Adaptiblity

It’s true that you can’t hold on to the relationships forever and by that I don’t mean you can’t have those relationships forever. They just happen to change as people change, we change and priorities change.

It all began back in summers of 2008, when I was in 6th grade and finally had this little face off with my rival for years Veronica James. I loathed her with all my heart. Well, why wouldn’t I? She was as close to my almost best friend as I was. And those things does matter even in 6th grade, when you're 11 and you're dealing hard with the age and someone as wicked as Veronica knocks your door, and tries and unfortunately is succeeding in getting closer to your Sara (oops I meant your almost best friend). 

So we fought with all our might and wit (at least all that we had then) and volumes which our throats could allow and the tiny room in which we stood could hold. Though the distance between us was insurmountable or so we liked to believe, Sara was precious to both of us and that was enough of a reason to stand each other.

As the time rolled in, Sara demystified Veronica for me and the other way round. As it became easier to understand and bear each other we would secretly observe the similarities in us. Our parents, our families, our choices, our stories, situations and our perspective about a lot of things were much same even though we dealt with them differently. The fabrics we were hemmed with were same even if the color brightness of the yarns we were woven with were much distinct.

When we abandoned detesting each other is still a mystery unsolved. There was no looking back as we were busy making memories. It was not only Veronica but the three of us had bonded pretty well. We’d do all kinds of crazy things. And the vows of forever, planning of trips which would be made a decade from  then, the promises of being there for each other always, of understanding, helping and trusting one another at any point of life were made. The promises which at that age probably held no meaning, the vows which may never be fulfilled as reality is always too far from what we think of it to be. But that’s the beauty of life, isn’t it?

 The spontaneity in our decisions, in our thoughts, in our actions. Though not always, but sometimes it is better to be spontaneous and enjoy the moments and that was what we were doing. Because if every action is thought of, then there will be no good memories and no good times. We’ll be devoid of the joy of life surprising us with the unknown elements. And this may not always be the right thing for us, but will the good days ever be so utterly sweet if we are oblivious to the sour ones? Those truly were some of the best days of our lives, that age and our innocence, our anonymity to the reality, things that strengthened us to live freely. The world we thought we lived in was not as simple as we thought it to be. And friendships were not easy to live up to, was what I learned after a while.

So, our friendship was only truly tested when I left school. And distance can divide many, it can change many, it can do wonders and we were not different. It was not picture perfect. We too had our days and fights, our agreements and disagreements, our goods and bads, our memories and moments. We all dealt with this differently. It was now the opposite, Veronica became the string which held me and Sara together. She made her best efforts to keep us both on the same land. Sara and me both saw it. I somewhere failed to appreciate them and acknowledge them. But again friendships are as welcoming as they could be, they stood by me, because they knew I was going through things. Who knew little did I need their condolences.

Because its not easy when you are set apart from all the people and the only people you have known all your life and sent to a place where none knows you. Its hard to deal with the fact that all of them are together and you are left to struggle with the strangers who wouldn’t eagerly welcome you. And initially it was no less than a war, war with friends, war with the outsiders, war with yourself and mostly war between you desire and what you have. And in middle of all these alien emotions, I was still scared of oblivion. I did not want to be forgotten by the people I had lived with most of my life and not being accepted by the people I was now crowded by. Its not easy to allow people to get into the little shell that you’ve always lived in but time and distance no matter how cruel they must be, are the medicines of their own wounds. We all want to live in our past and that’s where we go wrong. We can live with our past, not live in it. We can live with our past by accepting bravely the change in us, the change in others, the change of our surroundings, the change of people in the old surroundings. That’s the only way to hold onto our relationships, our people, only way to keep them ours-adaptability.

So that’s what we did, when the concept of living in the past did not work out well, we drifted apart for a while and then did this little somersault back into each others life and started living with our past, accepted the changes in us, accepted the new people who dominated our life stories now, Many things changed, almost everything changed except one thing.. we still loved each other like we used to and it simply makes things easier and they would always remain my first childhood love. J