At the end of your life, whenever that will be, you need to be able to look back, drum your chest heartily and say, "Yes, I came, I saw, I might not have conquered, but I was loved." It's the least you can do, and for what it's worth, what you owe yourself - love and affection. I think it's the only thing that'd give our lives meaning in the end.
Fortunately for me, I have been blessed at different stages of my life with confidantes, people who know me to the depths of my soul, people who only want what is best for me. I have really been blessed, and I think this has been so because I have let myself be loved, I have taken a chance on people, risking being known.
In the last four years, I have learnt a few life-changing lessons: the art of listening, the act of self-reflection, self-love, and loyalty. I have learnt these things not theoretically, but by the lives my confidantes have led.
From one of my confidantes I learnt to listen, and from the other I learnt to speak my truth. It is amazing how two people can have two opposite, but positive extremes. One confidante always let me speak to him as though I was speaking to myself, questioning my choices and goals, the other listens to me so much so that sometimes it doesn't appear that she is breathing on the phone.
I have also learnt to laugh at the silliest but life altering events, like a bad sexual experience, all the times I have been the most vulnerable, and the times I let myself fall prey to the deadliest of loves. I have had to ask myself of late, What would be my gift to the world? And I realize this would be it -- this medium of communication, telling my thoughts no matter how jumbled or misplaced they may appear.
These days, it's exciting meeting new people, opening myself to the plausibility of new friendships, new bonds, and in general, great people. These kinds exist, I am certain, for once I'd known one.
No longer do I look to the past with longing, or wishing things could be different, for I have spoken and listened to enough people to realize that for the time that is, this life is to be savoured, to be soaked all up, to be lived. Now all I do is look back with fondness, the time a baby smiled and you, me, we, smiled back. I look back thinking, I should smile with babies more. I look back to the times you, me, we, saw a great film together, and I say to myself, I should tell a story like that, like The Fault In Our Stars, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Her; stories that speak without a sound, stories of imperfectly alone people.
I sleep better these days. I find my cheeks are filling up. Gradually, I am learning to stand my reflection. It's a beautiful life, this one, short existence of ours. I am learning to reply Hi's, knowing that it would never be enough for most people, but is a start.
Before I say bye, let me leave you with words from Maugham's The Painted Veil. "I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead." Friends, enjoy the days as they come. Remember to tell your husbands and wives of your dark fetishes and see how they respond. Never hold it all in, because everybody needs somebody. Everybody, no matter how evil, deserves a confidante.