Leaving

Falguni Patel

Sometimes I want to cry. Glass-shattering, door-banging, breaks-the-sky-into-thunderstorms cry. The idea of leaving always fucking bothers me. The idea in both its variants - people leaving me or me leaving people. And every time a loved one tells me that it is the truth/fact/reality of life, I want to punch them in the face. I'm sorry I love you but I still want to punch you in the face. Punch you in the face because leaving always makes me wonder about how Hazel Grace lived without Augustus Waters? How difficult yet simple it was for Rose to live and fulfill the promise she made to Jack? How did George manage his mischiefs after Fred left? How Joey adapted himself to the fact that no one lives across the hallway now and that he needs to stock his fridge up with food? How did my old house feel when we moved out? How did they feel when I finally said that I don't love them anymore? How did they cope when I left?
Now this is extreme, I know. But isn't the reality that you go from talking everyday to once a month to once a year on each other's birthdays to just a memory you tell your new friends, new colleagues, next girlfriend/boyfriend about a kind of death too?
Maybe because I relate parting ways to fading relationships and ultimately to "the fact of life", leaving. Parting ways because now you won't be meeting them everyday. They won't be constantly updated with your good and bad days and vice versa. They'll evolve. You'll evolve. Change of opinions which will either make way for curiosity to learn more or unintended offence.
Why is leaving much simpler when it comes with convenience? Isn't that hypocritical? And why does it hurt like a bitch when someone leaves us?
I think tonight will be one of those nights when I'll be reminded of endless episodes of leaving. Those nights when I ask him to not leave. And I know, like always, I'll ask him twice. I'll crave Maa's touch like an unsaid promise. I'll tell my girlfriends I'm lucky to have them and make sure I mean it. I'll make my mind a picture book of every wonderful person who was/is a part of my every day. I'll baptize myself in their smiles. And my heart will ache a little more because apparently one day, every one has to go and it really is a part of life. But then, I'll be comforted a little extra when I'll realize that that one day, isn't today.