Beneath the Blue Umbrella

Have you ever had butterflies looking at someone, when you look at that person every day with the same zeal and the happiness he brings to you just by being around? The way you silently stare at him for just one moment when you could look at each other right in the eyes at the very moment and then giggle shying away. The first day of college and when you looked in the crowd, you never noticed him. It wasn't a fairy tale where you could only see him, you hated his guts or found him a complete nerd and now; you’re so mad about him that you want him around all the time. You wish you could get a cute picture with him and treasure it in your diary. You want him to text you first and that’s why you let him miss you. The moment he says he missed you in class, oh dint you wish he would say that more often?

When he asks you about your crush, you avoid the answer because you know you’re secretly crushing on him. Every time you have good news, you wish you could just call him up first. And when you’re hiding in your blanket crying, you wish you could go hug him and cry on his shoulder instead. He finds those cute ways to make you smile, he has his own bunch of friends but he still saves a seat to sit with you. He comes to you and talks about things he hardly shares with anybody else. You wish he plays the guitar and sings to you on your birthday and when it’s raining, you wish you could share your blue umbrella with him! But you promise never to tell anyone ‘cause you know you could never have a chance with him.

Two years have passed and he hasn’t a clue about what you feel about him. You just wanna know him better and he thinks you already have fallen for someone else. If he could only know what you feel inside from the moment he started talking to you! But things seem so different now. Suddenly, he has his own share of people to be with and even when you are right there, he fails to notice how much you want him to come to you. You still wish to share the seat and scribble behind your notebook and call each other with those cute nicknames. The last year you are together and tomorrow, you might end up in a different continent. How you wish he sees the love in your eyes and this crushing turns into love; like the love story you dreamt of! 

For a moment when you see him coming and wave hello, you realize that’s his lady love he is going to. Your heart is a little hurt but you somehow smile through the tears. He still sees you as a friend he had before, he still remembers that nick name but to call that to his girlfriend. You indulge yourself in reading a book when he passes by, you hide in library when he fiddles to find you but you manage to make an excuse every time. All you wish that it could be the same but you know at the bottom of your heart that everything has changed.  

Its farewell and you hug him goodbye; a goodbye to your first crush and the last chance you could have to tell him how you feel but that chance is long gone with him. Never did you turn back and never did you get a chance to stay in touch for long. But life had a different story written for both of you. Years later, the same city, same country; you’re in a coffee shop relishing your solitude. The new customer with the old voice you recognize, still the same butterflies and you’re beaming to see him again! A cold cup of coffee with nostalgia and divulged secrets with something you never would have thought. The same guy saw you in the crowd and thought you would never be his. Alike you, he managed to hide his feelings all this while. All you know its pouring rain, you are sharing your umbrella with him; miles away with the same person you wish you could someday. And all you know is everything is about to change! 

Little things that carved you!

Today, I’m swirling with nostalgia and intense retrospection. Once in a while, you might go back in the flashback, analyzing your entire life and you could either relish or guiltily regret those moments or maybe carry yourself up with pride calling all those regrets a new lesson you learnt! Teenage is the toughest time with everything changing and all the weird things happening around. We keep trying to understand the complexity we face, the way we are changing- our body and mind, our parents overreacting and suddenly becoming over possessed and dealing with these absurd changes, it’s insane!

But the teenage is well gone; it’s like a battle that ended with nobody winning or losing, just crucial lessons that altered you or left you permanent impressions. All this might seem boring philosophical stuff but it’s indeed what all of us feel inside and lose out on words when we really wish to speak out. Speak is a subtle version to explain the screams. We met new people and everybody we met has made us who we are today, shaping the amorphous us! The state we are in today is never what we would have thought; I never imagined life to get this crazy unlike the smooth track it seemed before ‘people’.

Yes. I think major credit goes to your childhood best friends, crushes, lovers, teachers, siblings, cousins or even strangers who gave you a totally different perspective, who warned you beforehand and who guided you in this journey. (I didn’t mention parents because it would be stating the obvious.) So today, things are pretty outside, ugly inside or whatever but we’re completely different than what we had been or for that matter, what we always wanted to be. We chose different streams, we dint really live our childhood dreams and the things we loved are lost in time. Like sand slipping from hands, we couldn't keep anything to ourselves; not even who we used to be.

In the past two decades of your life, you might have made several mistakes; regretted some, learnt something and you are never going to forget the wrongs. For moments which made it tougher to even drag yourselves down this long, you might have felt of giving up and some weak hearts might have succumbed to these little bumps. You might have thought that you’re watching the sunset of your life but you opened your eyes for a new day and here you are today! Honestly, these little lurches make us who we are, the people who left us made us who we are, the people who guided us and who trusted in us when we lost everything we had are the ones who led us to our destiny.

They might have left you long back and let you fall for once or twice till you could walk without tripping. They are the ones who gave you the happiest moments and the harshest lessons; they were indeed the coconuts of your life. So live it up, for those little moments and the people who are around. Failure might put you in deep distress but it isn’t the end. Maybe it’s the new beginning! An old saying says ‘Everything happens for a reason’ but it has been qualified to ‘Everything that doesn't happen is for a better reason!’ Moreover, love yourself with these little evolutionary changes that have given you a beautiful avatar inside! After all, it’s the beauty within that matters the most.