I almost got a panic attack. Almost!
I packed my bag hurriedly, praying to all the gods in the universe to help me somehow and hating myself for all the procrastination. I rushed towards the door to leave for my Mathematics exam and suddenly my mother screamed calling my name from behind and I looked back with my eyes wide open only to realize that I’m in my room, on my bed and there is no school, no mathematics exam to scare me anymore. That was just a bad dream. I feared mathematics so much that I literally used to run away from the situations where my knowledge of numbers would be tested.

The same goes for our emotions as well, we do run away from the emotions we don’t want to face. Right?
What we keep filling or hiding inside of us grows fast digging its roots, clutching us in a way that it becomes too difficult to let go of it whether it is a hidden fear, pain, or sadness no matter whether the reason behind it is big or small.

I usually avoid talking about the things that bother me or have had bothered me in the past even to myself because of the fear of not getting any solution for it or being mocked.
But you know what, this fear or any other feeling that we usually don’t talk about inevitably comes to the surface to prove its existence. It can be either through dreams, through your art, or through those unexplained bouts of emotional ups and downs.

The fear of being misunderstood or being judged refrains us from talking about these not so pleasant experiences of life but in this fear, we often mask the fact that slowly and steadily, by keeping it all in, these feelings our becoming a part of us in a way that it becomes impossible to imagine our existence without them.
Yes! Sometimes pain or sadness kept for too long starts becoming our muse.

I have an affinity for the sky to another level and I have mentioned it plenty of times. One day I was on my terrace and was seeing the vastness of the sky, something inside of me tried to connect to this vastness and tried harder to amalgamate with it. Waiting to be free of me and waiting to free me of it.
That evening, this feeling of trying to be free shook me off. It was then I realized something crawled inside of me long back and never left.

There are so many stories inside of us, pieces of so many lost dreams and broken hopes that weren’t swept off and they dig in our heart like sharp pieces of glass and unaware we bleed inside, often with a smile on our face. Maybe because we learn to live with the hurt, maybe we learn to live with the pain.

But we need to look inside and ask ourselves, Is it fair? Is it fair to the life that is ahead of us to carry the burden of life that you already lived? Is it fair to give a home to the pain forever and do not provide shelter to the speck of hope?

Life has many colors and we should enjoy every shade of it.
We have every right to be sad or hurt but to not keep it as a burden is also a responsibility that we have.
If you are sad or upset then go to that one person you seek answers from, who you know can bring you peace.
If you are confused or fearful then go to that one person who you know can help you overcome these fears and show you the light. Tell that person how miserable you feel, even if makes no sense to the world. Let go of anger and hurt and be friends with love and kindness.
Earlier you do it better it’d be for you.

Here I don’t want to imply that you can’t walk alone on this journey but if we look around closely then we will always find, if not so many then at least a few people who genuinely wish nothing but the best for us. So it’s not that you can’t walk alone, it’s just that you don’t have to.

Because there is surely no mathematics exams coming anymore but there is life and life will have its exams to test us, time and again, and to crack them, I think it’s a good idea to hold each other’s hand with love and kindness in our heart and make this life of ours an experience worth cherishing!

Meandered through the garden of melancholy,
For quite a while;
Tiredly these eyes saw a creek of hope coming,
Through these cracks with a smile.

Yukti Trivedi