Half Sweet n' Half Nuts

Warning: Rambling ahead...

I’ve spent way too much time in an airplane or at an airport in the last six weeks. Since I have been traveling mostly by myself I have realized airports/airplanes are the perfect place for introspection. After the mandatory phone calls informing anyone who cares that your flight is on time etc. there isn’t much to do but be by yourself and think.

So I’ve been thinking. A lot. About where I’m leaving from. Where I’m going to. My trips. My days at my last destination. Anticipation of what’s next. And as luck may have it, a lot has happened that needed thinking about.

Old friends, old relationships, old hometowns. Everything changes with time. Its foolish to expect them to remain the same. There is too much to write about in a single write up. Too many things going around in this head. And I don’t know where to start. It would be best to break it up in to multiples columns but then I don’t want my reactions to fade with time so I’m going to put it all in one.

Part 1 – From an airport in an exotic land to an airport back home.

Old friends. The best kind of friends. People who you feel you’ve known forever. These are the people I live my life by since I haven’t lived with my family for the last 20 years. They may be spread out all over the world today, but they’re family to me. A drunken phone call is not the same as a not so drunken evening together. And their friends may be wonderful people but for one evening even when you’re with your best friend in a foreign land, you’re the outsider.

Languages bind and languages divide. And if the divide exists there is nothing that can be done about it. All the love in the world can still make you feel hurt and alone. Even if just for an instant. But the love stays on. Different cultures, different countries, different languages, different friends, different lives… none of it changes the love between old friends.

Part 2 – From an airport at home to an airport somewhere half way across the globe.

Why cant we have world class airports? They’re just buildings. Why cant cheap marble have been replaced by basic carpeting, bus lanes and exits be a little wider, air conditioning a little more effective and phenol be replaced by a nicer smelling disinfectant? Do we have to advertise the fact that we’re a “Third world developing nation”? Do the people who think this up really think it adds to the Indian appeal? Is a bad airport supposed to bring in foreign tourists?

Anyways…

Relationships. Lets start with the kind you cant choose. Family. Now that’s something that will never change. Now matter how different a person you are today for your family you’re still the person you were 5-10-15 years ago. Nothing is going to change how they feel about you. If you didn’t get along with your cousins growing up, chances are you’re never going to. The family that bugs you, they hurt you, you hurt them back, all the troubles, all the guilt and resentment. End of it all, they’re family. You have to love them. You cant help but love them. They’re a part of who you are and you’re a stronger person knowing they’re there.

Relationships you do choose to form. Ah! If it were only as simple with them. I think there is something wrong in my head these days. I just cant seem to get any of these right! This is where air travel helps! I realized the difference in my personal and professional life. Career decisions for me are easy because there is clarity of vision. I know what I want and how to get it. There is a timeline and a plan. Personal life… phew! I continue to love someone because I don’t want to admit that I may have made a mistake. I cover up for my mistakes (which I may never admit to!) by losing myself in relationships I depend on and corrupt those as well. I don’t know what I want to be, or who I want to be. So I end up being a different person with different people… experimenting with the kind of person I want to be. And sometimes I get confused and I mix things up. And I end up hurting people. I say something, I mean something else and I want something completely different. There is this huge fear of not being accepted and this need to be everyone's favorite person that makes me an actor playing various roles, in various stages of an act. Often reality gets mixed up with fantasy. I want to apologise but I don’t know how. And I just don’t know how to fix things with the people I really do care for.

Part 3 – From my current pit stop to an older pit stop and back.

Its alright… after reading the above paragraph, you are allowed to think I’m borderline insane. Truth is not of the above makes sense. They’re just abstract emotions I’m trying to put into words but there seem to be no words good enough to express myself.

I realized I don’t yet have a home. Someday I will but that day isn’t here yet. No. My parents home is precisely that – my parents home. Its not mine. It never will be.

I’m confused, I’m tired. I don’t what I want any more. But I’m going to figure it out.

I know I need something, someone, somewhere. But I also know I’m not going to find it any time soon so I have to be patient and wait. And make the best of today. I know I will be OK.

I’m going to be happy. No matter what. I am going to sleep!