[ Free writing: Comfort, or the lack of it]

Comfort - the word, the feeling - I think about it often. I fail to find it. Like the tongue goes back again and again to where the recently lost tooth was, I find myself going back to the word, the idea, the feeling, again and again.

I want to capture exactly what the opposite of comfort is, to put down, to mould and set in words. I carry it wherever I go. It does seem heavy.

Disease, discomfort, unease, weakness - they simply don't cut it. I refuse to believe that something that has coiled around me to the point of suffocation could be summed up in one small word. That something that made my God disappear, become distant, unresponsive, cold could amount to so little. That something that intrudes my every waking hour could take up only this miniscule a space.

It is heavy to carry. It sits right at my prefrontal cortex. It fogs all my senses. I barely feel human.

It feels like the life-flow ebbing, a wave that retreated before it could reach me. Like being too tired to fall asleep. Like days merging into one. Like going in circles and reaching nowhere. Like always departing, always bidding farewell. Like running towards horizon for the sunrise that never will be. Like being stripped of the warmth that sustains. Like sharp words being swallowed. A listless limbo. Learned helplessness. A hamster wheel.

Like always on the verge, always with the urge to keep pouring out the pain but it fails to recede.

What is the word for it? 

Where is the way out?

[ Free writing : Fear ]

 I confront it as I write.

I am guided by it, day in and out. They say acknowledging a problem is the first step towards a solution. (They was me in my positive psychology classes).

But I am taking the first step. I am collecting fear from all my pores, it's dwelling in my chest, I feel a little out of breath, but I am trying. It won't be all drained out in one go, I know, but I am trying.

Drawing shaky breaths but I let a step fall after a step, a word after a word.

Am I drawing near or going far? 

I don't know, but I am trying.

Gulping down tears, trembling fingers as I write. But I am trying.

Head is throbbing, uneasily heavy, flanks going cold and tingly. But I am trying. 

I'll get to the point, I swear, before my brain exhausts itself with all I want to make sense of and shuts itself out. Please be patient with me, I am trying.

The truth is, I am scared, very. Of nothing in particular, of everything. Fear manages to catch me off guard, in the meanest of ways. I wasn't afraid of the dark, I am tricked by its shadows now. It creeps up and catches up with me in my sleep, in my nightmares. Where do I go from there? There's nowhere to hide, no respite, no refuge.

But I am trying.

You don't expect me to lay bare all my fears, do you? I am just taking the first step. I won't dump that on you. Yet. We barely know each other and I am a stranger to myself. And honestly, I can't even name all of them, Yet. 

But I am trying. 

To be brave, move up, move past, make peace, assimilate.

I am trying.

[ Free writing ]

 Once upon a time, I still dreamt.

Hoped with wide eyed wonder, of good things, better things. Saved the said dreams in a small corner of my being, pressed in the leaves of memory, stacked neatly - within my reach, to be retrieved at leisure, to be cherished, doted over.

I dreamt of being on my own. As I liked to call it "ek insaan ki chhoti si grihasti". I dreamt of a place of my own, that was flooded with sunlight every morning. There were to be no dull grey days. It was a dream, I didn't account for winters. All I had to care about was me and my pet plant in the balcony - I didn't account for loneliness either. That the plant might need company. I was to feed it left over tea leaves from my morning chai. I didn't account for what plant it would be and if it needed acidic soil. It was a dream.

The balcony had the view of the city. It's weird because I'm not really fond of all the concrete that houses cities. I had other dreams where I lived in the hills. I leave those for another day. The view of the city came with crisp morning air. I failed to account for pollution. It was a dream.

With my morning tea, my pet plant, the crisp morning air - I felt enough. Throw in a bean bag too maybe, I wouldn't want to stand for that long. It was a dream, it was all that mattered.

I didn't account for how my then (and current) broke self would keep a place of her own in a city, if I would find pockets of leisure time to marvel at the view, if I wouldn't be caught up in the 9 to 5 drudgery. I didn't account for my loneliness, how I sometimes doubt that I might be afraid of empty spaces and that is probably why I keep my surroundings a little messed up, a little unorganised and how almost every day the first thing I do, half conscious, when I wake up is to reach for my phone and look for signs that I'm still needed.

It was a dream.