Twenty Years After

          Artwork by Karan Vohra - this work was ephemeral, it's message though is enduring and  is the message of this post 

Here I am surrounded by the clutter of my own thoughts, floating into this page from the fogged up zone in my head where this script has been running. 
I've started my day with my usual round of friends' posts because that's the only way to banish the confusions of the night and feel myself back in a circle of love. The past few nights have been filled with bad dreams. Last night the trees all around me were being murdered while I was away at work - what work I have no idea because I haven't done that sort of thing in 23 years. And there were belligerent salesmen crashing into my house and refusing to sell me what I had asked for till I bought a new cell phone from them. Bizarre it was but  not more bizarre than it is becoming in this strange(not brave but very cowardly) new world that 2020 has gifted us with. In other news my neighbor has parked his bed on the landing right outside my door and mom and I are quarreling over whether to shoo him out in the middle of the night or wait until dawn.
The word that hit me first today was "crepuscular" and I hoisted it up on my Facebook page as word of the day. I am indeed a creature of the liminal zones though I was born well after twilight. And this morning brought the realization that a part of me has been living in that zone for the past twenty years. 
It's that day again, the 30th of October, and it's been twenty years. I hoist up my November gloom post immediately but something is different. I am thinking about my own departure.

Today it just feels like one vast, blank space between me and that day twenty years ago. And now everybody's gone and I'm the only one left.
Chakra - leave the place as you would like to find it! Lock the door, gently turn the key and hand it over to someone who will cherish it. My only wish for when my turn comes and may it come gracefully. 

And the thoughts continue. What do I want to leave for the person who unlocks that door to take over where I left off? They will see a life vibrantly lived. They will find the key to a quaint little car that's almost as old as I am and instructions on how to drive(or not to drive) it attached to the key. They will open drawers and find bunches of keys to all kinds of treasure chests. They will be intrigued and charmed, but never angry and frustrated. They will see the swirl of confusion of a life being lived - like things thrown around. Even one hapless little spoon I forgot to wash. Some clothes drying but hopefully no dirty laundry. If it's there I promise you a working machine and water in the tank. They will see a whole lot of things thrown around and they can spend a lifetime putting them away only to find them throwing themselves around again. That will be my omnipresent prankster self that won't leave the place even after I've checked out.  
As each person melted out of my life they left me feeling increasingly abandoned. But each time an angel melted in to restore my sense of connection. I still haven't found my happy place amid the confusion. Sometimes I touch it briefly in dreams or even in the reality around me. The day I am able to hold it down and tell it to stay and that it's ok to stay, that will be the day I'm ready to leave. 
Is this my farewell message? Heck, no! Please check in again after twenty years. But meanwhile stay by me. Because if this post speaks to you, that means you belong and we need each other. 

Dedicated to my funny, crazy, fun-loving brother who weighed himself down for god-only-knows what reason. You are up there, now have fun old chap while I devour all that porridge to pay you back for eating up my four day supply in 1999 - the last meal we shared at home. And visit now and then :)