What does
life want now? It was all she could think of. She wanted to shake alive every quiescent
incident that she had hidden in the corners of the darkest corners of her mind
and think about what she was left with that life could take away; anything that
she had stacked away in those dungeons, stuff that made her wince with
embarrassment at her juvenile stupidity, those mistakes she wished she'd never
made. She was always regarded as the one who grew up way too fast. Wisdom
dawned her aura, and yet it seemed as if the child deep within her surfaced too
often, trying to live a life it never could, making that worldly knowledge of
people curtain itself, as if almost unwilling to disturb the child in her at
its best. But then as I mentioned earlier, wisdom dawned her aura. When she was
looked at, it was not her stunningly beautiful face framed by waves of long
black hair that people noticed first. It was that intimidating feeling that
washed through them, an unwillingness to know what lay behind those eyes. She
had heard men talking about how much they loved a woman who had an untouched
innocence about her. Little did she know that it was exactly the opposite of
THAT, some daring men found most appealing in her. It was the confidence with
which she walked, the second glances at people by which she could easily tell
who they were on the inside, the way she completed everybody's sentences,
knowing exactly what they wanted to say (better than they did) because she had
gone through it all. Life as she knew it had been unkind to her often, but like
the millions of lessons she learned, she knew that it was because of that
unkindness that she was not just any other woman in any man's life. She was who
she wanted to be, always holding the upper hand, the one to passively control things around her. That was the strength of her aura, something no
one had ever been able to take from her.
She sank down on her sofa quietly wondering why the past was trying to
become her present. She wondered why the people she had let go off an eternity
ago wanted to be a part of her life now. Didn't they know that things would
never be the same now? Or did they think she was weak because she had chosen to
let go and run away. Rashi had always known that she was never the weak one.
Over the years, she had learned that neither running away nor letting go were
signs of cowardice because, she was one of the few who knew the courage and strength it took to let go
and move on and try forget something she'd held on to so strongly. And every
time those things knocked at her door, she knew how much strength it took to
shove them out, tell herself that there was no room for second thoughts. She
knew how much strength it took to remind herself time and again that there were
some things she never did. Going back on a word she had promised herself was
one of them. So yes, there was no turning back! There never would be, even if
she sometimes she wished she could.
But today was different. It wasn't any other past that had turned up at
her door. No, it wasn't that friend who had once betrayed. No, it wasn't that
sister who didn't care. And no, it wasn't that family that once turned their
back on her so mercilessly. She winced at the thought of who it was. As she
wrecked journals of memories, she remembered an old friend who'd been with her
through it all. She remembered the words that had once slipped her tongue. “It’s never going to leave you alone. It will
tag along one day and you'll find yourself right where you were in the first
place”. She had been right about the first part. That past had never left
her. It always came back every few years for reasons she did not know. For
reasons, she didn't want to know for her own sake. But that friend had been
wrong about the second part. It didn't leave her where she had started. She was
miles away from the beginning; the void filled with experience and wisdom.
Every time that past knocked on her door, she found herself beckoning the
strength everyone knew she had. The power to never look back, swear on her soul
to keep the promises others couldn't keep. And so she walked away every time.
And she didn't care about those who thought she was weak. Because she knew that
walking away had always been an option, but she was never the reason she had
made it her choice.
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