Sparkle

More often than not, we are thrown headfirst into certain moments in life- where it is absolutely impossible to decide if who you are is a blessing or a curse, and for an infinitesimal amount of time, the world absolutely stops around you and you see what I’d like to call a projection of your soul. (Yes, I’ve taken the risk of this coming off as too corny, and I hope this doesn’t bias what I’m trying to convey). In these moments, everything else painfully blurs in the background, and the only item in focus is the realization that this projection is the only thing that matters. This projection demands to be understood, and you are forced to stop postponing the process of not being aware of what defines you.

It is in these moments, that you swallow tiny pieces of truth like bitter medicine.

Mind you, this is no ordinary medicine. Each bit you engulf peels away the barriers you have built within who you are, who you think you are, and who you want to be. The ultimate cure would be to unite all these, but simplicity is seldom accepted as beautiful. So, day after day, lie after lie, we build these barriers, and the aforementioned moments, the guardians of our conscience, appear out of the blue to make us stop.

But how can self awareness be possible when the very definition of ‘self’ is constantly changing? The only possible way out is forceful acceptance of the few constant elements of our variable self. These elements make up the projection. These elements sparkle with the strength of being true, sparkle with the elegance of omnipresence, and they sparkle with the power of being the ultimate decider of all your outputs into reality. Lucky are those people who like their sparkles. The majority of us, on the other hand, are led into believing that our sparkles are curses which make us ‘flawed’, and we are done, so done, with statements which say that our flaws are beautiful.

After all, what is possibly beautiful about suffering through every minute of your life with unbound, high functioning anxiety and the need to constantly feel guilt and apologize? What is possibly attractive about nightmares that send waves of panic that knock your breath away? What is possibly not ugly about waking up every day hoping to make it through without another puncture to the heart? And what in the nine worlds, what, is even remotely acceptable about not knowing when you will stop losing faith in your loved ones, and not knowing when you will have your next bout of utter dark depression?

The cherry on this cake however goes to Empathy. Usually perceived as a rare trait and a blessing, and associated with having a kind heart, no one knows about the dark side of being overtly empathetic. This alter ego of empathy is a vicious demon that tricks your brain to believe that you alone are responsible for everything that is wrong with the world. It is being embarrassed for the director of a bad movie that you chose to watch, it is being unable to bear the sorrow of a loved one without feeling intense guilt, it is being unable to read a book without feeling nerve-rattling panic and anxiety for even the characters you don’t like, it is walking into a dirty room and being unable to bear the thought of the inconvenience it would cause to the next person, it is being unable to look at the world without every single wrongdoing being a punishable offence upon self. Empathy is the sugar syrup that fills your heart, which when overflowed, hardens and pierces every nook and cranny of yourself with its bittersweet crystals.

As always, no, this particular piece of writing serves no actual purpose other than giving a small ray of hope that if a problem can be diagnosed by words, there might exist a cure somewhere.

Cheers to the ones whose curses sparkle, the ones whose injured hearts beat to prevent steel hearts from nearly impossible damage, the ones who think too much, feel too much and exist too much.