Losing

 

Losing creates space. Imagine, losing a thing you have treasured forever; a book, few photographs, the feeble plastic table that couldn’t bear the weight of your expectations anymore. Suddenly, there’s space staring at you. Space, you are not accustomed to having. Space, your eyes haven’t adjusted to yet.

It works the same way with people.

All relationships have an expiry date.  Only the way it ends, differs. Any feeling with the slightest bit of warmth in it comes with the fear of losing. That, one day, things will cease to go back to how they were. You never get to know when would be the last moment, the last day, or the last time. So, you embrace denial as your coping mechanism, hoping that a next meeting awaits.

Familiar numbers in your contacts list do not send vibrations through your phone anymore, people you have walked many a mile with, now resemble silhouettes from another lifetime, and in this dreaded pandemic, even a ringing phone strikes fear in you.

Marquez had said that when people die, they should take their things with them. Even if they did, how would you wipe them off your memories! How would you grow out of their habits! How would you shape your habits now, for they were intertwined with the ones who left, like the roots of a tree!

How would you finally move on?

Losing creates space. Unnecessary space. Spaces gaping at your cluttered existence. Spaces, you do not know how to replace. Spaces, that choke you.