(This is a continuation from the blog post the dungeon of emotional unavailability.)
We sit staring at the distance between us, an observer would swear that small space has solidified and taken some form of shape, the tense kind to be cut by a knife.
“Beautiful year,2020, isn’t it, I nervously crack in.” A momentary silence, I wonder if I was not loud enough, but I am not willing to repeat myself. It could be that you found a familiarity in the silence, in which case I would be fine with that. As I am still basking in the possibility of being left in peace, you interject.
“Beautiful?, I don’t know. I don’t know what I am to do with myself. All I know is that we are in 2020 now, but two weeks ago was 2019. It’s not like 2018 did not happen either! So why do people suddenly act like with the beginning of the new year all other things from the previous year fall off? I swear all around me are the new year, new me chants, I feel unambitious for not joining in, but also feel like a fraud if I jump in. Am I crazy for not being ready with an answer if someone asks me what my resolutions for 2020 are? Have I doomed myself for failure for not having them all panned out?”
I have a puzzled face, I think, I see it reflected in your eyes. Now I feel uneasy, I don’t know what is worse, me listening or me talking. I have absolutely nothing to say. You and I are in the same boat. I feel confused more than ever by this new year. Although with me it has been a blind and dutiful following of the new year, new me song, I sincerely don’t know what the new me is supposed to be. How about the old me? Why is the old me suddenly intolerable in the new year? Why can’t I just build up and develop the old me? Can my personality really keep up with changes every year? Would it not be better for me to focus on the positive things I have been doing and failing at this whole time? How about I focus on the person I have been trying to build up for the past year, no timelines, no pressures. Will I seem like I do not take life seriously?
“I think so much uniformity is placed on the need to come up with new year’s resolutions,”you obliviously continue. “It’s like there is an unwritten code guiding everyone on how to harmoniously follow them. So what if I draft mine in March?do I get penalised for not being in solidarity with the well discerning human race? You see I would like to measure my success by what I do every day instead, rather than by a year. What is in a year? Days isn’t? so if the year ends and I still haven’t fulfilled my resolutions what does that make me? Shouldnt that be for me to decide?”
Your scattered way of venting makes me realise that I am not the only one with such questions. I also have moments of doubting myself, questioning how and why we do the things we do, nevermind the benefit of such things. Sometimes we get caught up in our own thinking, and in our own fears that we don’t realise that there are other people who are as unsure as we are. We want so much to be our own version of ourselves but pressures and expectations of society instill fear in us. This is how things are done, it’s new year’s eve, let’s bring out the fireworks, it’s Christmas let’s play jingle bells, it’s valentines day, let’s be in love. “Let’s, let’s , let’s, “should you dare pull out of the let’s group your humanity will be questioned.
A sandwich caravan stops by in a near distance and as I watch you swing gracefully towards it, I can’t help but think what a crazy world we live in. I say crazy because we scramble to live in it as if there is a manual to direct us, yet there is none. There is none because everyone has to figure out how to live their own life to their greatest fulfilment. There is a person who largely changed my perspective on life, the way I see myself and my capabilities and the way the world works. When you return I would like to tell you about the impact he had on me.
The unconventional unpacker 