The biggest side effect of a restless mind
is one of blinded priorities. My current to-do checklist boasts of an avalanche
of work staring at me in the face. And, therefore, by no means should I allow
myself to indulge in a leisurely hour of random moorings. But, when there is a
voice within keen to be heard and a thought inside seeking ventilation, you
can’t help, but submit.
I often wonder if there’s a premium that we
put on emotions? The answer, either ways, explains how much we open ourselves
to two extreme possibilities: of either building a fortress and preserving our
inner selves within its lonely walls or letting ourselves in the open and
J-walking on social highways almost certain to be run over by hurt and pain,
sooner or later.
I have always been a great advocate of the
safer option – of staying within the foreclosures and keeping any possible
infringements at bay. This is a choice that lays down clear terms and
conditions: “I’d be happy to know who you are, but would request you to abstain
from knowing who I am!
But, this philosophy does make room for
exceptions; this frontier does open up to a few. And there is not one reason
alone that explains this exception: these are individuals who inspire
confidence that they’d heal you when you come back wounded from all the pretence
of social conventions, they’d evoke a heartfelt laughter when you are tired of
pasted smiles, and revitalise the life within you when all seems lost in your
quest for emotional security.
You take a chance because these people open
you to the beautiful possibilities that you never imagined before -- they are
the encouraging pat on your back on a discouraging day, the warm hug on a cold
day, the dope of belief when disbelief raises its ugly head.
Opening up to these exceptional few,
however, does eventuate into a slight compromise on emotional safety – it may
not be a J-walk on social highways, but it’s surely a stroll by the roadside,
one that is safe, but not secured enough.
These people also do run you over sometimes
either because they drove recklessly and rammed you on the safe road berms or,
perhaps, you walked into their driveway when the signal was green. The reason
could be either of the two or both, but when you do get run over, it invariably
hurts – a tad bit more I suspect, because emotional hurt is new to you.
I was walking on the safe berms blinded to
the possibility that I’d ever get run over. But, I did – was it the recklessness
of the driver who deservingly entered my life or was it the careless stride of
the pedestrian within me. Irrespective of the answer, that stroll in the most
emotionally vulnerable territories handed me more joy than what I ever got in
years of safe confinement. And while the stroll down the highway continues, for
what it’s been so far, it has indeed been a Walk to Remember.
