Prose before hos

A friend of mine had warned me, "one day resentment for this guy will show up and it'll be hard for you to handle."

Dear reader, I think that day has come.

I don't know, I didn't think there would be an onset of resentment but showing irritation with my life and calling the stack of cards I've been dealt with "unbearable" was rude. There have been countless times I've asked consent before laying it out, it took me months to open up and reach out to him when I could just be myself, without trying to be on my toes around, and that's when he lost his shit. 

Of course, he thinks I was lashing out at him and didn't think he did anything wrong. The thing is, he never would. I don't think he understands what's it like facing failure repeatedly. He doesn't get that I have fought very hard and fallen on my face hundreds of times and that I am tired, I'm exhausted. He doesn't see how I'm still trying to keep it together and being my best self. According to him, I'm not claiming what's mine and walking out. He doesn't get that I've done that and paid a price in the past. A price I'm paying to this date in the form of accepting lesser than what I deserve. 

He thinks I should take it up and walk out, a lesser than ever offer, just so I could be out of this mess. The mess many before him tried to comment on and walked out when they realised I'll choose the puddle over them. For once, I won't, and I don't want to, but he's compelling me to be selfish enough and cut myself out. 

Someone recently told me (three drinks down, in full conviction), never write anything when you're angry. Always sleep on it and even if you wake up angry, don't write it down. Never put any anger on record. By that logic. years of documentation here should be hidden, archived and eliminated. 

Someone asked me today it doesn't sound like I'm excited about him. It's untrue. He's the only thing I've been excited about in the past year. I know it doesn't sound remotely cheerful, but it's kept me going in whatever twisted fucking way one can think about. While I was narrating all about his lashing out last night, I hadn't thought that we are both sick of each other. Only, he's doing the honours of laying it out to me and I'm writing an angry journal here. 

Sorry ma'am, I can't do any better.

On my birthday eve last year, I found myself going through a rather moving experience. I have been thinking about it, if not every day, at least once a week since the episode. I had a revelation about it recently.

During my brief time in London, I decided to schedule a visit to St. Paul's Cathedral. Friends, convent school hangover and sightseeing porn together, I was on a high to include as much as possible. However, if I'd planned better between sleeping and wasting my hours drinking, I'd have managed to attend the Sunday mass. Clearly, planning my life isn't a priority in my case.

After changing two buses and walking a fair bit, I managed to reach the place and stood in the queue to get the ticket. It was the only ticketed space beside the musical I paid for and didn't quite mind paying to get in. Again, call it the convent school hangover but I'd have probably not done the same for another religious institute doing the same. My first impression of St. Paul's was extremely underwhelming. This is what these two friends were raving about? Sure, it's beautiful with all the art and the architectural design but man, it was underwhelming.

Somehow, after checking about the entire space, I found myself kneeling and crying loudly. It was surreal. I'd not done this, insofar as going inside a religious space to "pray" and I did not plan to do this. It just happened.

As soon as I kneeled down to offer a prayer, I burst out crying. All of the past year, my family, people I love and everyone else came to my mind and how everyone conspired to make the trip happen. What seems so trivial to people when they say they "travel" took years to happen and for me to experience that. I found myself in the church a few hours before my birthday and it seemed like an occasion just as good as any to be thankful to that imaginary man or woman we apparently pray to, to hear us and apparently answer for our wishes.

It was heavy and moving and all-consuming. It took me a long time to get out of the place in a state where I wasn't embarrassed to walk out with a face all puffy. When I got sloshed out of my mind that night, I recall mentioning this to a friend in a pub's washroom. My guess is that she doesn't remember and I'd have it that way.

I think about that day a lot. The last three months when I was bummed, I would often go back to that day and think that if things had to be a certain way, it would be. Causation is the guiding force here. We can't make things happen out of thin air, every little thing has a solid reason behind it - for its existence, for its purpose to be fulfilled.

It made total sense to me then, when I realized, I burst out crying in the church because I was pms-ing unknowingly. My cycle had fucked completely and I got my period in exactly three weeks. In this case, three days after that incident when I was 35000 feet up in the air, crying and drinking about this whole journey coming to an end.

Sometimes, I wait for an episode in entirety to end, just so I can have the last laugh. So what if I didn't get the Commonwealth Scholarship to study Anthropology of Media. I went to a film school and learned puppetry and did theatre and met some great people who I know call friends. I don't have a loan to repay and I certainly don't have a care in the world, if it means for me to quit my job and sit my ass at home because it's not worth my time.

I guess I gave Jesus a lot more credit than he deserves when it was all about my unfertilized eggs. Years ago, when we were in school and working on "Easter" themed Bulletin Board design competition between classes, I recall Sr Joyce walking past and telling me, "Your eggs are flying" while signalling to the paper eggs I'd drawn. Never has anything made more sense than her premonition about this entire episode.

I no longer know how to write or what to write or what to even write on. Keeping that in mind, I'm doing a report of a sort. Everyone likes reports. Corporates pay dumbfucks all the fucking time and professionals in the creative fields who are hired by these corporates are forced to do the same. Everyone has to report. Well, mostly everyone.

I got published! Double spread byline in a leading national daily on a subject dear to my heart. It got a decent amount of appreciation. I was stoked because why the fuck not. Finally managed to channel my rage of losing someone important into writing.

I also got a publisher. A leading academic publisher in the UK decided to take our collaborative research project on board. If all goes well, or well, according to plan, I'll be published in a book in 2020. This is subject to if I survive to write that paper.

We lost a cat. In a freak road accident, some motherfucker killed our stray and left her kitten orphaned at our door. She's a total doll but isn't fond of me. I try to cuddle the fuck out of her but she won't let me. Consent is kinda real, she wins.

