Room 205
Season 2's fourth newsletter places you in the middle of multiple tugs of war - what you'd wanted and what transpired, whether to amble on or change directions, whether keep your dreams or release
Greetings dear dreamers
Welcome to the second season of The Abandoned Dreams Collective.
The author of this week’s essay was also a contributor for the previous season of The Abandoned Dreams Collective with this piece. It was then, reading those words while hearing my own heartbeat echo in my ears that I knew that we had a connection. I begged for a follow up piece and she acquiesced with some trepidation. Even as publication day came closer, there was a fear.
The previous piece, when it all felt like a faraway fantasy seemed easier to deal with. This time, it felt much closer, more real - and the fallout more imminent.
I must confess that it is that same fear that haunts much of the writing that doesn’t make it down to the pages. I am able to write about things that happened in the past, things that I’ve closed a chapter on, things about a part of life that I’m now looking back on as being separate from the me of right now. If it’s situations I still hold a candle for, I write it with the intention to make that impact, I write it when there’s no other way. What I’m unable to make myself do as easily is write about what’s happening to me in the now. Its harder to put the words down (especially when you have the faith in your skill to know those words on paper will be good) when at the back of your mind you know it will make you reassess everything, when you know you’ll want to share them with more people, when you know you’ll eventually as a result have to deal with the impact on people and situations that are still very much a part of your life
That one Those two three guys that remain in my life after the dalliance.
The ex best friends who might still read every word I write even if we may not be on talking terms anymore who I absolutely cannot give the satisfaction.
Those relationship ties that are much better with a lid on for the sake of propriety.
All those times a thoughtless word, action or inaction by someone I otherwise cared about cut me wide open that I let go unmentioned in the moment but looking back still feels like being asphyxiated
Do I go there? How do I go there? Will I ever get the courage to go there? Or will I wait until the moment has passed and the words, though still profound, do not carry the same weight anymore as they spill on paper?
Sometimes its these fears that will result in a story that had real potential passing me by. As I try to write more through this project, making it less of a once in a while thing, I’m hoping to stop thinking about all the stuff around it that may or may not happen and just concentrate on writing.
Meanwhile, a round of congratulations in order for Rejah Khawar for the courage to write and share this spellbinding piece.
Room 205
Remember this paragraph? Who would’ve thought I’ll be re-writing it three months later?
“I wonder -
What would it have taken to take that flight?”
15 hours. A bit more courage.
12 hours, one way. A lot more courage than I could muster along with everything I had in me if I am being honest. It was almost as if I had to fight the universe to see you.
“What would it have given us?”
A lifetime’s worth of something. Or nothing. Absolutely ridiculous, totally worth it.”
What really did it give us?
Memories laced heavily with silence.
Countless unspoken words that just hang helplessly in the space between us.
An unshakeable sense of longing.
Laughter. (Is this the part where I tell you I think it’s lovely when you make us laugh like that?)
A void in my heart that’s actively turning into a black hole as you read this piece.
Questions. Multiplying by the minute.
Answers. Elusive and impossible to accept.
So then, was it worth it?
You dancing in a pub, you grooving in a towel
You with your face stuffed, you famished
You in blistering heat, you in surprise rains
You fighting a fly, you embracing a pup
You, first thing in the morning
Last, in the night.
You. Oh, you.
Of course, it was worth my life to be able to see you as I did.
Of course it meant the world that we were able to keep that promise. Just that promise and nothing more. I wonder why it is that you felt so far away even when we sat inches apart. How is it that I couldn’t even brush past you without feeling like I committed a sin? Why is it that the muscles in your arms tensed every time I touched you? Eager to get me off. Am I the only one who thinks this needs fixing?
Wrong question. You have already blatantly refused to even entertain that thought.
What is this distance between us?
Shouldn’t this rendezvous have brought us closer? Why isn’t it easy to talk to you like it used to be? Why aren’t you holding me like it’s the last time?
What if this was the last time?
I wonder if you would have any regrets. I am not sure I will either.
Loving you the way I did (do), was (is) my decision. You either love someone enough to keep them in your life or you don’t. I can’t even begin to fathom how I am supposed to handle this knowing I fall in the latter bracket for you. But I refuse to beg you for anything at all. I always go back to this one life-changing quote by Dr. Zoya. I will always honour what her character has to say about love in Dhoop Kinare.
“Mohabbatein bhi aizaz ki tarha li jaati hain, khairaat ki tarha nahi”
“Love is worn like a medal, not taken like charity.”
