Learning the long-lost art of healing self!

Raghav was in his early forties, sitting at his desk and scribbling away. After numerous paper notes being scrunched, he sits feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, and irritable. He looked at his alarm, which was about to go off, signaling the timeline for the writing schedule that he had set for himself. It had been a week of a consistent hour of dreadfulness and note tearing, every day at 5 a.m., yet he hadn’t written more than 200 words for that entire week.

Right from choosing the theme, to writing in a way, where he wouldn’t have to delve in too much, everything was a task. The task was gargantuan considering the feelings that he had to describe. It wasn’t that of his character's. It was his own. He couldn’t hide them or could express them, not without unraveling the layers that went deep down.

“RRrring”! The alarm jolted and brought him back to the moment.

The man crumpled the last bit of paper and stuffed it in the already flowing dustbin, before shutting his notepad and laptop. He was exhausted.

He stared outside his window. The day was about to break. It still wasn’t 6.

He looked back at his desk with numerous writing pads, pin-up notes stuck on the notice board to books on writing, and a blank word document on his laptop. He wondered why he thought he could re-ignite the long-lost mojo of writing, once again! Feeling frustrated, he shut the laptop close and stood up.

He changed from his pajamas to his jogging tracks. He picked his headphones, grabbed his COVID mask, and moved out of the door. He was glad that his wife and kids were away to their grandparent’s house or else hiding all this could have been another task. He silently thanked the lockdown, before realizing that life had changed so much within the four walls of his residence.

It had been two months of lockdown and the same for his family’s getaway. Yet, he felt like ages, especially since the last breakup.

Raghav stepped onto the pavement and started to jog, shrugging off the thought of the woman, who had walked away four months ago.

His mind once again wandered to the times, when they both had met and started dating. He remembered the times when they both, like teenagers would sneak and meet outside the office. His mind wandered to the way she smiled, take away her eyes, or get shy at his look and touch. The heart-melting moments filled his heart with a deep sense of longing and guilt. The latter for not letting her know the whole truth of him being married.

The revelation had cost him too much. He got devoid of not just his lover but was even robbed of a blooming friendship, where he felt he had a chance to be healed.

Stuck into a loveless marriage for years had made him indifferent and apathetic towards a lot of things and people around him. He no longer functioned as a human but had been reduced to a mere robot. He just zoomed in and out of office, home, grocery stores, kid’s school, and everywhere else in a mechanical way. Till the time Kamini had arrived.

Yes, that’s the name of his anxiety.

Kamini’s arrival into his life had made it all very different. Her entry in itself had been quite different. It was rather dramatic.

Their relationship began with indifference issues over meetings, agendas, and everything childish at work. Soon the effect of childlike fights disappeared to give way to children like innocent friendship and innocent love.

Initially, Raghav was confused, inconsistent and rather indecisive about his feelings towards her because he hadn’t experienced anybody like her before. After a few months of being on and off communication and a series of fights, he decided to accept his feelings.

However, the acceptance came at the price of him hiding his real self and that is where he laid the wrong foundation.

Raghav stopped in his tracks as he got overwhelmed with the image of Kamini’s overwhelming tears and cries over his shoulder. His mind filled with the memory of that traumatic time.

He wanted to hug her, console her, believing that he could fix it all, but all he faced at that time were her helpless tears. She had simply walked out of the door, leaving him alone, baffled, and once again nothing more than a zombie.

Raghav came back home, took a quick shower, changed, and geared up for the day. He looked at himself in the mirror.

“Tomorrow I will write! I will say it all!” he confessed into himself, before picking his laptop and getting onto his virtual meets for the day. It was time to get on with his office, at home!

-----

He turned on the lamp on his desk and looked at the desk clock. It was 10 p.m.

Although the day had been long and unbearable, with as usual no social interaction, he still didn’t feel like calling it a day. He decided to pick up a book. He picked a book titled, “Time to write”. He sighed because deep down he felt it was yet another one of his attempts to feel inspired and motivated towards his writing regimen.

