Madness

30-11-2011, Vacations.

It’s odd, the things we remember and the things we remember not. I remember how I was so overwhelmed by my love for you and ended up crying and breaking up with you. I remember how once I’d listened to this song you told me to listen to and I ‘narrated’ the lyrics to you and you said “mujhe kya bata rahi hai. Maine suna hai.” Hah.

Such children we were…we were so young. I’ve known you since before I was the person I am today, since before I was a person. And I think I will love that person I knew, so sad and yet so…sprightly.

But I look at you today and I wonder how you got here. And I could list out the reasons I don’t like you anymore, and none of them would make any sense. I hate you because you’re the wedge between me and the sister. Because she is the only person I truly care about, and the only person I want in my life, you had no right or place to wedge yourself between us. It should never have been that I would have to keep anything from her, so that she could continue respecting you, so that your friendship could be spared from what had happened.

It kills me how you’re the reason that my immediate core circle is devoid of people. I cannot lie for you, I never wanted to and for myself I never would have. You made me do something for you against my better judgment, something that I would not have done to salvage mine own dignity.

Sigh.

And to the sister. What can I say to you? I love you so much that it hurts everytime I think of you. I love you so much that everything you say even slightly hurtful, hurts a lot. It breaks my heart. And to feel like I’ve lost you to people I really despise makes me feel childish, yet wronged.

Another deep sigh. Honesty is so much hard work. I was so happy to believe that I was thick-skinned and nothing really hurt.

Charles Dickens’, in The Madman’s Manuscript, captures the essence of what I’m feeling right now. A madman on the brink of madness, afraid of going mad and then later when he does, realizing how brilliant it is to hide the fact from others, fooling them.

“At last it came upon me, and I wondered how I could ever have feared it. I could go into the world now, and laugh and shout with the best among them. I knew I was mad, but they did not even suspect it. How I used to hug myself with delight when I thought of the fine trick I was playing them…”

Yep. Gothic Short Stories, a RD collection J just what I need around this time and place.

The solitary mountainside was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out of place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be the most terrible modulation of the human voice.- Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ethan Brand.

I rejoice in my pretentious anonymity. Thank you for helping me keep it this way.