I feel a little strange on the day before my birthday. A part of me keeps thinking that it cannot believe that I made it this far and that has to do with the childhood that I have had. Many people have told me that the nature of my childhood was one that was the most unfair thing that could ever happen to me.
I remember a conversation that I had recently with a dear friend who said that he felt that it would be a good thing if what I wrote would not be a variation on the same theme and instead the stories would talk of so many other things which I appreciate – a good cup of coffee, food, Dungeons and Dragons and stories just by themselves. I am inclined to agree with him – I have found myself telling others of my life and its circumstances for years and years and somehow I have not been able to change that narrative yet.
A more important conversation with my elder sister made me realize that one of my mechanisms for coping and for pushing past difficult times is to always see the worst in people first and then slowly bring the walls down and let them in. I firmly believe that there are a lot of people who used to be in my life but ultimately gave up slamming into a wall when they wanted to be around me and just left. That is something that my sister feels needs to be addressed, because my life is not like what it was when I was a child and she asked me to accept this and to reassess myself and my surroundings and the people in my life now as opposed to then. I remember that I often find myself locked in combat with my inner self where the one that wants to give them a chance is overridden by the part of me that knows pain so intimately. I think I have forgotten that pain too can be beautiful in its own way and form, because of what it does to you and how you sift yourself around like sand in a desert to accommodate it and work with it.
I don’t know when, but I hope that one day I will be able to sit at this table and confidently be able to tell myself that I have found a way to trust people, acknowledge that they care for me, care for them in my turn and that I can finally be free and fully, honestly and unapologetically happy.
I hope that this birthday helps me to stay true to the choice of a future with my friends and loved ones, and not a past with my child self who only knows that the world out there is a vile place, full of nasty Hobbitses. There is more than some good in this world, Ashesh and you know as well as I do that you will fight for it!
(Of course there was a LOTR reference in this, why wouldn’t there be?)
The Bilge Master
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