Priyanka Mohanty

Abstract

4.7  

Priyanka Mohanty

Abstract

Confessions In Love!

Confessions In Love!

7 mins
492


And the game started….SIP and CONFESS!


Every confession that she made on the evening of her best friend's birthday party after two glasses of wine, took her to her past. And every word of it was true. She knew she had never been so open about herself. Was it actually the wine or was her self-guarded sheath finally beginning to melt? She knew she had damaged herself so much that the ability to fall back in love seemed a delusion. She had activated her survival mechanisms after being hurt and had built an armor of self-protection for anything that had the potential to hurt her again.


Then why suddenly did her heart miss a beat when Sirish offered her food. They had just met a couple of hours ago. Had she reclaimed herself enough to fall in love again? Had she gotten over that anger, betrayal, despair, guilt, rejection, and fear of her past and moved on? Why was she oscillating between letting herself feel the love and still distancing herself by recoiling into her own cocoon? She was clear she doesn't need relationships to be happy. Then why was Sirish breaking the pattern? Sirish asked her if he could sit next to her and she couldn't say no. He still had the plate, wanting that she should eat. She didn't realize that by the time her other friends arrived, she already knew Sirish had a background in creative writing and was divorced. He lifted the spoon to drop that morsel in her mouth and she just gave in.


Her thoughts flew back to the past one year when she decided to move away from the shackles of a loveless marriage with Vansh to a new life. Wasn't it a stigma for a small-town girl? Parents, relatives, friends, how would she ever explain to them that she chose not to fake the quintessential way of life by choosing to stick to marriage just for the sake of society? Single mother, single parent, single working professional, single one-stop solution to all needs; her significant others told her that this decision of hers to walk away from marriage won't fly. Questions were raised by closed ones – those people in society for whom marriage was a legally recognized social contract between two people where you are not allowed to deviate. Even after a year, those questions were still afresh – Won't you need a companion, will you be able to pull this with a 4-year-old kid! Adornment of Bangles, Bindis, Bicchiyas became more important, but having the courage to walk away from what didn't make her happy seemed not to go well with a lot of her near and dear ones.


All those times when she had enabled Vansh's laziness were vividly flashing before her. From managing work to paying her bills, from managing her 4-year-old son to ensuring that Vansh never missed a meal of the day, from being a high achieving professional to bearing the C-section scar proudly, from being a responsible daughter-in-law to being the only child of her parents, she never complained when she did all this without any help. Those words of Vansh still reverberates in her ears - but I never told you to do all this!


She remembered those years of marriage with Vansh, those lack of conversations, those times when there was no energy left to revive the relationship, when she and Vansh looked at each other only to be sure it was not working, yet adorn that fake smile on seeing any additional soul, that physical affection going out of the window, those subtle undertones where they knew they had nothing to talk but had to stay under one roof, that underlying and unresolved feeling of why "US", that time when they knew it was not a rough patch but a permanent loveless marriage. Did they sign up for this life? 


Whom could she explain this to? Because nobody would understand. The reason nobody would understand is that there were no visible scars outside. She had heard people say – oh yours was an easy one…mine was a toxic one! Really! She believed that physical scars can be erased but when life throws emotional scars at you, it does take time to heal. Those are wounds that never show on your body but those are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds. But who would ever understand that?


She felt as if she and Vansh were leading two invisible parallel lives, unable to relate to each other. She had self-sabotaged her relation with her own self and others; that blistering feeling of whitewashing the entire institution of her marriage with Vansh and be happy again never seemed to end. Those stares at other couples when they walked hand in hand, that snow piling up of annoyances, pain and bitterness, that feeling of loneliness on losing oneself, that gut and that instinct which told her it isn't working. Wanting to stay, wanting to go, she realized that truth won't go away if she refused to face it. That voice which came from her gut – her calling, that lingering regret that she could have done more before finally choosing to end it made her walk away!


Finally, she chose to be free. She chose to be free from a man whom she had known for 14 years, but perhaps just "known". She vividly remembered the fresher's day in college when she saw Vansh walking the ramp for the fashion show, oozing loads of confidence while the entire crowd was cheering for him. He won the fashion show competition, elocution, quiz, mimicry, and came out of the classroom with flying grades. Yes, her heart did miss a beat for him! But was it love, was in a hurry to step into marriage or was it the fact that it was just not meant to be? Keeping aside those ifs and buts, it was time to move. She realized taking charge of her own happiness was far more important than the destigmatising annulment of the legal bond which society calls divorce. At 40, she wanted to choose another world!


While she was reminiscing her past, a sudden nudge from Sirish made her groove back into the party. Sirish defied everything especially the animated memories she had had about love. It was just a few hours before she met him, but she knew Sirish had incised the vacuity in her heart and made his way. She knew that it was an unspoken language and untold yearning when she looked into his eyes from that very first glance. Those raw emotions came to life, sparks which were latent for 14 years flew again, that magic which was dead suddenly revived, happy kind of nervousness flowed as if someone had lifted an unknown weight from her shoulders.


All it took was one look from Sirish and a revelation happened silently deep within. At that moment, she knew her life was about to change, that one spark and that small flame rising up never to die down. It was strange but for the first time in 14 years, she was looking forward to this change with eyes and arms wide open. She always believed in love at first sight but she never knew that it would happen to her at 40 after closing a past chapter which was never written to last.


She didn't want to be proven wrong in love yet again, but this time it was different! And she knew it, the moment she met Sirish. She knew those signs and believed that this might just be the right one; this person might just stay; that this might be unlike everything before…… just maybe, this might be it!


Perhaps she was ready to turn the previous pages of her life for a new chapter.

And what's fascinating is how both were on the exact same page. She and Sirish…it all fits. 

He made a way into her heart and she liked the "me" that she was becoming around him.

She knew it felt right!


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