From the moment she walked into my home the other day, I knew something was different. She was different. What I didn't know then was that she would leave me different.
I had known her as a grown up lady, but she seemed like a young girls that day. She had been distant and untouchable. And I found her so earthly now. Nothing had surprised her, and she shocked me every moment.
Her calmness was something I had always envied, and wondered where she drew her strength form, but she sat fidgeting on the couch, making me wonder if there were bugs in there. She gave things a fleeting glance, but now oftener than I would like I caught her staring at something or the other.
She was the one to measure her smiles, and now she was laughing all the time. She was the torchbearer, the one everybody went to looking for advise. But now she was in the kindergarten, "I am just beginning to learn".
She was quite an impatient soul, and she amazed me with how much she was bearing patiently. "I" was so frequent to her, and it seemed to be melting away. "What place has ego in love?" she said so innocently.
"Thanks, but I have a life of my own", was changing to "I feel so incomplete".
"Nothing can hurt me, I don't love too much", was what I had often heard her say. And I could see how open to hurt she was suddenly. She wielded power, but she too had her weak moments, and now I could see them.
She was a die-hard optimist, but I could see cynicism creeping in. She never believed in any of the optimism she preached, and now there was nothing but hope and a dream of it all coming true.
"This terrible life..." was suddenly "Life is beautiful".
I had been scared of her once, but now she seemed one of us. I had thought her to be the most honest soul, and only now I realized she had been fooling not only us but also herself all this time.
She was once a shell, but it had hatched. And the infant that walked out was very human, very vulnerable. She was my big sister, and I wanted to shield her from the whole world.
And I couldn't help quoting The Alchemist (by Paulo Coelho) to her
"When we love we always strive to become better than we are."
No comments:
Post a Comment