Shivee PoddarI walked down the school corridor precariously. Balancing my textbooks in my hand, I forced my mind to only think about differential equations & quantum physics. But as I looked up I saw her walking down the other end. Laughing the laugh I knew very well. Surrounded by a group of friends she had an air for herself which I could never match. I loved her attitude and soon she became my best friend. My only friend. But now she too had abandoned me. As I walked on, her eyes met mine and in that brief moment I could see all that she had meant to me. However she walked past me and the loneliness which was never very far, came crashing down.
Power of Loneliness
Loneliness encompasses the mind, stretching and bending till it occupies every nook and corner. It traps you in your mind; in the invisible vault of your own ideas, thoughts and beliefs. Loneliness is like a shadow. The darker side of the light but always accompanying it. It starts as a seed till it slowly consumes you and refuses to relinquish its hold.
What it means to be lonely
To be lonely is not to be alone. When you are alone it is by choice but loneliness presents no choice. It simply engulfs you till you are forced to succumb to it. Being lonely is like being a stray beam of light separated from the sunshine. Like a single drop of water removed from the ocean. It is like being the only leaf which the wind carries away from the tree or like the solitary cloud in a blue sky. Loneliness is like that circuitous road in a forbidding forest.
It is at night when you lie in bed and a demonic thought slowly fills your mind. There are shapes you had never seen, events which had never happened, feelings that had never existed. And as you creep under the covers it’s not the monsters of the night that you hide from, it’s the loneliness that has slowly settled in your soul. The feeling from which there is no escape.
Camouflaging the feeling
Camouflaging loneliness allows you to sail through the day smiling and happy. You will be surrounded by people who love you but even then you will feel alone. Alone because your thoughts, beliefs, opinions singles you out and makes you a different person.
When we choose loneliness we choose to don a smile and wear a mask. We choose to hide ourselves and create a new self which pretends and lies whenever the situation demands.
She walked past me and I decided to leave the fantasy world behind. I was too naive to understand the thin difference between love and friendship. All I wanted was, her in my life as a soul mate, but she wanted nothing to do with me. She did not feel for me and that made me stop feeling for myself too. Loneliness, that is all I had, all that I needed.
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