As hard as this is going to be on me, I have decided that if I can’t have you at your sincerest then I don’t want you in my life at all. You don’t have to be a placeholder. We don’t have to swim in a bowl year after year like two lost souls. Allow me in or let me leave. Funny that you won’t let me do either. Part of me wishes to hide my face in a pillow and scream till I can’t say your name and mine in the same breath. But every time I see our names in the same space, I can’t help the sudden wave of nostalgia that washes over me. We could’ve been wonderful. You know it. But now, I just want to flush it all out from my system like a nightmare that I don’t want anything to do with. I hope you know that I hate you for spoiling the one thing I have looked forward to for as long as I can remember. I detest that I can’t even find the voice to say this out loud. Not because I am shy of this but because you don’t have the courage to take it.
In an unexpected turn of events, we have somehow managed to land far away from each other and I can’t seem to be able to find the rope leading back to you. I’ll continue being the notification preview on your screen that you refuse to tap onto – an unread message. How euphemistically poetic! You’ll (hopefully) cease to haunt my brain because I don’t have faith in this anymore. (How catastrophic!) I wonder why my hands are shaking as I write this. Maybe it's the caffeine. Maybe, it’s my heart. Maybe, it’s my entire being shattering to bits at the very thought of this silent parting. (Don’t let me go, don’t let me give up on you. Not yet.)
Please continue being the ignorant person I never imagined you’d turn out to be. (Funnily enough, you are, in a way, exactly who I thought you were: just like the sea - indifferent, unforgiving.)
Please don’t ever find the courage to address the elephant in the room. (Stop averting your eyes from mine for once and tell me you see this.)
Why are you so scared of letting me peek into your eyes, into your heart? I am not going to wreak havoc; I'm not the intruder you’re afraid I might be. I will only just touch you gently, if you allow me to, that is.
Let’s take that walk again and talk about every trivial thing we can think of. (Stop looking at me discreetly. You know you don’t have to.)
Will you care to remember that I will never forgive you for doing this to us? Your words are so empty, my love. (Look at me, dammit!)
Will you care to admit that you are solely responsible for bringing us down to this?
I feel like a tornado swept away my entire world while you stood there and watched. This happened on your watch, you held the door and let it all sweep past because you were so afraid. And of what? You let it all wash down the drain. And now, I’m crumbling within this barren fort of our dreams barely hanging on to the faltering echoes of our hollowing laughter.
There’s a plant growing in my garden in your name. There’s also a tree there that will always tie back to you. Isn’t it ironic that this tree just got infected? But I have sown seeds in your name everywhere I could in a country you may never even visit. That’s how I choose to love. (Won’t you ask me to stay? Once is all it takes.)
I have many questions that I don’t have the courage to ask but I will ask you this -
If the roles get reversed and I ask you to do it for me now, will you wake me up at 3:30?
-Rejah Khawar
Abandoned on the interwebs
Abandoned on the interwebs is a new section on this newsletter where I recommend some riveting, spine tingling, evocative articles, books, essays that I’ve stumbled across when I’m left to my own devices on the internet.
‘What Does it Mean to Love a Person Who Doesn’t Exist? What Does it Mean to Love a Person Who Does?’ - This brings together so many things I love: a brilliant title which feels very very relevant to the emotion of this newsletter and draws you right in, Sally Rooney’s prose which I will devour every day and twice on Sundays, compelling interiority in literary characters, the process behind making of art I love and an interviewer who absolutely ‘gets it’. It also gives you this brilliant, life redefining quote: “What could be higher-stakes than love and friendship?”
There’s nothing hopeless about being a romantic - Oftentimes I see myself trailing behind in the paths that my peers have gotten off to a running start on - paths that I stumbled upon without running schools or track training, wanting to get to the tallest summit still and wonder (and worry) about my dreams being a step too out of reach, maybe not meant for me. Maybe I should just stick to a routine walk of 20 laps around my apartment building each morning. Its safe, its easy, it doesn’t require arduous challenge or life altering growth. (I’m not actually a runner or mountain climber which might explain the mixed metaphors - but you get my drift). At these times its a great idea to read Bolu’s writing about why actually its the trying and the keeping at it and the wanting and the believing that’s the distinguishing factor, the main thing. Its the reaching for more, even when everyone tells you that it isn’t realistic that makes you exceptional.
Before I leave you to dream
With the aim to continue growing this newsletter, I’ve set up a page where you can contribute monetarily: Ko-fi.com/theabandoneddreamscollective
This will support the newsletter grow through increasing reach, growing its pipeline of contributors, optimize submission management and eventually pay contributors.
I hope you consider contributing to this mission.
That’s all for this week
I look forward to seeing you again next week with a new story.
Much love and many dreams
Nirmitee
The Abandoned Dreams Collective