Love Letters
"Love—an emotion etched across centuries. It has ignited wars in the pursuit of affection and taken lives in the silence left by its absence. It arrives unannounced, like a whispering wind, and departs just as quietly leaving you shattered, like a mirror broken by something unseen, with pieces that reflect fragments of who you once were. But this emotion or journey is what we call a “classic love” and as we all know love exist in many forms and speaks countless tongues and one being “silence”.
No, don’t worry I am not going to talk about my past relationships. I believe Instagram is enough for that . But I want to talk about the silent, unwavering kind of love. The one that holds you and cradles you when the world gives up on you. The love that never judges you for your impulsive decisions but watches you cry over them, it doesn’t leave you stranded when your loved ones walk out on you but instead holds the door open to a familiarity you crave at that moment. I am talking about the cities and houses you fall in love with. I am sure everyone at some point in their lives would have travelled to a new place, city or a house or called yourself a traveler or blogger or a seeker of some sort. And we all have chased stories and experiences with everything we had and got our hearts broken too. We wail in our sorrows, lament on our decisions and finally move on.
Life where FOMO is a thing, we forget to pause and marvel at our stationary constants. Try and remember the time you cried your heart out into your favorite pillow or sat in the favorite corner of the house, peacefully watching the sunset or just letting the time pass by. Or your favorite spot in the town that helps you rise above your issues, or the madness called life. Or just the same road that you have walked countless times leading you home. There is a safety in familiarity, a nuanced love that one feels; sublime yet anchoring. I personally have never given it a thought until lately when I was taking stock of my travels throughout the past years. The first major change I ever made was moving to Bangalore. I will be honest it was a shock; I did not understand the roads, the language or the city. I had cried walking back home from the office or a jog/run cursing my decisions. But the moment I entered my rented house I felt a calm, as if it was letting me know that it got my back. It helped me pack my emotions within those 4 walls as if we both shared secrets, pledging to not just show up but stay. I used to frequently visit a dhaba (small food joint) for my daily/weekly dinners, initially it was just me sitting quietly ordering food and watching everyone around me but as time passed and as I made new friends the same place made me realize how life had evolved in due time. The house not only hosted my secrets but my joys and laughter. The roads that were once strangers guided me to my loved one’s homes. Life can get complicated too fast, and we all can stray away and lose track of who we once were and who we have become. These quite absolutes are yardsticks to measure one’s changing and ever evolving life and find the calm we are chasing.
I know many people might find this article absurd or irrelevant, but I would still urge you to pause and look around you. Maybe you will notice your favorite blanket that has cradled you when you were sad or when you were too excited to sleep or the first book you ever read and the subsequent journey you embarked on ever since. These frozen certainties are the breadcrumbs we all can follow to treasure how far we have come in life and how much we have achieved. If life’s equations are leaving you wandering through unknowns, I would suggest turn to your constants—the quiet certainties that never ask to be solved and cherish those unwritten love letters.