FEELING MY WAY THROUGH

I am a writer. Which means I am pretty much never at a loss for words. Not when I am upset, not when I am sad, not when I am overwhelmed, not when I am angry.

When a writer says that - I am never at a loss for words - most people take that to mean a constant and easy access to a vast reservoir of active vocabulary. Sure, it may well mean that. But it also means something else. It means - I ALWAYS know what I am feeling. Always. Whether its a strange kind of depression or a peculiar type of exhilaration or some forbidden sexual desire or a moribund fantasy - I don't think I have ever heard myself say "I don't know what I am feeling". Since I am a person of words, I can always put my feelings into words. 

So now I am stumped. 

I don't know what to feel. 

I have been humming a strange cocktail of songs inside my head for the past few days. And together they add up to... well, nothing. 

There is Chand Roz Aur Meri Jaan Chand Roz by Kishore Kumar. And Maana Teri Nazar Mein by Sulakshana Pandit. And Kaise Sukoon Paaun by Talat Aziz. One talks about waiting it out, one talks about it being too late, and one talks about a sense of animated anticipation.

What do they mean together? Nothing. 

And in between it all is a soft heartache (heavy) and a gentle wistfulness (light). 

And there is a sense of being held. 

And a sense of being released. 

Amid it all, there is an overwhelming sense of the passage of time. And paradoxically, its own stillness.

A stillness which is restless because there is something I am meant to feel - and when I close my eyes, it is there. But then I wake up in trepidation, and it is gone.

And I don't know any more what I was supposed to feel.

If I don't know what I am feeling, then I don't know who I am. Because I am defined by the way I feel. Not by the way I think, not by the way I act, but primarily, by the way I feel. 

So hello stranger. You seem lost. Hope you find your way. Soon.