Quest of sunny winter morning

Before closing my eyes, I felt relieved. I did it right for the first time.

I was curious. When he cried in front of me, he made me think deep and hard about it.

I remember sitting on the cement sidewalk inside the college premises and relaxing after a heavy day. The sky was blue and full of fluffy clouds. He came and sat next to me and just sighed heavily. I looked casually him and asked what happened to him.

Him: I don’t know mam, why is love so painful?

“WHAT? I am not used to this. This is not where my mind works. It is out of my expertise.”

Me: Why kid, what happened?

Him: It is very painful when I try to get out of it.

Me: It sure sounds painful kiddo, what happened to you?

Him: You know her, right? She was in same class as me. She is also your junior.

Me: Sara?

Him: Yes.

“I had an idea that you were in a relationship, but wasn’t sure.”

Me: She was your girlfriend?

Him: She was everything for me. Now I am nothing to her.

Me: Tell me a story so I can understand.

He went on to tell me the story of how they fell in love- the good and bad. The journeys under the open sky, the gazing into the eyes, the endless conversations and a lot more I don’t even remember now. He heavily sighed after ending the story.

Me: What are you feeling at this moment?

Him: I just want to go back to her and keep her with me. I know I can’t, but I find it hard to let go.

Me: Hmm… that cannot happen. You need to move on. There are lot of things out there waiting to be done by you, people to be loved by you.

Him: It is difficult. Anyway thanks for listening mam. This is the first time I talked to someone about it and first time I had a conversation with you. I feel a bit fine after letting it out. I’ll go now.

Me: Uh, okay bye. You can talk to me anytime you want.

This made me think. I have never felt the love with a lover. Everyone was a friend or brother to me. Whoever felt affection for me was shown the cold room.

This was dangerous. I felt curious on how to heal the broken hearts.

I downloaded a dating app. Without a picture, without a real name, I gave it a go.

For the first few months, I met all kinds of creeps and people actually interested in dating. I was just exploring. Exams were over and it was fun. I had overnight conversations with strangers and still felt nothing. I did not know about the sense of belonging to a lover.

The guys I met on the dating app didn’t last. One of them became by boyfriend, one a friend and one a 15-day roller-coaster.

I was still to experience love.

It hit me like a boulder when I got my first job.

On a sunny winter morning, I saw him for the first time. A tall, broad-shouldered attractive man.

“Arrogant.”

I turned and left.

We were in same batch of new trainees and he and I were the one who talked less. By less I mean almost never. He hated my guts for taking his seat once and I plainly did no liked him because he was arrogant. However, universe gave us a batch mate who talked for both of us. He talked all day, every day and dragged the two of us everywhere. We had a mutual dislike for the bubble of bursting energy. The ice slowly started to melt over conversation on books, hobbies, dinner in the lonely city and break-time tea. Less than 6 months, and we were joined at the hips. We talked to each other almost all the time. Social media, office, out of office- name it and we were talking. He had a girlfriend and I was the great counselor. We handled his love troubles. His girlfriend was a parasite.

Long story short. I fell in love. I never told him, because Ala friendship comes first.

He broke up with his girlfriend finally when she cheated on him. I fell in love with him more when he told me that he still loved her. However being the good friend I was, I encouraged and stood by him when he broke up with her. After a month or two of this incident, he suddenly stopped talking to me. I tried to talk to me but it felt like sticking your naked body to the glacier. There was nothing but cold there.

I kept quiet.

The pain in my heart however did not. I had not only lost connection with someone I loved, but a close friend as well. I spent nights and days crying and obsessing over him. One positive came out of this was- I am good a stalking now. Intelligence agencies can hire me to find Dawood Ibrahim. I will find him. Anyway, A new, beautiful and everything a man wants- women joined as a trained during that time. He started to spend time with her. They looked good together. It was not my place to be jealous. I just did not feel anything.

Do you guys remember the chatterbox I told you about in the beginning? Basically, we stopped talking after a small argument over something trivial. He in the meantime fell in love and got his heart broken. On one fine morning, ugh, a Sunday morning, he called me. He wanted to talk to me. So he came at 6:30 AM and I got to hear story about another heartbreak.

