The Only Way
In hindsight I feel this is an immature post.
This morning I woke up at 5 am and shut the alarm. I finally managed to wake up at 5:30 am and got ready for my fitness class. I pulled out my cycle, which had been prepared for a ride to the fitness centre yesterday.
It was cloudy, yet pleasant. I was able to ride leisurely as I made my way past empty roads and traffic lights that had taken a break.
I remembered Rudyard Kipling's lines as I pulled out my phone to click a picture.
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
A peacock crossed the road right after I clicked a gorgeous pic of Delhi roads. I was all set to burn 1000 calories and start my day with a bang.
Right at the turn to the fitness centre, I saw a few cops and heavily armed men. The centre manager told us that the classes were cancelled because the PM was crossing the path. The response in my head was: what the hell?
I am also a PM (a product manager). Haha.
I rode back home in a drizzle, and it was sexy. I sat on the couch and continued with my Elena Ferrante book. I came across these lines.
“If I am lucky, if I have some talent, sentences arrive that seem to say what I want to say just as it should be said.”
At that moment, I felt like writing a post I always wanted to. I had postponed this task forever because I could not find the time. Thanks to Modiji, I had two hours to kill right in the morning. I opened my diary and scribbled in a hurried manner lest I lose the words that were lingering in my mind.
The only way to love someone is in the most obsessive and single-minded manner. It has to be a bit crazy yet a bit sane (don’t turn into a stalker if she says no).
The person you love must consume every spare second of your life that is unoccupied. They're not worth it if they think you're insecure. It's the only natural way one can love another person.
I recalled the last time I had loved someone this way. But she told me I had no ‘experience’ in a relationship (as if it was a job requiring a resume).
Things went downhill. She rejected me because I had ‘jumped the gun’. Ever since I've been cautious. I never wrote letters, and I didn't buy gifts. I was afraid of being ruined by the sword of rejection and pain.
But now I am convinced that there is only one way to love. The absolute devotion that love can evoke is the only proof of love. If it’s not a ‘hell-yes’ it is always a ‘no’. I will never suppress it again, even at the cost of absolute ruin.
I leave you with a quote that I came across in Ferrante’s book.
If love has lit a new and unheard-of spark
to raise me up to a place I’d never gained,
why, with equally uncommon skill,
can’t it make my pen and pain the same?~ Gaspara Stampa