Blind spots

Sometimes I feel like I could easily give in to the chaos. Succumb to it. Surrender. But never really let go. One of my biggest fears, I have realized, is being forgotten. To be wiped out clean from someone's memory, and their lives without a trace. And it's also not like I have done anything grand or achieved anything great. Not do I have an adventurous life. I’m as mediocre and ordinary as anyone can be.

My fear is ironic for me in many ways. I struggle with gaps in my memory.

On most days, I sub-consciously remember Baa and his little gestures, Maa and her antics. But I can't put a finger on the details. If I concentrate enough, I can vaguely picture them. But their voices... Oh, their voices become so prominent on some days. It's almost as if I am in the room with them, or they are there on the phone talking about something entirely random and out of the blue.

Photographs feel like lies to me. Maybe it's because I have a hard time trying to visualize people and memories. But they have always felt like a distant dream, rather than the past. But I tried doing something in 2019. I took a picture every day, added a time stamp on it. Now when I look at those photographs, I can almost hear the moment captured in it - voices of the people in the photograph, voices of faces that are merely just stills stuck in time, stuck in moments I can't ever ask back from them.

I understand that it took a long time for me admit the gaps in my memory, to just tell people that I can't remember certain things and moments instead of pretending to think hard and trying to remember. I still struggle with it, but now I can at least tell a handful of people that I don't remember things instead of trying to cover it up.

Almost over four years back when my best friend moved abroad, I had a crippling fear of oblivion that was hanging by the thread because of a promise she wrote in that one last letter. "We will always do something about it." It was just as simple as that. But I have held onto that till today. We both have, in our own ways.


But I also groomed the promise into a practice for myself. For everything, and everyone that I have wanted to keep close, I have always done something about it. Even if it's something as small as a random "Hey, I miss you!" to something as big as losing track of time, spending years of effort to hone a certain skill or learn something new.

Sometimes I feel like my memory could have failed us too. And thinking that scares me. There is already so much I struggle with, I can't imagine having to add that on the list. Sometimes I think I carried my heart on my sleeves and got it bruised up again. Sometimes I think I built an island somewhere inside me and tucked my feelings away for good measure. Sometimes I can't feel. Sometimes I can't feel enough.

I started this blog when I was 12 as a memory capsule. I have tucked in some of biggest hurts, biggest pains in between the lines I have published here. But I can't really make myself go through the posts here, I have shied away from it for years. I don't feel brave enough.

I know I have started loving myself better over the past few years. Everyday feels like a lesson - learning myself has become a huge part of this process of self love. Today I can't help but feel that even if I love the me from now, I am still scared to love who I was before. That feels like a leap of faith into a plunging darkness and I don't feel ready.

It's time for another promise, it seems. For each day from now when I can't love who I was, I will love myself twice as much now - one time for the present, two times for the past. Also, as much of a romantic I am, I have realized that loving myself doesn't always need grand gestures. Most of the time, it's something as simple as being alone with my thoughts, or getting out of bed early morning and watching the city wake up, or just asking Ama or Baa for a hug or a pat on the head whenever I feel like I need it.