Constantly Changing Seasons

Covid 19 just swooshed away couple of years and numerous lives (at the least couple of known people from everyone's life). No one was equipped to handle any of the things that happened. Strangely people changed deeply and no one is interested in no one beyond survival even after things turned back to normal. Offices started slowly and requested people to work from office. With all enthusiasm, I went to office as I was too tiered of being home dealing with losses. At the least, the routine of waking up on time and dressing up decently was taken for so granted that lock downs reminded me that how important it is to my mental and physical sanity. However, I was sitting among 50+ people in an unplanned seating of first-come, first-serve office room. Nobody is working for the same project and everyone is constantly on call and the whole office room is filled with multi-linguistic noises. Everyone was too loud as they need to prove that they are working and constantly on call. It added up to the bizarre mood of post-covid restart. 

With petrichor and chillness of the non-stop rains, I restarted going to office. However, the more I visited office, the more I felt the coldness of people. I have never seen or felt the snow in the part of India I live. Yet, the universal notion of coldness can be felt among the people I was sitting with. Nobody was even ready to look into each other's face or even making an eye contact. All came to the desk with flat and cold faces, opened their laptops, never even tilted their heads to any of the colleagues who sat next to them, and left the desk just like. I was trying my best to smile at some of them with no sign of reciprocation. I thought it was easy to go back to normalcy but it wasn't... As if, life was already not brutal enough, this routine of cold office visits made it all worse. Somehow, only saving grace of this season was pouring seasonal rains. After a couple of months, I stopped going to office. 

All my efforts of trying hard to make new friends went in vain. In fact, the urge to get out of the cycle of my anxiety, depression and panic attacks pushed me to desperate conversations with strangers. Some strangers startled and never smiled at me back and I don't even remember them now. However, after trying too hard to make new friends, my sanity and ego slowly mocked at my own desperation. I withdrew slowly back to my home and cats; I started working from home again. For almost 5-6 months, I didn't even wear a decent dress or went outside my home. Suddenly, I realised that I missed the whole season of spring unnoticed as there was no spring of hope in me.  

The heat of the summer did hit me through the manager as he was pushing me to visit the office as it has become mandatory. This time, luckily I was allotted a specific office room for the unit. It's not a usual working set up but a training room turned into working space. Only me and one other guy was visiting the office. Indeed, I did startle him with my desperate and brutal emotionless conversations about my losses. Still, I was not interested in visiting office as it was too sunny and sweaty. I wasn't feeling any difference between working from home and office, as there was the same stretched silence. However, mandatory 3 days login, kept me visiting office for an hour a day. 

As Taylor Swift's epic song "All too well" sets the mood for the season, I quote "Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place... Wind in my hair, I was there I remember it all too well..." Yes, this season trickled the hope by cleaning dead leaves with whistling wind. I started slowly smiling back as there were 5 people in the office room and all started talking like humans again beyond the prosaic protocols of work. My 1-hour mandatory, listless, 3-day per week office visits have turned out to be 5-6 hour visits but still 3 days a week only. After March, 2020, I have got beautiful gang of people to eat with and to flaunt my cooking skills. Though I choose to live alone, somehow, I don't have enthusiasm to cook for myself and most of my meals are quickly put together to fulfil my hunger but not well-thought or joyful cooking. I love the elaborate process of cooking and I don't feel happy to spend hours of effort just to cook for myself. For me, dry fruits, raw vegetables and fruits would fulfil most of my meals and curd rice is enough to cover the rest. But, if I get people to eat my food, I assume myself as a master chef and try all varieties from regional to international cuisines. Fortunately, couple of guys among the 5 of us are not having home food and I tried cooking many of my favorite dishes, as I got two more people to share it with. As the season of fall clears out the dying leaves to offspring of new leaves, the deadweight of depression and hopelessness gradually started to blow away with the breeze.

Yes, finally, the spring of joy to sing and dance has arrived back into my life after 3 long years of dreariness of losses. Indeed, nothing can refill the void of my loss. But, I stopped crying, sulking and thinking to the end of my wits. I started to look forward to meet my friends at office. Waking up with an agenda for a day is an amazing feeling of hope. Planning for next day meal and buying the necessary ingredients is a meaningful task that prioritizes my health. Sharing the food I cooked with friends at office and getting their responses is joy of love. Now, the humdrum daily work has also become more colorful with the rest of the team's bonding. Trust me, I never thought, life can again turn out to be interesting and worth living. To my surprise, even my butterflies are alive again! The irony is, in spite of my social anxiety disorder (SAD), how much of a social being I am! I love having open conversations with a small group of genuine friends. Indeed, it's too hard to find like-minded people, but I found people who are matured enough to understand my quirky sense and sensibilities after 6 years. I am glad that my garden has couple of colorful blossoms and fluttering butterflies too. With big and deep sigh, I prayed for my spring to stay through out the year at least... 

Of course, nothing is permanent and the very nature of seasons itself is to remind us that. They all come in cycle every year once. All the bloomed flowers of spring short lived and withered. The project ramped down and the fun-filled team and months of bond were shattered in a month. As typical me, I went into denial that nothing can bring me down. I can still hold tightly to the couple of friends I made after 6 years. I tried my best to meet the ends with the same enthusiasm. Sadly, it is an individual's choice to hold on to the friendship beyond time and space. I can blame none, as it was too short time to be even considered it as a friendship. As I was desperately in need of people to cope up with my depression and traumas, I plunged into them blindly! Indeed, of all the people, I should be knowing the best that corporate friends are just for the convenience of time and space and very much bound to limitations of the same. 

Now, the same working space is filled with numerous new cold faces. It's a hard pill of reality to swallow: the same people and place that bring blossoms of spring always end up bringing the cold winter back. The same office room that was filled with joyous fantasy characters, such as Rhyming Rojor, Play Pennie, Color Palata, Woody Wu, Hearty Haward, Jumping Jak, and Counting Konny, turned to be an alien jungle filled with unknown humans. Even the few known and warm faces turned now to hostile and cold faces. 

My wise old reason keeps telling me that people come and go like seasons come and go. However, my childish heart keeps asking me: if seasons are changing, why are they repeating in constant cycle? If moments are just momentary, why are they just stuck in our memory? If the time keeps ticking away, why am I tied to the constant routine of day and night? If everything and everyone comes with an expiry date, why I live under the same sky, wake up to the same sun and look at the same moon? If the earth keeps revolving, why is it even stuck to the same old single axis?