Be warned: this is a total and complete rant. So yeah, if you don’t like this sort of thing, then just stay away.
I am tired – bone weary and soul weary tired. Tired of everything. It is so very cold where I am – not just outside, where Fall has yet to set in, and the cool winds have begun blowing, but it is so very cold inside of me as well.
I find myself stuck in a place where I don’t want to be in anymore. I am sick of sickness. Yes. That’s what it is, perhaps. All of this sickness around me is making me sick. Sickness in body, sickness in mind, and sickness in soul – all of this is making me sick, inside and outside.
Sometimes I feel like escaping – I so miss my druggie days – when lost in the cloud of the marijuana smoke I could just forget. Forget about the pain, the loss, the suffering… forget everything, and just be happy.
People say, that one ought not to be selfish. But what am I to do… I never learnt the art of being compromising. All I ever do is nurture, nourish and take care – of others. Never of myself.
And right now, just right now, all I want to do is take care of myself.
You see, my father is dying. He has lung cancer. Makes me want to and smoke, but I control it. But I give in then, when the urge is unbearable. I don’t know or think or want to quit. If one day, death is to come for me, then I say, “Let Him Come!” and let it be quick.
Just one year after I came here, mom went through a life and death heart surgery. Cut to one and half years later, my dad gets Cancer. And I can’t bear to be around him.
No, its not because he was miserable to me while I was growing up. Not at all. I detached from that a long time ago. No. What I can’t bear is to see him slowly die. I can’t bear to see the life slowly seep out of him like water drips out of a leaky faucet. He is trying to be positive. He is going to begin his treatment – the horrible Chemotherapy – which is a death sentence in itself. And I don’t find myself capable enough to just stand and watch.
At one point of time, I thought I could stand and watch practically anything without flinching – either inwardly or outwardly. But I can’t seem to do that anymore. I can’t.
I just want to go away to some other place where no one knows me and where I don’t know anyone.
I want to go to some place where no one cares for me, and I care for no one.
As it is, we are born alone and we die alone. Why not live alone.
And for a long time I was living alone.
Now I want to do it again.
Just be alone.
When I came here to the US, I decided not to make any friends – because just like most of my friends back home, I didn’t want to have any more like them over here. All they did was look to me for support – but only a few have remained true. They were there for me when I needed them. But I – the fool – was always there for them. By and large, I have always attracted those sort of people into my life. Not anymore.
Which is why I refrained from friends, and even boyfriends over here. I didn’t want to be the caretaker.
But it seldom is the case that what we wish for is generously given, eh! If not friends, then I have family.
Someone or the other.
Why can’t people just leave me alone?
I am so very tired of dealing with people and the interminable noise that they make. Yes. Noise. That’s just what it all amounts to. What more can they do?
Cackling like ducks, they go about their lives squirming in petty jealousies and paltry egos. I am quite tired of all of their stupidities.
Sometimes, I feel I might just go mad, surrounded by all these harpies.
The monsters are coming again – and I am scared. Where shall I go? Who should I turn to? What will build me the walls again? Everything is crumbling, falling, and the abyss is clear across the road. I fear I must cross and descend once again. The depths are comfortable, deep and dark. The silence is echoing, beckoning, and familiar. I must not stop myself, for that is my destiny. And it calls me, again.
I must not stop. I must not.
Madhavi Ghare
