If I could measure the last year, what would I measure it in? The number of Long Island Iced teas that I downed? The plates of French fries that I pushed away? People whose backs I laughed behind? Times that I identified with Katy Perrys ‘The One That Got Away’ ? The number of phone calls I ignored? Selfies that I deleted? Texts that I regretted? Open doors that I closed? Or in daylights, and sunsets, and midnights and cups of coffee? Maybe I could measure it in love or maybe none of these. The past year has been a blur and if it ever starred in a film ( not the sad ones that Facebook is posting), it would have a blink-and-miss-it role that would leave you wondering why it even featured in the end credits. But then again, 2014 is important: let’s think of it as an interlude to the year that 2015 is going to be. Friends got married, friends moved away, hellos were said, goodbyes were bid, people everywhere moved on to the next stage of their lives and Joffery Baratheon died a slow painful death on the best season of Game Of Thrones. These things pull at your heartstrings like a Pablo Neruda poem would, they make your toes tingle like they do after a first kiss- Something life changing, something that leaves you begging for more. Would 2015 be any different than the filler that 2014 has been, a 365 day epiphany for me to change into someone better and brighter? It’s not true. This is not a book of empty pages that I wish to fill, and there’s not going to be any ‘not looking back’ because quite frankly, I think looking back helps. A new year necessarily does not mean a new me. I can resolve to be thinner, fitter, happier, but in all probability, I’ll give up after a month. That moment at the stroke of midnight, when you have a stroke of genius and plan out your Cinderella life, sans glass slippers and spunky fairy godmother? In that whirlwind of a moment, I decide to tell everyone I have ever loved how I feel, do 250 ab crunches at a go, quit drinking, ask all my bosses for a considerable raise, and slap everyone who spits on the road across their shameful faces. But then again, none of that ever happens, we all can’t live a Disney movie – as the year goes by, my list of unrequited loves and empty wine bottles grows, my bank balance doesn’t, people spit like there’s no tomorrow, and I go back to being the pumpkin that I was. I have the spontaneity of a gold fish and the emotional range of a teaspoon, and the faster I deal with it, the happier I would be in life. The past year, I couch-surfed and soul-searched, mulled and crawled through four chapters of my unfinished novel, and backpacked across the Middle East and Mcleodganj . I wrote anonymously for a magazine, penned a travelogue for another, won two bottles of champagne, and got an ice-cream flavour to my name. I zipped through a Music festival, and para-sailed in Goa. I fell in love, and out of it, and then I fell in love with myself, and out of it. If the year that 2014 has been could be summed up, I would say that I blew an entire orchestras worth of trumpets, and sneezed out a box full of memories. But in the end, memories remain only that, memories. They can’t be polished and displayed on your mantelpiece, glossed with varnish and filtered with two layers of Valencia. If Facebook is any bench mark of what my past year has been, what does it look like- too many glasses of wine, too many trips to far-away places, too much money spent, too many parties, too many people, seemingly happy pictures in seemingly happy places. But can a hundred-odd pictures really sum up a year’s worth of happiness? Only with hash tags on Instagram. So where do I see myself in exactly an year? Traveling more, partying less. Thinking more, drinking less. Seeking more, seething less. Treating more, eating less. Running more, running away less. Dreaming more, being less. Here’s to you, 2015. To being that big year when I FINALLY finish writing Happy Damaged Men, and for being the irresistibly torrid love affair that I would never ever want to quit.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 06:22:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015