Hey! Are you planning to fly back?
Today I completed 5 months in Goa. I had come to the city for a 3 day trip, 2 months after I quit my job. I ended up staying for 5 months, and counting! That’s one decision I took yesterday, I am going to stay here for another one month, if not more. It is a big one for me.
Couple of days back, our Government announced that the domestic flights are going to resume the coming Monday, after a suspension of 2 months due to the Covid19 spread. The announcement came in the morning, and within hours I had a message on my phone:
“Hello, are you planning to fly back?”
As I looked at those words, and every time that I looked at them, a gush of thoughts entered my mind, all of which I am still trying to sort. This gush of thoughts, was my first sign that I am not ready yet.
These last two months were a pause from the hustle-bustle of our normal lives. For everyone! As the world goes through this deadly pandemic, each one of us was also forced to go through something unique inside of us. We were all forced to pause, in one way or the other. We were pushed into routines, confined in limited spaces, forced to see the same faces and forced to see the new faces on the screens of our phones! But most importantly, we were repeatedly put in front of a closed door inside our minds. For some, that door opened to a beautiful vast garden; for some, it was a dark cave; and for some, it didn’t open at all.
What’s beyond the door is, or is not, is entirely one’s own discreet.
For me, it was an amusement park! A circus.. with some deadly roller-coaster rides, but mostly, many many small carousel rides. Those deadly ones had small resting benches next to them!
Now, as the external world around us prepares to resume, transportation opens up, businesses start to pick up.. and after days of cribbing about the lockdown, we can all see our usual, regular lives slowly approaching towards us. Are you ready? For most, it’s not an option, is it?! What it definitely is, is a realisation.. are you looking forward to going back, or you secretly wish that the lockdown extends? Do you wish to take more leisure walks in the beautiful garden, or you can’t wait to get out of the dingy cave? Are you glad that the door remained shut, or you are disappointed that you could never open it?
I secretly wish that the lockdown would have extended, it would have spared me from making any decisions; I am absolutely enjoying my time in my amusement park! And the realisation that I arrived at it is, I can stay! :)
I was in front of that locked door long before the lockdown started. In fact, it had started as a dingy cave for me, before it turned into the vast garden, and it’s only just now that I have entered into my amusement park. I am not ready to go back yet! In fact, I think I want to take some detours to visit my garden too.
What brings me most joy is that I am lucky to have an option to stay back. So, no! I am not planning to fly back. And, I will not fly back till I don’t need those resting benches after I ride those deadly roller-coaster rides.
Yesterday, I was hanging with this girl (Dias) I had met a couple of months back. We used to go to for the same yoga classes, and we bumped into each other last week at a shack. She is the unmistakably beautiful kind. She recently completed an Energy Healing course, and asked me if she can practice on me. I had not gone there with any expectation, but to help a gal out. She was an unmistakable mess when I had met her at the yoga institute.
The session in itself was nothing more than a guided meditation, with very soothing music and incense sticks. Frankly, I think I dozed off in the middle. It was after the session that I received what I was intended to! Even though it all unfolded in a very sporadic manner.. it was exactly what I needed in the moment. We started talking over her kitchen counter; she was telling me about how she went through hell and came back. She had a mental breakdown, twice, in the past 2 year. She told me that after the first breakdown, she travelled to Spain to a healing centre and found light. Then she went on to tell me how she had a relapse when she went back to her life, and how she realised that she was still looking for more and more answers. I was engrossed. I wanted to know what were the questions, if she ever found the answers, where did she find them, what were they.. I kept saying, “and then?” “and then?”.
She told me how she had moments when she stopped feeling anything, and how she had moments when she felt so much! She kept running to look for answers, and they kept coming to her in the form of overwhelming bouts of emotions. About what life is, why things happen, what her life purpose is, what should she do next.. It was something about her story, that seemed very relatable. And, even though she didn’t have many words to explain what she went through, or what she found, I somehow understood her.. it was like I was looking into a mirror! I was completing her sentences, and the moment she was done, I started making my own sentences.
I poured my life out in front of her.. It was almost as if I didn’t even want to but it was just happening. It was like talking to myself to sort out the bullshit around, to figure out the puzzle that my life is. Even I didn’t know the next thing that was going to come out of my mouth. And before I knew it, I was admitting the most harsh truths of my life. Things I was too proud to accept, or too scared to accept; some major things of my life and some very trivial things of my life. In that moment, everything that I was feeling seemed important and worth saying out loud, because why not? I am the most important person in my life, and everything that I feel should be given the right importance by myself.
Here is a quick disclaimer: I had my first shrooms’ trip about a week back. I was decoding it in her kitchen. I remembered, not all, but many things that I had felt during my trip, and that trip was everything that I feel all day, under a magnifying glass. It was everything, not one thing was hidden.. but I was too scared to accept all of them at that time. I danced them away. Like I do in real life too.
I had a mini-but-painful breakdown after the trip too. At around 3 in the night, my head was throbbing, I was cold AF, and my head was hanging in my shit-pot after puking for some 20 minutes. I thought I will die, before I told myself how beautiful my life is and how beautiful the people in it are. My parents, my sisters, my friends, some people I met in Goa, the beautiful sunsets, the dancing palm trees.. These words were provided to me during my time in the beautiful garden, while I was listening to meditation guides by Louise Hay, having conversations with my sister and with my Olya, and with myself. Those words were provided to me to use when I would be on deadly roller-coaster rides. I then got up, wiped my face, wore three tee shirts and two pyjamas, and went back to sleep.
Between then, and now at her kitchen counter, I felt like my brain was in a limbo and a gate had just been opened. In that moment, I wanted to love myself so much. I wanted to remove everything that gives me even an iota of discomfort. Every moment that I have let myself feel down and depressed for shitty reasons seemed criminal. I felt empowered. I felt like I unlocked something. I had found an answer.
As we transitioned from her-monologue-to-my-monologue-to-a-beautiful-conversation, I felt really optimistic about not flying back, about extending my stay in Goa, about trying some more roller-coaster rides, about deciphering the questions that lay deep within and then finally finding them answers.
