Pritam's Blog
It’s Time To Re-connect To My Inner Child
I am 30 and I barely feel anything.
No, I am not sad. But I am not happy either. It’s weird, isn’t it?
Sometimes, I do things that I did in the past just to evoke the same feelings that doing it the first time had evoked in me.
For example, the other day, I watched a certain movie that I had first watched at a camp during my first year in college 12 years back. I remember sitting beside K, someone I had a bit of a crush on back in those days. The movie made her cry. I still remember struggling with the idea of holding her hand and the associated adrenaline rush.
So, I watched the movie again wondering if it would help me go back in time, feeling-wise, I mean - I wanted to feel that pleasant internal struggle again or the remnants of it in my memory but I didn’t feel anything.
Sometimes, I try to do something new. Last week, I was on my way back home from office in an auto. It was chilly outside and the autowalah didn’t have anything heavy on him to keep him warm. At a traffic signal, I saw some guys selling these pullovers in a cart and asked the autowalah if he wanted one. He looked confused, something that would have amused me even a few years back.
Anyway, I bought him a pullover. He was still confused but happy (and he didn’t want to accept the fare after he dropped me - yes, there are autowalahs with a conscience in Bangalore). I, on the other hand, didn’t feel a thing.
My therapists say that it’s normal. Especially, when you have lived an intense life, with extreme emotional outpour of some sorts, there comes a point when nothing moves you, you don’t feel anything new and all you do is just remember how you had felt at different situations and use the knowledge to react to newer, similar experiences. Most people get used to it. They don’t overthink - that’s the coping mechanism most of us master eventually.
But I want to overthink. I guess sweeping anything under the rug isn’t in my nature. How do you sweep the elephant in the room under the rug anyway?
But then again, everything seems so pointless these days. I think it started after I was hospitalized last April. I was in the ICU for two days. It wasn’t anything life-threatening but whatever it was, I was a changed man when I came out, probably because I had never been so sick before and the incident made me aware that things could go out of control any time. To someone as control freak as I am, the unpredictable and uncertain nature of things, especially life, was disturbing.
Not that I am scared of death… It’s just that I feel our limited time on earth shouldn’t be spent on people, places, and things that don’t add any value to our life. I guess I have come to this realization quite late.
So, I have started to cut off toxic people from my life. At the same time, I am trying to re-connect with people who I definitely want in my life. As I write this, I remember something. When I was in Class 11-12, I used to say, “The heart has four chambers. Each of the four chambers of my heart is allocated to the four most important women in my life.” 😆😆😆 I realized even after all these years, I am still in touch with these four women. Damn! I am even married to one. That’s something! (If I am sending this to you in person, then I genuinely want you in my life)
Anyway, that was about people. Now, about places. I have spent 12 years of my life in Bangalore. I love this city. It has made me the person I am today and except this current phase of ‘terminal numbness’ that I am going through, I have been comfortable the way I am. But at the same time, a part of me feels that I should take a break from this city and move to a different one. This is something I am going to consider in the upcoming months.
Lastly, things. I used to enjoy sketching. But unlike writing (which helps me to express myself and more importantly, which pays my bills), sketching is not something that really adds any value to my life. I mean I used to enjoy the process but never with the outcome. I am never satisfied with my sketches. I make portraits… and I feel I never do justice to the people I draw.
I am even having difficulty writing. I mean the only things that I can think of writing about are the ones I don’t want to re-live. But this is something with which I have to make peace. So, I will write… more frequently. Probably, a change of place will help me…
Anyway, my therapist said something beautiful the other day. She said, “Nobody lives a perfect life. People suffer. As we speak inside the comforts of this air-conditioned room, someone is suffering. Someone is getting raped. Someone is starving to death. It’s disturbing. But we can’t do anything about it. You can’t do anything about what you had been through. What you can do is treat the ‘present you’ like you would treat your own kid.”
I think she’s right. I think it’s time to re-connect to my inner child.