I hate GoodByes...

Like the title suggest, I simply dislike goodbyes. They make me feel awkward, and it fills me with some sense of dread, the question, "Will I see them again?" rolls around for that instant, making me a little hesitant in turning around and walking away.

It is when the goodbye is more permanent that I become what I never am usually. A little lost. How do we tell someone Goodbye for the last time? It is a little more complicated than, "Well, till next time, seeya then.. Take care..."

Death is so Final, that there is little you can do when it comes knocking. No arguments, when it is time. Walk away. No teary goodbyes, no last minute declarations of love, nothing. Just Go.

Having faced so many such finalities, each time I make my heart a little more strong, the tears a little lesser, and the resolve a little tougher. Prepare: that's the only thing I can do. My eyes sting lesser and the understanding sinks in. We cry when we are not ready to let go, and when the understanding sinks in, we stop. I treat each goodbye as if I would never see them again. Sometimes I am right. Leaves me guileless the next time I think of the Dear Departed.

Yet, there are somethings that cannot be avoided. Manage your emotions however well, but one look at another broken heart's voice and it takes every ounce and more of all the available courage not to crumble and let it all go, strength be damned. I daresay I have become an expert at reigning over my own choked sobs, but it takes a very bruised pair of palms and cut lips to hold someone and watch such wrenching raw emotion wash over them, and you, and be the only dry-eyed one. Whispering words of comfort and promising them that everything will be alright, even if means lying through your teeth. It leaves me feeling wretched, it leaves me feeling drained. But someone has to seem heartless enough not to cry for their own Father's passing.

Such things leave people in a state where they cannot decide whether this new information is to be dealt with, how? Denial is easy, but never the right option. Always the hard way, it has to be.

There are so many little things that death of a dear one makes you think about. How quickly the "is" becomes a "was", how you will never see them smile again, how you will never get those few and far between hugs, how your family will never be whole again.

It leaves your thought in such a flurry, that momentarily you are disoriented. And when the thought get into order, you'll wish for the blissful oblivion of disorientation, knowing fully well that when you calm down, you have to fill in the shoes at the Family Head. It is far easier to forget and pretend it never happened.

The worst is when you don't know what your reaction should be. I was never one for open emotion, and I don't intend to make personal grief into a bawling marathon, blaming "release" for undignified behavior. As the British say, "Keep a stiff upper lip, at all times."

What happens when you don't have any personal grief left? Imagine someone who takes the news as "It had to happen sometime..." People misunderstand the facade to be real.

A bit of advice though. Never go to bed angry with someone, unless you can handle it. Tell someone you love them, no matter how much of your pride you have to swallow, to speak that simple emotion. Always leave someone with a kind word or a smile. There may not be another chance to do that. And not everyone can be so hard that it will not cause guilt.

So the next time you are saying Goodbye, leave no room for regrets.

Fallen Rain

I'm walking through fallen leaves,
Watching them float peacefully on miniature oceans
A drop that falls, playfully drowns one
Like children in a pool,
While the leaf retorts, and splashes
The heavens it can reach.
I realize that my image is rippled now
But I smile to think that something so small
Can have such a strong impact
Something sends a shiver down my spine
It's not the cold wind, but the warm skin to blame
And my attention is no longer on playful pairs
As we walk through the fallen leaves.

Sreedevi.

Dark? Scared?

This is the festival of light. The time when the dark was effectively vanquished by the Light. For a time. But as everyone knows, it was only time before Evil reared it's head, in the path of the Light again.

But in the modern day, I wonder what has the privilege to be called Evil or Dark? Privilege? You ask me.. Surely, you must be joking?

No, I assure you, I am very sane and very serious.

Tell me, what is the general idea of Evil? How do you define it? Is there an Oxford or Webster, universally acknowledged definition to it? We can deftly term evil as something dark, something that has unpleasant consequences, something that hurts innocent people. Innocent to the context, I should correct. I have always wondered. That makes falling in Love very evil indeed. People die for love, kill for love, do senseless things in the name of love. Does the means justify the end? If a person innocently fell in love and then was rejected, that person gets hurt, and the consequences for that person is unpleasant. Therefore, by the generic definition of Evil love is Dark.

Oh and for those railing about Moral issues, some parts of the world consider falling in love as a sin, so there. All in black and white.

