carrying winter in my spring

seasons change and so do i

(It was not a good day, but the sky was merciful)

it was spring of 2021, when i realised i carried my winter in the bloom of flowers. cold and dark, the only source of some stability was the undercurrents of violence. something that has been constant throughout. unaware of the source, there were questions i had no answers to and waves of intense guilt, shame, and distress. if i could paint a picture, it would’ve looked like a tornado at the seashore. frenzied, it bridged the gap between the sky and the ground. the ferocity, which swallows everything in its wake. such ruination and i was just a 20-something.

the days were excruciatingly long and lonely. logging in. camera off. mic off. attending lectures. when i think of my life back then, there was rarely something in its place. a period of dangerous normalcy followed shortly by natural devastation. i was out of my body, into my mind. but that was not the first time i realised it. summer of 2022. after my post-grad farewell, i went to a bar with my friends. the stiffness of my body couldn’t find an out, and i was punishing myself for not knowing any other way of being. forced conversation. obligatory laughter. pushing myself to come up with something witty. and all of it was so misplaced. i wasn’t supposed to be in that bar with women who, i thought, at least knew it all, even if they didn’t have it all. for the longest time i was under this illusion that being exceedingly self-aware is a good thing. you can adjust the sails, change the route, find an out. there will always be an out.

so, back to the spring of 2021, when i started going to therapy, i was devastated when i recalled it all. even in those moments of hollowness, hope rooted itself deeply and effortlessly. the chronology was simple. i would start talking, get teary-eyed, make a joke, try to make my therapist laugh and deflect from what’s painful, what’s real. of course, this didn’t work on my therapist. she acknowledged my jokes as funny (insanely validating, by the way) and then we talked about my desperation to not cry in that space. what am i doing to myself when my focus is on suppressing my emotions? what would really happen if i cried? what had happened in the past when i cried? answers were too painful to be voiced out. the intimacy of letting it all go in front of someone would’ve destroyed me. i wouldn’t have known what to do once tears visibly dried on my face. i was beaten into believing that crying renders you frail. so ‘not crying’ was the easiest thing i’ve ever done. she told me i'm perhaps the most reflective and self-aware client she had. and, it wasn’t good. my self-awareness was a barrier in me living a life that’s whole, that’s true. terrified of making mistakes, i didn't try new things. and even if i attempted to do it, it was an empty hollow feeling of just reaching the finish line. no confetti. no one to cheer for me. that was my first time at a bar with all my friends. i should’ve had fun, instead i was standing in a corner, watching the veil between me and the world move every time i breathed out. i was losing out on experiences while being in the moment. life was a ritual of losing. and much to my dismay, i was good at it.

deadness has always found its home in me. but that deadness is proof that once i was very alive, that my lungs have known breaths deeper than the ocean. inhaling has moved the mountains off my chest. exhaling has left me with an emptiness, the pleasant kind. it is a reminder that i exist, perhaps the only evidence of my reality. but that inner emptiness isn't a void that can’t be filled. it has been filled, repeatedly. the warmth of sun touching my skin; getting an iced tea with a friend; watching the blue merge with white in the sky; a soft wind against the top-most layer of my skin; seeing the lights getting brighter as the sun sets; the young stars taking over as the dark blue spills; palms touching in a crowded place; fingers belonging; talking and laughing and giggling and being out of pocket; the air thin with the fragrance of mogras as you cross the blocks; a dog sleeping all curled up on an empty sack; a whiff of perfume you’ll never smell again; having a dessert in an auto as the blue coalesces in black; strands of your hair touching the face of your friend; the scarf you put around her as the chill reaches her bones; and words spoken ‘please text me once you reach home’.

the void gets filled every day; the deadness finds its companion, a lover. but like every other lover, once the morning comes, it gets dressed and leaves; the door is ajar. you’re in sheets, wanting more. perhaps, a cup of coffee together or a slice of bread taken off the pan a little too soon. sitting on the bed, with the knots in your hair, the lover leaves and deadness knocks on the door again. like the sun and moon, the deadness and the lover don't coexist in the same space. but they’re together in a bigger scheme of things. their spines are shared, but they face away from each other. how devastating that they both exist in me and around me. how beautifully rich my life is, even when the deadness finds itself in the sheets that are still warm after the departure of its lover.

the idea that i can go, zoning out, dead gaze and weariness embedded deep in my bones without knowing what it really is, is comical. my tissues know it all too well, my body knows it all too well. but the vulnerability of accepting and coming clean is where my shoulders slouch and i start reconsidering it all. merriam-webster defines vulnerability as, “capable of being physically or emotionally wounded”. as children, our parents clear our coasts. emotions are brushed under the carpet, and any discomfort is forced to be transformed into something that doesn’t hinder the illusion of ‘having it all together’. the physical wounds were undermined by telling that ‘strong children don’t cry’ and emotional wounds were never addressed to begin with. the running theme of “you have everything, you should be grateful” plays like a song on repeat for years and years. it requires disintegration for them to pause the music and watch you fall apart. i have everything, i’m grateful and i am fragmenting. 

all this to say that vulnerability is avoided like the plague.

as children we are barely aware of vulnerability. the act of being vulnerable is borderline shameful. the world outside is cruel. the softness is an unforgivable sin. so, we’re punished. we're taught a lesson. we learn that the cost of vulnerability is feeling physical revulsion towards what makes us a human. vulnerability requires laying it all out, exactly as it is. it requires the belief that there will always be kindness as you become your most authentic self, even if you stumble…especially when you stumble. there are shields, four walls, weapons, and you guard your heart with the sternness of your mother. you’re not ready to unlearn what was taught, and you think you’re destined to distance yourself from the people you sit beside. every. single. day. how do you live like this? separated from everyone, even your own self.

4:17am, a few saturdays ago. i woke up and reflexively reached out for my phone. eyes partially shut. grateful for dark mode. a long text post. i bookmarked the study and then went back to sleep. it wasn’t until later in the day when i thought of it again and wondered if it was born out of thin air or did it really exist? going back to my bookmarks, i came across it and went through the entire paper. it was about how our heart tissues remember a lot. a study reported change in food preferences after a 29-year-old woman received the heart of a 19-year-old donor who had a vegetarian diet. the woman found meat nauseous and couldn’t tolerate the smell of it without feeling her heart racing, after the transplant. how delicately our body remembers it all.

so, when i grew up, i did all i could to avoid vulnerability. the reminder of it rings in the laughter of my therapist, when i tell her, “even my eyeliner isn’t waterproof, i really shouldn’t cry” as i wept in her office. facetious. her office was probably one of my most favourite places back then. there was an enormous window overlooking rows and rows of trees. there was a yellow couch, pink cushions and a sofa cover with tassels on it. so much colour! the table had 2 books, just for the sake of it perhaps, and a water jug. the curtains moved to the fan air and i would stare at them while narrating my life like lines rehearsed many times. i wouldn’t meet her eye. i remember seeing the sunlight seep into the room, spilling like the glitter from the clumsy hand of a child. but the first time i didn’t make a joke, something shattered and spilled. there was a wave of hope woven neatly into the rush of grief. how did i hold so much in me and how did it not destroy me? human body is a marvellous creation. the crux remains the same, no matter what you go through, what you’ve been taught but the truth is embedded in your cells.

it would always come up, even after tornadoes, even after floods.