That 23rd Summer...

Thirty-five summers and still counting and hopefully will get to see few more but these thirty-five summers actually taught me few basic things of life. It was my 23^rd summer that I realised relationships are never static and it evolves with time. It can either go downhill or it can reach the zenith but can never maintain a steady flow. That summer I realised the value of the words I use, value of reciprocating to emotions when it is needed else it might bring disaster. That summer I spent with tears in my eyes and calling for someone whom I lost forever. I realised the power of one ‘no’ in my life.  I spent nights praying let the ‘done be undone’ but it was too late.

The time we are born, we start forging relationships and emotions attached to these relationships change with times. It’s the time which takes us to roller coaster ride of emotions. People change, their perspectives change, their likings change and so do their dynamics of relationships. That 23^rd summer did bring changes in me as well and it did continue for the next eight summers. I was in a constant state of flux and never looked back to that 23^rd summer of my life. I never bothered to look behind, forgetting the very fact that we all are in a perpetual cycle and nothing is forever gone. Life will take you back to the days you left in some way or the other and it is the beauty of life. It keeps you in the circle never to let go out of it. As I am completely into the cycle where I am revisiting my 23^rd summer, I can very well realise the essence of relationships again.

Things have changed around me; people have ‘evolved’ but I am in the process of saving something which I never want to let go.  As people have changed around me their approach to relationships have also changed and their expectations from me have also changed. Again change is the only constant but again this change follows the path of life. The problem lies in the fact that when others are changing and following a trajectory then if you take the opposite trajectory or a different tangent altogether, the result can be varied, from expectations mismatch to clashing of ideologies to miscommunications leading to a complete breakdown of the relationship. My 23^rd summer did teach me this but as a perfect human I conveniently left it behind and followed the concept of ‘moving on’. Now as I am revisiting my 23^rd summer, I am trying to do everything to salvage my future summers by doing things which I should have done back then. Hopefully, the effort will not go in vain. Life is a harsh teacher and horrible part is you won’t know whether you will at all be able to make the teacher happy or not and relationships are those tasks which life gives you to test the lessons you have learned from him.