Priorities and options

Diwali is a great time really. Apart from the obvious joy of lighting up your homes, splurging on new clothes and gorging on sweets, I think it’s a great time to clean up the mess from our lives. I haven’t been really active on the clean-up scene at home but this time it was different. I took up the mantle of organizing the cupboard and my book shelf. Herein the problem lies. I am a clothes freak; I consider it to be a major disaster if I repeat my clothes more than once a week. It was quite a task to clean up the clothes section and I finally managed to sort them into the following – clothes which won’t ever fit, clothes which will fit if I gain a few pounds and clothes which I am using presently but won’t fit if I gain a few pounds. The section of ‘old clothes’ is avoided for the simple reason that my wardrobe gets updated with alarming regularity.

But I think cleaning up your things is therapeutic. Seeing things sorted urged me to take hold of my own life and fix it up. You see, my life has been quite eventful especially after I took up engineering. During the course of time I got rid of a ‘friend’ with a perverted bend of mind, struggled with studies and dealt (or rather still dealing) with nasty politics All of these experiences required immense emotional strength on my part and sometimes I couldn’t even sum up enough courage to narrate them to my close friends.

The reason why I was apprehensive to confide is that somewhere I am partly to be blamed for the circumstances that befell upon me. Being a complete emotional fool, I ended up trusting the wrong kind of people who, at the very behest, had listed out the advantages of being my friend. When you trust someone, it is a natural tendency to turn a blind eye to their flaws while going out of the way to help your ‘friends’. You end up supporting them during every situation even when you know that this will create enemies for yourself.

All is rosy, you are having the time of your life and after so many years you start feeling you have got a friend for life. Now comes the reality part. It hits you hard when you get to know what’s going on in their lives from someone else just because your ‘friend’ didn’t trust you enough. If that was not enough, lies, deception and back-stabbing come to the fore and this is when it hurts you badly. Then your mind goes back to all those words of advice from your close ones who had asked you to stay away from this person and you chose to ignore it…. Thankfully they have forgiven me and continue to hold my hand every time I stumble.

So now I know I have no right to blame someone else for this condition of mine. It was my decision to trust and believe the wrong kind of people. Even after all the misgivings, it is still painful because shunning them is like bypass surgery. You don’t want to cut open your heart, but it is essential to do so if you don’t want it clogged with greasy traces of someone who doesn’t give a damn about you.
‘Never make someone your priority when they consider you as just an option’……. I realized the meaning of this quote for the first time. Meanwhile, I am bracing myself for another round of bypass, but not before a promise to self that this will be my last one. I need to guard my heart a bit strongly to make sure that any Tom, Dick, Harry or Sally doesn’t grease my arteries. Say NO to junk food. Woohoo!