Glass Half Full

What I disclose here is something that I have hardly shared before. It is about the time when I was 16, which wasn't as sweet to me as it is normally called. I had just separated from the girl I loved and I didn't know how to start preparing for my 10^th grade boards which was due in few months. But this one day out of nowhere my mom called me and said, “See, there’s huge discounts on the package tour to Goa”. Few days later we had packed off ourselves to leave for the gorgeous destination.

While in the train I was still lost in the medley of emotional thoughts about my love. This was probably the first time that I had experienced anything like this. The feeling of staring and feeling the utmost beauty of slipping oneself into the fantasy zone where only we existed was a world I never wanted to come out of. Songs started making more sense than before and the pathetic cries of my friends about their own love life suddenly felt not so pathetic anymore.

While still deep into my thoughts, a sophisticated dressed gentle-man also travelling to Goa sat in front of me. The train looked mostly empty and I wondered where this guy boarded from in the middle of the night. I was clearly not interested in conversation, for one he was middle aged and two, he looked too cheerful for me to spoil his mood with my silly sorrows. He took out a box from his bag and placed a cheese slice in the middle of the two slices of bread that he opened out, offering me a part, I politely declined.

“Why do you look so down, little man?” he asked. “It’s nothing sir, just going to sleep in some time.” “Is it a girl?” I was flabbergasted to this and asked with my mouth still open of amazement, “How do you know?”

It instantly struck, this was the guy I’m going to vomit my story to, so I started, "I really don’t know where to begin, we both were apparently in deep love, so much so that we used to exchange emails regularly about how we are going to set up our lives after we both build a career and stand independently with strength. But now all seems against me, she hasn't replied for months, long distance relationship sucks, isn't that true?”

“I am not sure whether you are going to understand this son, but I will say this anyway. What is love? Sometimes we depend on a good feeling so much so that we end up calling it love. Like if you’re called and asked to answer a question in the class and you couldn't answer, you will feel humiliated. In such cases if a girl even looks at you and gives a brief smile, you feel relieved. This relief goes boundaries since it came at a time when you wanted enclosure after being insulted for not answering. Now your mind will try to keep re-creating the same emotion making you go to the girl again and again, this is what we call attraction phase. The phase when you think the same feeling of “relief” can be achieved with similar elements around. But what your mind doesn't understand is that it sure can also be established with another girl or even a boy for that matter, after all its just a feeling of “relief”. This confused mind starts then thinking that maybe you are in love after relating the same emotions to movies and songs. What your mind is looking for isn't the girl but the feeling the girl helped you have, so ultimately love in conventional sense is the most selfish thing one can do. Do you think that you are still in love?” “Yes, of course!” He laughed and asked me to sleep since it was too late. 

His words somehow sunk in deep, the words that were a plain mess back then, looked like the pieces of this puzzle settled perfectly over the years to be finally solved today, today when I have been dumped again, by another girl. I now when went back to the roots, understood the whole scenario so practically that it doesn't hurt me anymore. But that again is not to say love doesn't exist, but I realized that I can use this as my shield every time life throws me to the same dumping ground. I can use this to feel optimistic about the glass half full. I can use this to take charge of life and look up because after all the show must go on.

This post was written for: Housing- LookUp