Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Solitude | Tanhai

 We came into this world alone. We leave this world alone. And In between, the most precious thing : Life.
It is in this 'life' that we seemingly cast off that cloak of loneliness - we are shrouded with those around us; those we meet, come across, form some of the greatest relationships ever. The motions keep you out of that overall truth that it is an existence of you - only you - when it comes down to the core of things.

You may share a smile, a hug, your love, with those who enter your lives and win your heart. You come across those who you believe understand you so well, those who will 'always and forever' be there with you, for you. Days go by with you spending every moment with those who call you your best friend; you go through these many hours a day sharing laughter and humour, or crying together, sharing your innermost thoughts, your deepest dreams, opening your hearts for them to enter and make themselves at home in. You keep following this path with them, believing there will always be a tomorrow of happiness, if not happiness with the cruel world, then with the knowledge of togetherness. Some nights you lay in the dark smiling happily at the thought that you've found someone you makes you look forward to waking up for. You develop an appetite for sharing those moments together.

We find happiness and comfort in being with those special persons who seem to be made for us. Those who make us laugh, and who we in turn make laugh. Those who we feel need us, and in turn we need them. You are taken with the current, flowing flowing down that river of life, swept into the rapids of 'true friends'.

Then you hit a rock. And it hurts. It slams you HARD the face. Leaving you stunned, shocked, numb – wondering, was that REALLY what it was? Did I imagine this, or am I sleeping? Then you start wondering, oh so cynically, is there really any 'true' to friends? Is there any 'true' to love? Is there anything that will be the TRUE epitome of what it is deemed to ideally be? You can give your heart, your love, your soul, your very life for someone, and just so fast, you can be cheated of it. How far does this transcendent 'true' extend? In a moment, someone you thought was your own cuts you out of the picture; in a moment, someone you thought understood you for who you were betrays that trust you had endowed in them; in a moment, when your tears flow the hardest they've fallen, you find yourself so so alone. In one moment,you're pulled out of that shroud of societal illusion. Things aren't ever what they seem to be. People aren't what they seem to be. In the end, it all comes down to YOU.

You can't ever truly give your heart completely to anyone, it seems, because no matter what, it will break. The search for someone to always be there for you, with you always – someone to be your 'forever' seems so illusional and impossible a quest. In the end one wonders, who could ever be that soulmate. Will there ever be a soulmate ever, or is this yet another erroneous perception of reality.

When you've given so much, and only need the smallest of comforts in knowing someone is there for you, you find yourself alone; out in the cold with only solitude and the cold winter's wind to dry those tears. When you need that one person most of all, simply to hold onto in silence, you only find yourself hugging yourself. When you dream of dancing in the rain sharing that togetherness, you find yourself alone with the rain hiding those tears. And then you find yourself thinking, what really is a soulmate, that entity that means 'forever' ? That never leaves you no matter what ? .. in some sense you realize maybe you HAVE found your soulmate, and its loneliness itself.