He fidgeted a little in his chair, browsed, and flipped through the pages randomly, before shutting it. He closed his eyes, tried hard to avoid the thoughts that now had started crawling inside his head.

His mind once again fuzzed with the thoughts of Kamini. He closed his eyes to control and gain some balance.

Again, he saw her tears and opened his eyes with a deep feeling of remorse. There was no peace. Nothing at all!

He lied down on the bed, thinking about getting it all fixed. He wanted to manifest this into reality but didn’t know how to. He just prayed that he would figure it all out soon.

He turned off the lamp and after about some more minutes of twisting and turning over, fell asleep.

“Rrring”, the alarm went off at 4.30 a.m. Raghav slowly turned it off. He was already up. He sighed heavily before lifting his weight off the bed towards the washroom.

By the time it was 4.45 a.m., Raghav was sitting upright at his desk, with his laptop and notepad opened. He scribbled a few words before crushing the first piece of paper into the already empty dustbin.

He breathed heavily and kept the pen away. He dragged the laptop near and opened it.

He decided to write directly onto the word format of the laptop.

“I will write whatever comes into my mind now”, he said irritably into himself. “I don’t need writeup plans.”

And so, began the writing…

He first wrote a brief of his story, highlighting his character as the main protagonist fighting the pain of angst post loss of communication from his beloved. The character, a highly spiritually inclined person, retorted to every bit of spiritual solace to bring peace, but he couldn’t. From crystal ball therapy, tarot card reading to astrology, the character tried everything, yet nothing got him peace.

Raghav was lost in his writing so much that he didn’t realize that he had written almost 1500 words of the beginning of a story, with his main protagonist lamenting for his loss and regretting his decision of not reaching out.

The alarm went off at the usual time, 6 a.m. Yet, that day, Raghav put it on snooze and continued.

Almost after about another hour of writing, he shut the already ringing alarm at 7 a.m. Strangely, he felt calmer.

He re-read his work.

“I still don’t know how he will address this issue”, he voiced out his concern for his main protagonist.

He quickly scribbled three ways in which he could help his character arrive at a probable solution. Raghav nodded his head in affirmation, before closing his laptop. He felt a little upright in his spirits.

Getting peace with his character was suddenly exciting.

He looked out of the window. The clouds had gathered over the horizon. It was an early onset of monsoons.

Despite the gloomy weather, Raghav felt upbeat to go for his routine jog.

He changed into his jogging tracks, wore his essential mask and popped the headphones into his ears, before stepping out.

He was keen to witness the season’s first rains.

Barely ten minutes, a heavy downpour lashed the city. Raghav, however, didn’t mind and stood still to bask in it.

He was all drenched, yet he smiled. It was the first time he felt calm and a lot less restless than he had felt for the past four months.

Something inside him had perhaps got washed away! Maybe!

----

After about two weeks of his disciplined writing since that favorable day, Raghav had written fifteen thousand words of his main protagonist’s journey to seek solace. He was happy to heal his protagonist and show him a path, which matched with his purpose in the relationship he had and was very much in sync with the kind of person he wanted him to be.

“The body is a self-healing organism, so it’s really about clearing things out of the way for the body to heal itself. You realize what’s important and what’s not. You learn to care less about other people’s words and actions and focus more on what you think of yourself. Considering the mess, you were in, think of how far you have come. You will smile. More than the recovery, you will smile with pride for the efforts you put into mold yourself back, to put the broken pieces back and make a wholesome, living organism, once again!

No matter how much you would like to turn back time and nullify the mistakes of your past that blocked your happiness, you should remember that certain things cannot be undone. This is the harsh reality of life, but there’s a sweet aspect of life too, which are the numerous things you can do now, to rectify or rather cover them up.”

Raghav felt light after his protagonist was ushered into these healing words of wisdom through a tarot card reader, another character, whom he had introduced to help him.

Suddenly, he too started resonating with the idea of his character’s solution. He had helped him embark on the journey of self-love, by slowly channelizing his energies into works, which he loved. He had made his protagonist a more loving, nurturing and a confident soul. His character didn’t mourn over past or wallow in self- pity anymore. He was upright and cheerful about himself and for the future that looked at him.

