I Found My World

“Take care son”, these were the parting words from my father when he came to drop me off for the college. Just these words and a gentle squeeze, I was hoping for a hug though but then if he would have hugged me, I for sure would have broken down and started crying, then and there, right in the middle of the street and a twenty year old boy crying, is not a pretty sight to behold. I cried though later next day; it was I think because of the story that I read, something about a boy describing his father’s funeral and I made me feel so sad that I felt like crying and I did cry, burying my face deep in my pillow, silently though as there were no tears and praying all the time for the well being and safety of my family. I wanted to get it all out of my system, as to how much I was able to rid myself of these separation pangs and anxiety I have no idea. My mother once told me that as a kid I was nothing short of a cry baby, crying for whatever things that would happen to catch my sight and I was pretty much protean as far as my likings were concerned, so I grow out of things or got fed up them much to the dislike of my parent and I was fiercely jealous as well, so much so that if the girl sitting next to me had a new eraser or a new pencil or a new bag, I would want that very same thing. The fact that there were probably ten’s of erasers, rulers and pencil boxes lying around astray was immaterial to me. And when I wouldn’t get what I wanted I would cry and I cried like hell and I have a real bad tendency to throw a tantrum, right in the middle of the street or my personal favorite, the toy shop. I used to have, probably the entire GI Joe collection and all those tiny little good for nothing hot wheels cars, I still have them, tucked somewhere amidst all those boxes of junk which my mother couldn’t bring herself to throw off and now when I think about those moments, my heart really goes out for my parents, they really had to endure a tough child, a child with a lash for tongue and a real bad temper and add to it the pressure of their jobs, I really wonder how they were able to pull all this through. But somewhere along the line, I don’t exactly remember when, I lost my capability to cry and I don’t know why, given my history and proclivity this aspect of my life still happens to intrigue me. Perhaps, it was because of my parents, who by now have come to terms with my tantrums and started buying me stuff, sometimes even before I could word my choices out or maybe it was because of the fact that I get grow up pretty quickly, given certain circumstances and I finally realized that harrowing once parents isn’t something one should do. With my tears gone, I think I lost a certain part of me as well, the part that made me capable of empathizing with people and in a way I become like an android, rendered incapable of emotion and compassion. Perhaps, those tears were like gossamer threads binding me with this all engulfing blanket of humanity and with these threads gone, I found myself becoming meaner and selfish, to the point of narcissism. It is hard actually to be with people and not to feel the way they are feeling and more often than not people think of me or treat me as an outcast, as someone whose behavior is in complete disjunction with their moral fabrication. I have been there, on the receiving end of a lot of broken relationships, and still I find myself completely at loss when it comes emoting myself because I don’t know how to express a void, an emptiness.

I haven’t cried since that day, apart from one time when I walked into a door and broke up my nose. That was actually pretty painful and with all those unsolicited tears mixed with blood and mucus, it felt disgusting but that day it wasn’t the pain that I cried for, I cried for all the things, all the baggage that I was carrying. I cried for my poodle who died five years back, I cried for the loss of my girlfriend who got married and for another one who dumped me and for her friend who as well dumped me. It actually felt pretty liberating, getting it all out of your system and for a change it made me feel responsible for the pain that I have inflicted on others. As for me crying again, I don’t see myself walking in another door anytime in the near future, perhaps when it’s the doomsday and when everyone else has died, I will sit alone and cry for all the wrongs I have done to people by denouncing their effusions and outbursts for being trivial.