Storm & Petals II

The picture that you see above is that of a Hawker Tempest Mk. V. Made in the heydays of the second world war, the Tempest was in service with the RAF.

It indeed is a Tempest that I find myself in right now. Never thought that such a thing would ever be possible. I was naive enough to believe whatever was said. I should have been more prudent in approach & shouldn't have taken everything at face value.

Have you had the chance to read Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken? The poem starts beautifully with...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

The poem is as much an assertion of individualism as it is a scathing mockery of people who are perennially hesitant to walk the right path. The best part in the poem is in the last stanza wherein Robert Frost says...

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Something sure has made all the difference, something that never occured to me before. I'm still finding it weird to realise that I went along with it all these days. Feelings, emotions, the time spent together, the things shared between us, the said, the unsaid, the felt and the understood. Was it all a lie? Was it nothing more than a play of words? No matter how much I try and be rational over here, it just doesn't add up.

It feels as if suddenly something has become disjointed from you. The abruptness of it all has certainly taken me by surprise. Maybe it was my fault that I didnt read the signals along the way. When I look back, there were things, blaring and screaming at me. I knew them also but everytime I tried discussing them, it was brushed aside. And then yesterday, the whole thing blew up.

Looking at it right now, I can make out that it wasn't abrupt at all. It was a very gradual yet secretive thing that build up over the past few months. And like a fool I had blinkers on my eyes and was made to feel as if things are going in the right direction. Yeah, right direction it sure is but on a different path. Like Robert Frost, I have always travelled the road less travelled but this time I wanted to do something more common. Probably it was intentional that I was pushed onto it this time around.

Are you wondering why I'm writing all this? To be honest, even I don't know. Probably because I never expected this to happen, atleast not this way. It would be an understatement if I say that I'm feeling cheated and made fun of. And to think of, all this had been happening for quite some time. Probably I'm writing this because I don't know what else to do or whom to share this with. My life is an open book but this will go down with me to my grave. Apart from me, there is only one other person who knows this.

We always take for granted what is around us. So this mean that I also do something drastic like a majority of the people normally do? No, I refuse to be bound to customs and traditions.

Does this change anything for me? Yes and No. Yes, it sure has hurt me like hell but No, I won't let this bog me down. Life still continues, doesn't it?

Coming back to the Tempest about which I spoke in the beginning of this post, the last couple of months I'd got settled into my own comfort zone. Never in my life had I ever got into one because I've always known the negative fallout of being in a comfort zone. The day you get into your comfort zone, you become careless and lackadaisical in life. Nothing could be more dangerous than getting into a situation that will throw you into danger.

But this time, I allowed myself to sit back, threw all cautions to the wind and enjoyed the short comfortable stay. No more, never again. Yet again, I've learned one of the biggest lessons of life through a small yet very significant event.

Enough of the problem definition I guess. What about the solution? Simple, I've already put this behind me. I've phenomenol tolerance for such unpleasant surprises that life sometimes throws up at you. For me this event has already paled away into insignificance.

Did this entire thing change me? I guess not, I hate losing my originality. I'll now be more cautious about what happens around me. Enjoy, I will. Fun, I always have. The only thing that is different is that henceforth, it'll be difficult for me to enjoy the good old things in the same manner. In corporate jargon they call it Opportunity Cost.

As always, I don't have any regret nor do I harbour any hurt feelings. Just a wish that Storm & Petals (http://zephyrinsky.blogspot.com/2007/10/storm-petals.html) hadn't withered away like this.

The letters never got replied back or even acknowledged. The SMSes stopped coming long time back. The phone calls have already stopped, infact the cell has not rung in the past 72 Hrs. I'm still at a loss as to whether the innocence and freshness of being somebody's best friend also died an unnatural death.

2007 is coming to a close but this is not the way I wanted to celebrate New Years Eve this time. Nobody wants to be sad while celebrations are happening dime a dozen around you. But oh, what the heck, life goes on. As B*witched sang long ago, 'C'est la vie!'.