Ghosts

Hi AR...


They made us believe that it is OUR life and that we can shape it as we like. And then they taught us about ‘destiny’ and how our life isn’t in our hands after all! Our paths are all laid out even before we decide to choose. Even before we are aware of them perhaps!

Our paths crossed for a brief amount of time.  I’m happy and proud to have known you, however briefly. You are simple, not so simple, honest, caring, hardworking and strong; you are intelligent, generous, sweet and giving. I thank you with all my heart for being one of the most important people in my life. You were one of the precious few I could talk to without holding back. You have changed the way I perceive things and people and my own life!

All of this may sound too smarmy and insincere, given the fact that I’m writing a “dead” letter to a person I have to refer to as a “ghost from the past”. But all of it is still true; you only have my word for it and nothing else! Yes, I know... If a person is important we would try to hold on to them, come what may. When we have differences, we ought to fight it out and get it over with. That’s the ideal or rather normal way of dealing things. But… I can’t do that. I can’t fight. I’m simply incapable of that. Not because I’m a very peace-loving person, I simply don’t like the after taste of a fight. Instead, I take the more unpleasant yet easier shortcut: I quit.

That is precisely what happened with us. I quit. Because I wanted to have only a good memory and none other.

When you asked me why, I didn’t have an answer. No, that’s a lie. I had the answer, but I didn’t have the guts to say it out loud. I could’ve just stopped being an idiot and be ‘normal’. But I didn’t. Not even when I saw the kind of hurt in your eyes that made me wish I’d die of shame. Not even when I saw you break into tears!

However stupid it may sound, this is my answer. At some point, I have realised that we are two very different people with two very different paths laid out before us. We couldn’t be the “best friends” that I hoped we would. That realisation made me want to run away and hide somewhere safer; somewhere where I know for sure that I won’t ever have to come to the “parting of ways”. That is what I did. I said my goodbye before it is time to say it. It isn’t the most sensible thing to do but I did it anyway. I just had to quit when it is still good. I can’t bear to wait for the good thing we had to gradually fade into nothingness. I’d rather wrench myself away abruptly and keep the memories intact than wait until they turn bitter.

With some people, you just can’t keep it ‘simple’. You were one of them.

Did all of this leave me with a peaceful mind? Well, no! But here is my consolation to appease my restless conscience – for the harsh bit in the story, I have only ME to blame; and… I have an untarnished, splendid memory of YOU! That’s all I ever wanted!!

Wherever you are, I'll always hope for your best.

Sincerely yours,