Category: Personal

After a year

Harkrishan1 Comment

It has been close to a year since I last wrote on here. A lot has changed. I have changed. But I don’t remember deciding to stop writing. I know I pulled my computer to me on several occasions. But what I poured into the page didn’t seem right. Maybe I should’ve posted it anyways. There was some good stuff on there and maybe you would’ve liked it. But that’s behind us. And I’ve got things on my mind today.

Today, I’m thinking of how I used to sit with myself. Or walk with myself on that one trail back in Guelph. I’ve done that since but I feel like there’s been very few such days. I remember those moments. I saw the same path dry, muddy, snowed in and slippery. And as I walked through the woods, so much would come up inside me. Conversations, school work, thing’s I’d put off, how I hadn’t called someone back. But for the most part, it was the disconnect of it all. Even though I saw others on those paths, I thought of them as mine. Mine to escape to. Sometimes I went on a walk when I didn’t want to study or work on a project. Other times just listening to an audiobook. It was one of my most cherished experiences. And I miss it.

In the days since I’ve last written, much has been a blur. I don’t mean that negatively. You know when you start doing something and it’s sunny outside and after a while you look up and it’s dark and hours have passed. It’s like that, really. Only for me, it’s looking inward. And weeks or months have passed. Like I skipped time just living it but not thinking about it. I think it’s because my life is more full than it once used to be. I have loved ones I live more closely with than I did throughout university. I have a full-time job. And the little time I have in my evenings, I’ve spent looking outwards not inwards. I don’t regret it. I did the best I could.

In the last year, I’ve met many new people and had new and interesting social interactions. And I’m happy to say that for the most part, they haven’t been difficult. I attended a few weddings which were perhaps the most eye-opening social experiences. I’ve never been one for dressing up or making small-talk and I’m glad to say I only had to do the former. Conversations happen whether or not you struggle to participate and when I heard something I was interested in, I jumped right in. But my favourite moment had to be at a wedding in a greenhouse, where my partner and I just walked amongst the plants outdoors. It was a hot summer day and we spent a long time out there talking horticulture. It seems ridiculous to me just how much she knows about plants but then again, I could quote all the Harry Potter movies so who am I to talk.

There’s much else that’s happened but I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead before I decide this last half hour’s work isn’t “right” and end up adding it to my drafts.

I hope to write more soon.

The Good Old Days

Harkrishan3 Comments

There is line in the Office – “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.” That is where I am this evening.

All journey’s end. It is an easy and simple fact until you reach an end. Then it seems neither simple nor easy. If you are like me, you will look around in the final days and see all that used to be. It is an unsettling feeling of change. I felt it when I graduated from university and started working. And I feel it now as I prepare to say farewell to Guelph.

In my last days, I find myself going back to the places, the people and the things that make it difficult to move on. 

The places – Never having owned a car, I went back to that same one trail I’ve been on a hundred times. The university that brought me to the city. Places I’ve eaten at and that one movie theatre on my side of town. Guelph has always seemed small and I’ve only ever taken the bus to get places. But I’ve always enjoyed that and it’s part of what draws me to places now. I learnt about myself living here and I’m grateful for that.

Then there’s the people. They’re harder to say goodbye to. I don’t think there is a right way. Can one say everything that they need to and should? About how lucky you’ve been to meet them. How many times they saved you from dark days or rough times. And how they are the reason moving on will be so hard. Maybe they will all read this and know how much they have come to mean to me. And how lucky I feel to have known them. I met a brilliant lady today who I wish I’d met ages ago. In the short span of conversation, she instantly became one of the things I would miss about Guelph. And all I could do was wish we had met sooner. But that’s just how it is sometimes.

And then there’s me – packed (mostly) and moving forward to whatever awaits tomorrow and all the tomorrows after. I will spare you the workings of a mind leaving a space of comfort and warmth. It is enough to say that my thoughts are in flux but I still manage to take a breath and watch the final days pass by.

And lastly we come to the good old days. How do we know we’re in them when we are?

I don’t know. But I do know that we can look around right now. At everything and everyone you have. At everything that’s worked out or is on it’s way to working out. Look at the smallest victories in your day and those you never thought you’d achieve. Look at the people who ask if you’ve eaten and those who ask if you’re okay. These are “good old days” in the making.

And if you take a minute to appreciate them and the people and trails and places you’ve called home, I believe you’ve done it right.

Light and dark

HarkrishanLeave a comment 
I laughed hard today, and rejoiced.
The day was of my own making.
Things went where they should.
So did the words.
Everything was well.

This light, I embraced it.
I pressed it to myself and held my breath.
The moments stopped just then.
Everyone and everything ceased.
As did the clocks.

I waited for change, it comes always.
But not now it seemed.
This light I held on to was it.
It was mine after a long time.
I couldn't let go.

It struck me then, the fool I was.
I was holding tight to a thing fleeting.
A thing embraced and let go.
For its arrival meant good things.
And to come, it had to go.

I slacked my grip, bit by bit.
And the clocks they started too.
People moved, the world unfroze.
And I knew how it must be.
I opened my arms wide.

My light. It flew away far.
I saw the shades of dark approach.
I shivered and mustered my resolve.
It was time to move on.
Time to move through.

It was easier this time. The dark.
Though I still ached at its end.
But that joy, that light returned.
As it if it was an old friend.
Mine again fleetingly.