Insomnia- mother of second chances.

You know it's funny. I write stuff people don't understand. People write stuff on my stuff which I don't understand. This is not sarcasm. Just that this stalemate is something I am not enjoying. I mean you can sense that. Else I wouldn't be blogging at 3 in the morning. Usually in the last few months, by this time, I should be sleeping.

Should be. But that's utopia. By 12, I am done reading the papers. And I switch on my laptop and start watching  some sitcom, tempted by the possibility that it would lull me to sleep, bore me to sleep, whatever. By 1:30 I am really worried that I am not sleepy at all. Infact, I could be laughing, very elated at some stupid American joke that I so totally get. By 2, I am running in and out of thoughts. Of work. Of people at work. About deadlines and fears of not meeting them. My mind is swaying over the chances of a big professional failure. And blah blah.

And gradually, I really don't know when and how, by quarter past 2, I would have moved to severely dangerously sentimental stuff. About how I am failing as a person, how I am missing out on all that I always wanted, how my plans are far from working out, how I have wasted away almost one third of my life, having accomplished nothing much on any random scale. And blah blah. From there on, the fears take charge. This could be something that one might be ashamed to confess, but I am so so scared of being alone all my life. I mean, now with all the seasoning that has gone into my loneliness, this doesn't come as an insecurity as it comes as an assured fact. Something that's going to happen. A long life, all by myself. So what would I be doing.

I start chalking out the people I could still keep in my life. And how often and how should I meet them, and whether they would find it acceptable to see me once in a long while. Would I be imposing myself like a crazy grandmother, old and abandoned. What would I do. What would I do. I mean I have already lost my knack for writing. And reading doesn't hold me on for too long either. Television sucks. I can't paint. Inside four walls, and under a roof, what could engage me.

It probably reads funny to you. But it isn't. Not an ounce. It's scary, it's painful, it's so dreadful, I can't even dream about sleep coming to me. Even sleep has better places to go to. But I. I feel so discarded, like shoved away. Just when I can't deal with the issue anymore, I draw patterns in my mind, brush colors around, count sheep, the quintessential cure for insomnia they say. Very recently, there was a time I couldn't even spell it right.

Just when it gets absolutely awful, and it gets impossible to contain my mind, I plan out second chances. Of all those failures and abandoned dreams I was talking about, I pick up a few and wish to give them a second chance. Give me a second chance, rather. Sometimes, I have been told, it's all about second chances. I try to lull myself to sleep, promising that I would give that another shot. And that even though it is all upside down, noone can stop me, if I wanted to try again. Of course, they could ridicule me. And I could fail again too. More miserably so. And end up heartbroken.

But what the heck. I am heartbroken anyway. 

6 comments:

Surya Prakash V said...

Hmmm.

Life is a process. Living isn't. Thinking is and thinking isn't.

Inspite of the different languages we speak; there is nothing that is not understood; just a missing context.

If learning is experiential; all learning is at least through second chances.

I understand you as I would understand me; but I wish I knew your language; Like the exact scent of your rose.

I will take my chances; as many as it takes :)

Blasphemous Aesthete said...

Now now now, there is one aspect that still remained unanswered. Did you sleep?

Regards,
Blasphemous Aesthete

Syed Ali Hamid said...

Does a writer write to be understood? Even confessional literature at its best, reveals only the tip of the iceberg. Responses are only interpretations. Only an experience shared together can lead to a limited understanding. As someone wrote:

When the wind and winter harden/ All this loveless land/ It will whisper of the garden/ You'll understand.

Kunal said...

Since, I do not know you, I can not make better judgement...of what are the dreams which you saw..which you wanted to achieve....but from the post...at least it is clear that you realize that you want something better...and realize that you need to give those a second chance...So give them a second chance...and do not loose heart...Fear not the failure..but lack of effort....

All the best

Kunal

Ol' Acquaintance said...

Ha-Ha-HA !!!
I'm in the midst of a guffaw.
U're like a female version of Guru Dutt of the Pyaasa fame.

"yeh duniya agar mil bhi jae toh kya hai??...."

Anonymous said...

so good :)