NO. this is not another fluff piece. I assure you. Fluff is the last thing on my very black thoughts right now.

One more thing, why is it that we consider the absence of light as evil or scary? We make up tales of creatures of the night being horrific and being violently bad stuff. Come on. Give a vampire a break, will you? Did he personally demonstrate the sharpness of his/her incisors on your neck?

I have a dozen people whose thoughts screamed “Evil” at me when I mentioned I have a soft spot for the night and the moon and darkness around me. I can swear they walk around me with garlic pearls ever since I told them I enjoy solitude and that I sleep at dawn. A couple even “surreptitiously” grazed their necks to see if I had somehow managed to sneak a bite out of them. I think any non-vampire would smell the garlic, though..

I made a statement, and I think I'm officially to say it first. Pain, sorrow and darkness are a person's best friends. Horrified? Let me explain the reasoning I employed to reach this somewhat disturbing conclusion. Happiness and Joy and all that jazz cannot come unbidden to you. Not all the time at least. They last some, but I think they are the main use is to cushion a fall sometimes. Which may be good or bad.

These three and Fear, are those that can come to you at the first bidding. Even without you calling to them. They come and they keep the thoughts in your head straight. Like joy, they don' t tell you that the world is made of marshmallows, and that if you are feeling joyous, a truck can't run you down.

What and How you react to these best friends of yours, when they make an appearance, is up to you, and it will define how strong you are. It is way to easy to laugh and smile and make people believe when you are happy. Much less so when your smiles have to hide the pain you feel and call attention away from the fear in your eyes or the sorrow that is weighing down on your heart.

Make no mistake, they are not meant to drag you down. It frustrates me when people believe that they are bad things. I say, wake up and smell the coffee. These are the things that teach you to understand the value of a smile or of “Love” (ugh that word again!!). Be grateful, infidels.

I am an advocate for the dark side. Dark != Bad, for Salazar's sake. The darkness of the night is gracious enough to allow a measly candle to fight it. It is the unknown. That's why people fear it. What darkness is used for is not an excuse to condemn darkness itself.

This does not mean I'm going to go around waving sticks and claiming apocalypse is here. Rather apocalypse is in my coffee cup because I have unwittingly ruined the perfect taste with sugar. Impulse is sometimes so bloody unhealthy.

MY point is: don't be so quick on judgment. Before fearing something, and insulting it with fear rather than respect, think about it. Dark and Light cannot exist without each other, as you so well have already noticed. It is the classification that annoys me.

Pain, if you understand it, will no longer be feared. That is what I'm aiming at. Understand before you Judge. I sympathize with the anti-heroes simply because things are so unfair for them. With them being so unceremoniously being shunned because they react differently to the same stimuli. If someone yells at you for being stupid, they are bad. If they pat your head, go “there there” like everything will automatically undo itself, they are the best. How Pathetic!!

I wish half the children understood why they were being chastised. Oh yes, I understood why I was being chastised when I was a child. I reacted , how to say, differently... but I understood nonetheless.

My friend once burst into tears when I faced my mother's tirade, got slapped and calmly apologized before slamming the door in my mother's face. She apparently was never chastised at home. Explains why she was and still is a very spoiled twit. My revenge was sweet, but I understood why that scene occurred and never repeated those mistakes again.

The point of that little anecdote was just that. Understand and then deal with it, but learn from it. I cannot say that I always follow my own advice, but I, in all the goodness in my heart, am trying to help whoever needs this kind of brash truth, being slapped in the face. I utterly dislike being told “it's going to be fine” when I know that is a lie. Being lied to is not good and it will do good for you to keep in mind who is right, the next time you run someone crying.

If you want someone who will blind you with sweet caresses and soothing words, even though you need to be shaken to the truth, good for you. When it finally hits you that you have been living a lie, and those so-called friends of yours made your life better then but that led to a blatant crashing of your world in the long run, just remember the words of the “unsympathetic” ones as you labeled them.

Digression, you call this? Read again and think about it. They are all interconnected. Beyond that, I can say no more.

I see you moving to get those garlic pieces and mentally making a note to not get me on a temper. Go on, call me whatever. I recently have been termed as the “Ice Princess.” MY response is fitting: Sneer.

I'm not even going to dignify that with a retort.