To make up for the lack of cuddling a cat, I found a human who permitted me to cuddle him and vice versa. Our transactional relationship is the stuff of dreams. There is hygiene, respect, consent, and cuddling. If you hear of someone starting subscription package to cuddling people during difficult times and seasons, hit me up. The mofo stole my idea.

I got a raise at work. Which was scheduled to happen last Summer but I won't crib. It happened is all, and I was relieved because the intimation for a meeting seemed ominous. Either that or I was overthinking the fuck about where to stay in Bangkok. A conversation for another day (aka never).

I have been waking up for the most part of days spent in the barsati to a nightmare. Of how I booked myself to go to Thailand (last minute- as always) and how absolutely uncomfortable I am with the idea, that even in my dream I start panicking, trying to cancel, only to find myself in the Baht Bus while the alarm rings. Waking up in a cocktail of drool and sweat is disgusting.

I gained four kilos of weight. It's the only thing weighing me down. I am sorry. 

I survived three months without a drop of alcohol. Instead, I spent those calories on pizza, patties, kachodis. Basically, starting next month, I'm probably going back to alcohol. It was a shit decision. In 2018, I had pizza grand total of 3 times. In this trimester, I had pizza 4 times. I don't even fucking like pizza.

My mum started retailing some of her specialty food. She's down to treating the city with the best of Summer and Winter fermented food. It's been phenomenal with people reaching out placing orders with us doing bare minimum marketing. It's pretty much the only reason I survived January with a straight face.

I lost people close to me because it wasn't working out. For the sake of my mental well being, for the sake of my self-respect, and possibly for the sake of there being no love, respect or admiration from their side to me. It's okay. Shit happens. Worse things have happened and I've gotten out. These are just people, who are like furniture to my existence, just like I am to theirs.

It's easier to cut people out than to get over them. I wish someone had prepared me for that. No amount of resilience and pep talk can withstand the grief of losing people who meant something to you. Every commendable achievement or listing above is a testament of what I did in the face of grief to get out. Every unwritten post and writing here is a sign that I'm not past this and I am down the dumps.

I give myself three more trimesters to get past this funk. If it doesn't happen then we'll know something is wrong with me beyond normal, acceptable level of wrong.

90 days into this year: me.

As a part of my resolution which includes productive writing more than feeling, I intend to spruce this space up with things. Starting with the one that I know the best (also universally applicable) - heartbreak.

A broken heart is a work of art. It is performative, in ways you repeat the story over and over again. You narrate this over an 11 pm phone call to that friend's friend who doesn't know your second name but he knows you had a pregnancy scare with the guy who's now responsible for smashing your heart in smithereens. Heartbreaks render an affective turn, the kind that makes you gaze inwards and change your line of thought- towards heteronormative relationships. The kind that makes you realize, if only sexual orientation could be a choice one could simply make. The same kind of choice as one makes with a crisp toast- do I want salted butter or mixed fruit jam or both to go with this toast? A wailing heart finds joys in multiple cups of strong cappuccino knowing very well that it's going to cause digestive problems in the next few hours but holding that cup warms the cockles of their hand and heart, the kind which was only possible with absolutely nothing a night before the showdown with the supposed affection of their life.

There are no right words that could be said to help someone get past the pain of losing another individual, who to the misfortune of the owner of the broken heart, is very much alive and kicking and prancing around us. Unless one takes the bold move on social media to block them, they continue to haunt us, ghost us and terrify us with their presence. In the recent past, I've come to realize that most people who are sinking innit and trying to swim and save their lives have absolutely no support. Mostly because there's rarely someone who knows what to say to make one feel better.

I'm inviting entries and curating a post full of anonymous stories, with the aim for us all to find some sense of catharsis. One from you, about you; to finding that closure or helping someone find one. God alone knows how many of us keep these feels bottled and find ourselves engaging with banalities to pass this grief.

I know, I write my grief out. I hammer the words down until I feel nothing. For all my self-destruction, I know how to rise like a phoenix from the as(s)holes.

Here's what I'm looking for-

1) Prose, haiku, rap, on your worst/funniest/most terrible/truly terrifying heartbreak tale you've lived to tell.
2) Prose could be anywhere between 350-500 words. Haiku and rap just about enough to make sure people are not leaving the post to go window shop on amazon.in
3) Keep it simple. While I love me the details of what brand of alcohol bottle did you take swigs of whiskey out from before he hit on your friend, I would encourage you to dig deeper and see if you would like to share how you felt when you saw it happen. The more you're in touch with what you feel, the closer you would feel to a cathartic experience.
4) Have fun writing it. If this is the worst that's ever happened to you, or will ever do, know that it's over and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. Unless you have a self-destructive gene like me, in which case, good luck and godspeed. Breaking the heart is so 2005. Bacon your heart and make it delectable for others to stop and take a bite.

Here's how you can help-

1) Write. For me, to know I'm not alone. For yourself, to know this will make you stronger. For others, to show that we have all been there.
2) Share this post. Someone somewhere is experiencing gut-wrenching pain about someone who doesn't give two hoots about them. Fuck them. Instead, focus on those who truly hurt themselves in process of getting attached when they shouldn't have, for whatever reason there may be.
3) Be fabulous. Don't let anyone tell you about your eyebrows being too thin or your hands being too big. You know what they say about people with big hands? I don't know, but if you do, keep it to yourself.

Submit your entries and encourage your local Spiderperson to share their entry on snobrellaATgmailDOTcom. Last date for submission is 20 January, 2019.