Be life and believe….
Life is nothing more than a series of choices. With the illusion of rationality, we choose what satisfies our wants the most. There is this quote by Matt Heig in his book ‘The Midnight Library’ that, “everyone’s life could have been ended in multiple ways.” And on some random days or nights this really feels true. My life has been always driven by the choices I made and the beliefs I held on to. Looking back right now, I am proud of me and everything I went through. From being a girl who was shy and always put herself between the chaos, to learning to be a girl who is confident about who she is and her life.
Since childhood, I have been an artistic person. I used to scribble flowers in my notebook. And there was this group of girls who always used to tell me how worthless I am. What they did was, they took my notebook and showed it to the teacher. And that day she scolded me for my art. Thereafter, things kept getting added to the list. And one day I just stopped trying to fit in. I always used to wonder ‘why I am not them?’, ‘Why don’t I just talk or have fun’ or ‘why am I always lost in my own world?’
School life was never much happening for me. There were these two friends I had and that’s what I earned. Coming to 11th-12th it was not about living life but knowing myself more. It felt like how silence screams at dark night. The crucial messy period of life between childhood and adulthood. But all the experiences I had, maybe good or bad, had taught me that I can make a choice, but not control the outcome. The outcome may or may not be in my favor, but everything happens for a reason. There is this book “Alchemist” by Paul Cohelo which made me believe in, “everything happens for a reason.” I believe that there is some energy in the universe protecting you. If you believe in that energy the energy believes you back. After leaving my parents’ house, coming to pune and being all by myself I realized who I am. It is when I realised I didn’t have to be anyone else to fit in, but be myself. The people I met here, the experiences I had by coincidence, became a part of my life.
It’s not like I am perfect. Neither am I trying to be one. I want to be myself. I have made many mistakes, made wrong choices. I once took my people for granted or I was toxic. Sometimes, I failed to make my parents proud, and I loved someone who didn’t deserve that love. The list is endless. My father says, the most important thing is to learn from them. Never regret your mistakes because pain, regret is more than suffering. And the thing I read in the ‘The Midnight Library,’ “Regrets sometimes aren’t based on facts but they are just loads of bullshit.” I made wrong choices, took different turns but again everything happened for a reason. Maybe if I had chosen to do engineering my life could have been different. But maybe here at Gokhale Institute is where I deserve to be, the universe guided me to be here. This is the thing, in the end, you are where you deserve to be. Randomly walking by the JM road, I met an uncle who sits there selling the books and reading them. There’s also this aunty sitting and selling newspapers. Somehow, just by a smile and a few kind words, both of them became my friends. My days start with a good morning to that aunty and ends with a good evening to that uncle. It’s beautiful, right?! I just love how I created my own world with my kind of people and how peaceful I am with myself roaming alone around this city. Also how I became a writer. I remember the first open mic I attended. I presented my poem and everyone clapped for me. These are the little moments in life which make me happy. In life I wanna be like poetry. Just to feel the intensity of the words I feel while writing. I want to be the poetry that one person would live and read till eternity. Sometimes life gets too intense. What we feel suddenly becomes 10 times deeper. I crave for peace but my mind feels jumbled. It’s okay to feel this. Sometimes you need to make things make you feel what they want to. These are the experiences which make me who I am. This is what peace feels like. It feels like the smell of wet soil and aroma of coffee distracting you from behind. It’s like that mist in the morning when the sun is yet to rise and that cold yet warm breeze which is divine. And suddenly somehow silence screams at uncertain nights and feels like how the memories smell in dried flowers between the pages of a book. All these thoughts and memories sweet yet bitter and sweet kind off merge here into the void and feel eternal. That’s the beauty of past experiences and future hope which I can feel here.
That’s what I meant,be the life you are living and believe in yourself.
XYZ