Alice in the wonderland

Life has been going slow, smooth and steady, probably why I was unable to write anything. What is there to write about a normal life? Or maybe that's what I wanted to pretend, that it was all fine. 

The surface is still intact. Everything looks just as it did before, but somewhere underneath, the plates have shifted, and nothing quite sits the way it used to.

What is life if not the act of pretending everything is okay until it isn't?

We pretend it's all okay, and then one random Thursday… 'Okay' becomes just another word. Something you didn't even know existed breaks, and you find yourself lost in a garden, chasing the white rabbit, and just like Alice, you fall into a dark pit. A deep, dark pit that stretches for years and years. But unlike Alice, you don't have the Dormouse or the March Hare or even the white rabbit to help you get out. You try to use materialistic things to pull yourself out, but they're just objects, not strong enough to hold your weight. So you sit in the corner of that pit, hoping some ray of sunlight reaches you somehow.

I know life isn't actually a fairyland. There are no witches, wizards or talking rabbits in the real world. The real world is boring. Same days, same people, same routines, every day. I might be delusional for thinking otherwise, but I do want to paint the white roses red. Because this delusion is all I have. This delusion is what led me here. 

All I am is because of this delusion.

I feel like the past Vidushi had a spark, an undeniable, inextinguishable spark that I no longer possess. It's funny because the older Vidushi probably had the same thing to say about the Vidushi before her. I don't seem to inherit the ability to appreciate the present version of myself. I'm always lost trying to compete with an older version of me, always lost admiring her.

Maybe it's because we never know what lies ahead. I think that's why I keep looking back at older versions of myself as though they possessed something I don't anymore. They didn't know what I know now. They hadn't yet met all the disappointments, doubts, and uncertainties that make the world feel smaller than it once did. Maybe that's the curse of growing up: you spend years learning how the world works, only to find yourself longing for the days when you didn't know enough to stop believing in magic.

Just like Alice knew she wasn't the real Alice, even when everyone around her tried to convince her, I feel exactly like her from within.I don't know if I'm where I'm supposed to be, or if I've simply gotten good at being here. but just like Alice, who still faced the Jabberwock, I'll keep going too. I'll keep working hard.

Delusion is such a dangerously amazing thing.

Be too delusional, and you might lose yourself completely. Be not delusional enough, and you might never learn to enjoy this boring real world. I think everyone needs some amount of delusion in their life. Just enough delusion to still have faith in your failing self. Just enough delusion to believe you'll make it out of your bubble. Just enough delusion to make you feel like your older, whimsical self.

I feel like life goes by so fast because we never really stop to take a pause. We always have checkpoints set for ourselves. When I reach the X point, I'll be happy. But that X point is never the endpoint. It's simply another checkpoint. And for me, once I reach a checkpoint, I find myself missing the journey it took to get there.

I feel like I'm stuck in a continuous loop of moving forward and missing my past.

And the funny thing is, do I even know what I am chasing anymore? I don't want to chase happiness. What is happiness anyway? Is it merely being less miserable than our past selves? And I don't want to spend my life chasing a state that's simply a little less miserable than the one before. Maybe it's a version of myself I made up somewhere along the way; maybe it's just the idea that one day I'll wake up and feel like myself again.

I don't think I'll ever be able to express my thoughts or emotions as well as I can here, on this paper, anywhere else. I've always heard that you should share your burdens and share your sadness, but I've never really felt like it would solve my problems. I've always felt like my emotions would make me sound pretentious to others, because I know my problems aren't that big and aren't that important. There are bigger issues in the world, bigger things people have to deal with, so I keep mine to myself.

I keep them here. Safe from judgement.

As we grow up, everyone around us starts expecting us to know things. Where will you be in the next five years? What are your plans? What are you working towards? As if we're all supposed to have some grand plan tucked away somewhere, as if not knowing is a crime we're all too embarrassed to admit to.

Everyone wants to pretend they're not terrified of tomorrow. But I am terrified. Terrified of waking up one day and realising that I spent years building a life I don't particularly want. Terrified that I'll get so caught up in trying to become someone that I'll forget to ask myself if that's even who I want to be.

Yet, I don't want to stop building. I don't want to stop dreaming. I don't want to stop chasing white rabbits into gardens just because I know there's a possibility I'll fall into another pit. What would I even do without the rabbits? Sit around and accept that the roses are white? That the world is exactly as it appears to be? That perhaps there is no grand adventure waiting for me, no magical door I haven't discovered yet?

I don't think I can do that. Not yet, anyway.

Is it so wrong to not know? To look at a hundred different possibilities and not know which one to pick? To be curious about things without knowing what I'm supposed to do with that curiosity? To want to explore something simply because it exists, without having to justify what I'll gain from it?

Everyone keeps talking about asking the right questions, but how am I supposed to know which questions are right when I don't even know what the answers could look like or where they might lead? How am I supposed to know what I'm missing when I don't know what I haven't discovered yet?

I might not write all happy and sunny, but it's real. It's honest. And that's what matters most to me. It makes me feel happy. 

…

There will always be a new ladder to climb,

A constant reminder that she is better than me.

Another person that climbed faster than me

With cleaner hands

Unshaken soul

Meanwhile I keep balancing on my orb

Performing under light

A proof that I am still undeserving. 

~ Vidushi Anand