We spent all day talking. Tears, sadness, motivation and consolation went into the process of healing him enough to function properly. By evening, we were on a staircase of some closed shop and hungry and in need of using a washroom. I called a friend who lived close by and asked her whether we could come. She agreed and cooked some snacks for us. She went ahead and invited a bunch of other friends. My love was one of them. Me and chatterbox were known for hating each other in office, so when everyone came, everyone was shocked.

The ice broke again. I and my love started making small talks. The awkward talks and uncomfortable questions.

I never got the answer for why he stopped talking to me. I stopped asking.

We were back to square 2 again- i.e. being best friends. Everyone in the office started thinking that we were dating and being the assholes we were, we made it look like that. The long conversations, eating out, shopping everything was back. We talked to each other in every waking second.

This is where the things gets interesting. We started light flirting. By next year, he had called me sexy, I had asked him that whether I could introduce him to my parents as jamai (son-in-law). All fun and no harm. I felt special. Don’t know about him though.

I will tell you about my favorite day. It was a Sunday and I went to their room to spend the usual Sunday, debating over politics and eating their food. His roommates were the chatterbox and one of my juniors. It started at 7 and ended at 7. We sat in front of each other and spent time talking and in silence. 12 hours.

Dreaded feeling, anyone?

One fine evening in the cafeteria of office, he came to me and asked whether he should ask a girl out. She was so pretty. I pushed him saying why not. I wanted to test him whether he felt something towards me. That idiot went ahead with it. What can I say, I hammered my own feet willingly and with a smile. They started dating.

“Eye roll.”

He was less available now. He spent more time with her. Stopped texting like we used to do and just floated away into the dating world comfortably.

I felt a lot this time. I started writing letters to him. I never sent those letters to him. I still have it with me.

This was the time when I did it more than hundred times and failed all those times.

I tried to get him out of my mind. Every trick in the book and I tried it, except liquor, drugs and sex. I still was a strong sister my elder sisters raised. I wrote sad poems, took days off from office to cry, stalked him, ignored him, dated etc.

I remember the day he called me almost crying asking me what he should do. He sounded sad over phone. I was in other city with my sister on a trip/ job interview.

Setting: A religious place

Weather: Scorching hot summer

He called me out of the blue and asked me what he should do. Apparently the girl got serious during dating and wanted to be in a formal relationship. He told me everything. I could not take sadness in his voice. He asked me desperately what he should do. I asked him three times whether he loved him. The floor was scorching my feet and the sun hot on my head- he confirmed my worst fears. He told me three times that he loved her. I rolled out steps for him to follow to get the girl, consoled him a little more and disconnected the call.

I am an atheist, but damn that day I asked god why he did this here and told him to keep my love safe.

Needless to say, the rest of the trip went by like a blur in sleeping, faking smiles and trying not to cry.

Coming back to what was our city was heart-breaking. Agony, sadness, depression and endless sadness and tears. So, as it is already enough boring- I will cut it short. It went on for months, after which I told him I loved him on impulse one day. He said he knew and end of the story.

Well, not really.

Then the real story began. Now I was learning how recover from a heartbreak.

1.  I tried to have conversation with him about the topic to find a closure. Failed.

2.   I tried to date. Failed.

3.   I tried to ignore him. Failed.

4.   I wrote poems to heal myself and get out of this feeling by bleeding out (in words). Failed.

5.   Hurt myself a little. Failed.

6.   Fasted. Failed.

7.   Slept. Failed.

8.   Read thousands of articles for cure. Failed,

9.   Tried to hate him. Failed.

10. Went on trips. Failed.

11. Asked friends with broken hearts and followed their processes. Failed.

12. .

13. .

14. .

15. .

16. .

17. .

18. .

19. .

20. .

21. .

100. Failed.

101. Still working on it.

Honestly, I cannot say that I have stopped loving him. There are tens of good and tens of bad about him I know. He still brings smile to my face. I still smile about thinking about him.

But this time.

1.  I am not stalking him. Passed.

2.   I am not obsessing over him. Passed.

3.   I have accepted his happiness. Passed.

4.   I cannot talk to him for months on end and still not feel sad about him. Passed.

5.   I like talking to him occasionally when I don’t think I love him. Passed.

6.   I haven’t wrote a poem about him in last one year. Passed.

7.   I still write letters to him whenever a memory of good time creeps up in mind. Passed.

8.   .

9.   .

10. .

11. .

12. .

13. .

14. .

15. .

101. I have passed. I have found a new meaning in it. I am still learning. However in a better place now.