Peace

I feel at peace with myself – at long last. I know I can now look forward with hope, given to me by my past. While I know this might not be making any sense to you, I just wanted to write about it.

“And the world is busting at its seams

And you're just a prisoner of your dreams

Holding on for your life 'cause you work all day

To blow 'em away in the night” Bruce Springsteen

I just realized sometime over the last few months that who you were once decides not only who you are now but also who you can be. We all carry baggage, of varying sizes. And sometimes they just don’t let us be free. We keep on evaluating things as they might have been in the past and miss the present. And the dreams – that’s when they get blown away - for they are as strong as we let them be in the present. A dream kept safe for the future when you’ll be forty and have enough money for yourself and your family and your cockiness is just no longer a real one. For at forty, you never know what will come and hit you.

“Meeting Across the River

Hey, Eddie, can you lend me a few bucks

And tonight can you get us a ride

Gotta make it through the tunnel

Got a meeting with a man on the other side” - Bruce Springsteen

It leads us to question, to doubt, to judge and sometimes in the most extreme of cases to hate – not just ourselves or a best friend but at times life itself. You grapple at that point of time and that’s when a strong arm of a friend who refuses to leave your side however selfish you might have been pulls you out of that gloom and you realize that you have to meet the man on the other side – you have to face the other you.

There was this movie called Aks. And if I remember rightly the tagline was – there’s someone in your mirror and it’s not you. Even without taking the help of the supernatural, it’s scary when you realize you don’t actually know the person who looks back at you everyday in the mirror.

She once believed...in every story he had to tell...

One day she stiffened...took the other side...

Empty stares...from each corner of a shaped prison cell...

One just escapes...one's left inside the well...

And he who forgets...will be destined to remember...oh...oh...oh... - Pearl Jam

It’s difficult to forget. Even without knowing we all have been playing The Game. And when you can’t, you end up remembering with a vile taste in your mouth; the pungent, putrid taste that leaves behind only bitterness. But today I know I can look forward with the strength from my past. The ghosts are buried, I hope, for the one last time.

“Time it goes so fast

When you're having fun” - The Bangles

(Every time I come back and play my audio cassettes, I get few jewels out. On the last night of my supposed annual leave which mostly was work from home, Bruce Springsteen came to my rescue. 2 of the quoted texts are his songs)