Raghav breathed deeply and smiled as he closed his laptop, post saving his work.

Through his writing over the past two weeks, Raghav had worked not just on a story, but something beyond. It was himself.

He had started emulating his character, in an attempt to understand him a bit more and help him heal. In short, he unknowingly had got onto the process of healing himself.

He took up pursuits, for which he never had time before.

He had a new “to-do-list” on the notice board of his workstation now. It read

Reading-1 hour

Working out-45 minutes

Jogging-30 minutes

Calling his old friends (who he had lost in touch).

Checking on his colleagues and teammates (for that extra personal attention)

Fixing up his already barren looking balcony garden

Cooking his kid’s favorite meals so that he could usher him a grand welcome, post lockdown

Unfortunately, the list bore no mention of any attempt to reconnect with his wife. Raghav just didn’t feel like adding her name, anywhere on the list.

With a heavy heart, he tried writing the 8th point as “K”, but quickly erased it.

He looked at the ping that had lightened up his phone screen. It was from his mother.

He frowned slightly, before reading the message.

“Sharmilla’s mother called. She said something and I need to discuss it with you.”

Raghav knew what was in her mind.

Before his wife left, Raghav fought with her. It wasn’t the first time he had.

They had fought, patched and again fought so many times that now things were no longer getting better or any different. It was at its fag end and only the only decent and peaceful solution to the problem was to go separate ways.

He picked up the phone and spoke to his mother. Oddly, for the first time, he spoke what he wanted for himself and it came out much smoother than he had anticipated.

-----

Raghav’s story writing about his protagonist was at its end. He had managed to bring the story, after about another 2 months, to a fitting end.

For one last time, Raghav read his story.

He enjoyed the reading session, emoting every kind of emotion through every passing stage of his character’s transformation. By the end, he was peace. His character was at peace and so was he.

His protagonist had healed relatively to the point where another sight of his beloved didn’t baffle or cause anguish in him. He had freed himself from all emotions of anger, pain and hurt to such an extent that he simply radiated and beamed at his beloved at last.

Even if it had been unrequited love, yet it was love. And love has no other emotion.

It is free of pain, jealousy, hurt, anger and above all expectations. It doesn’t matter if the other person couldn’t love you back, but the fact that they did for at least a smaller period suddenly enough for his character.

As Raghav came to the end of his story, he felt light. He felt freed and strangely healed.

He hadn’t realized but by helping his character, he had healed and brought himself peace.

From lockdown to his wife’s bitter words to Kamini’s getting away, everything had added to his heartache and pain. However, his routine regimen of writing, along with his productive routine of encompassing most of his cherished activities, helped him feel more confident and stable.

He knew this is what he wanted in life. He had gained clarity, finally!

He had decided to call off his marriage.

He was glad to come to terms to end his marriage amicably. The decision was gradual but inevitable and for the first time, he and his wife didn’t fight. They agreed to part ways mutually and amicably, deciding on common grounds of equitable custody of the child. The decision of being friends for life suddenly made him feel more respected in the eyes of his wife than he was before as a husband.

He knew that only one last effort was needed to help him gain that closure. He picked up his phone and started typing…

----

Another month went by, the lockdown was getting slowly lifted and so was the gloom over Raghav’s life.

It was one fine morning with usual rains tapping over his balcony rails. That day, they seemed like music. Raghav was humming into himself. With a swift movement, he poured two cups of tea and placed them with a few munchies over a rustic looking tray.

He was about to carry the tray, when a woman, clad in a saree, took it from him. Their fingers lightly brushed.

The woman smiled shyly before turning around and walked towards a befitting balcony garden.

Raghav looked at Kamini and smiled back.

“Finally!” he said to himself.

He wiped his hands with a kitchen towel and walked over to the balcony, to sip tea with his manifested reality.

He was happy at last, to have achieved and manifested his true love, through something, that he had taken so lightly.

The best part was, now he doesn’t take it lightly anymore. Not Kamini, not his life, and not his writing! Not even a chance.

He has learned his secret to manifest magic!