt. I still give up my seat on the bus, just selectively. And that lost potential in that unfamiliar room? Maybe I can go on a treasure hunt for it when I'm worthy of it again.
