Twenty Candles at the Graveyard

I always wondered why is it that the main girl in the movie gets everything while the one who performed well, did everything right, the one who is admired by the whole world is left as an option.

I desired to become the main character of the movie, the girl who gets everything at the end, friends who care about her a lot, the main male character who swoons over her, the life of a dreamer.

I admired her life.

As I grew older I slowly started shaping myself just like her. Soft spoken, who isn’t good at anything, who doesn’t laugh, sits in a way pleasing to society just like a porcelain doll

Perfect!

But… I never really loved it.

I asked myself a million times, why do I feel this way? This is exactly what I asked for, the perfect life and I know the ending, I will get everything. As I shaped my personality around her, I felt so far away from my own self. With each step I pushed my desires, my needs away. With each compromise I made I could feel the skin sliding off of my bones. Its like shedding something I love to get what I admired for so long.

But how could I not love what I admire?

I didn’t know what I really wanted, it felt like a dream asked for… but not the one I loved.

With each moment when someone asked, “What would I like?” I always questioned myself.

What do I actually like?

Then I looked out the window and saw a premiere of a typical romance movie, the male lead confessed to the female lead as from a distance the second female lead watched them with tears in her eyes. For once,

I found myself admiring her.

I was afraid I would become like her, left alone in a crowd full of people, everyone admired her but when it came to staying she was left alone. Always in seconds never the one; the girl who is brilliant at a million things but never enough, who looked at her hands on a Christmas night, her eyes were filled with hope but as she opened it, her palms were empty, Santa wasn’t gifting the performers…

But is it really enough to have everything but not yourself?

In the process I realized, I didn’t want this life… I was afraid of being left alone, but despite being around people,

Am I really not alone?

It echoed in my mind for so long.

What is loneliness, actually?

I wanted to do anything to escape this feeling.

Isn’t the main character supposed to have the happy ending?

But will the ending make me happy? There was a long pause, I couldn’t answer the question.

I want to do the things I love!

So I started doing what I want. It didn’t start with a big dramatic change, just small things that I wanted to do. Slowly I learnt multiple things, I loved collecting hobbies, I started public communication and practiced it till my throat went sore. Then in later stages I stood in front of a huge crowd anchoring an event, for once I felt an immense burst of emotions, the feeling of adoring someone so much that you think you couldn’t live without them…

I felt that for myself for the first time.

I listened to the songs I like without caring what the people around might think, I started buying stuff that I want without questioning its need, it was enough that I liked it.

I slowly started to accept the fate of the second lead.

The one who is perfect, it was a curse. I should hate it, the feeling of being left alone, always being too much. But…

Why did I keep on falling for myself again and again?

I gave her the love she deserves… with small steps. I gave myself the love that transcends eras, where you not only remain as a soul but rather an idea, a definition, a concept, you keep on flowing in life. I became a pianist, a painter, a singer everything that I fell for. Before I could realize I filled myself with all the things that I love.

I would paint a dozen of portraits for myself, like a long lost lover. I made music that would describe each of my emotions, I devoted myself to me and as the years passed by the love just kept on growing like a creeper, twisting and turning through life…

flowers blooming on the barren lands.

A deep devotion flows through my veins, a sense of falling in love and never touching the ground is what drives my ambitions. I understood how it feels to be deeply loved. But as we know the brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

This beautiful, cosmic aligning had its own repercussions. Everything else felt so shallow.

Whenever someone does something to me, I would unconsciously compare it to what I do for myself. I slowly started hating the person I would like, it felt like a betrayal to myself, a dagger pushing deep into my chest by my own hands.

Even if my love crosses the seven oceans, why does it feel like a drop of emotion?

Why, even after deeply, hopelessly devoting myself to me I still feel the need for company?

This question kept on swirling in my head for years, is it my destiny of never being enough… even for myself?

I desperately searched for the answer, like a mad scientist I engrossed myself in the truth, I was slowly descending into the sheer regrets of a choice which seemed to be wrong but felt so right.

I treated myself with utmost priority, and as my love grew with time, then only I realized, that I started becoming a choice of millions of the people, the one who used to admire me started choosing me.

It was a long way to the truth, a hard one too, walking barefoot on a path made up of uneven rock, it did scar me a little.

But it taught me a wonderful lesson…

“A wise person once said, you should treat everyone the way you want to be treated, which sounded right to be honest… but as I grew older I realized, I kept on believing the wrong thing, serving everyone with the finest thing but still when it was my turn the plate was empty, but once I fell in love with my sole existence, no matter how many rounds the earth took, my plate was never empty…

Then only I learnt the true meaning of that phrase, it was never about someone else but yourself.

Treat yourself the way you want to be treated by others. If you won’t love yourself, how could anyone else do?”