A Walk to Remember

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.