The Waiting Hall: New Year's Eve

 On the last day of the year, we came down from the mountains at the end of our little winter vacation. As the car pulled into the 'Drop & Drive' lane, I felt the stirrings of a vague sense of anxiety. We were about four hours early for our train. The journey from Takdah to NJP station was motion with purpose, the train ride to Sealdah would also be movement towards certain destination. It was the waiting period in-between, with nowhere definite to go that was unsettling. 


I'm not much of a standing still person, I tend to pace around instead. Which is ironic considering how I've lived my life through little units of waiting. Waiting for this or that exam to get over so I could have fun afterwards, waiting for some movie to release so I could go and watch it with friends, waiting for vacations,  waiting for birthdays (now increasingly accompanied by a foreboding sense of dread for the inevitable and inexplicable letdown), waiting (now as a teacher) for end-semester exams to end so I could breathe a little, waiting for replies...
Photo by Author.


I digress. I was getting down at the NJP railway station, feeling anxious about the waiting period. If we could just get on the train,  then we would be on our way somewhere, and it would be alright. I didn't enjoy being in the in-between. And it suddenly felt like a metaphor for my life. It explained the relentless undercurrent of anxiety that plagues my days. The strange fear that freezes my heart as I scroll through redundant timelines, waiting for answers. I'm not even sure of the questions. Sometimes,  there are signs and synchronicities. On other days, I'm an idiot. I am terrified of being the idiot.

For the longest time, I have been waiting to arrive somewhere. Anywhere. It's like I'm looking for the train to board, and I'm just not sure when it's coming. New Years' Eves mean a cocktail of hope and doom. Last year I was actually at a party where they did a countdown. I naively looked forward to it  till the countdown touched down to zero, leaving me like a discarded party favour. You've seen those coloured paper balls? Pretty, but so utterly pointless. I don't want to be pointless. 
Photo by  Anastasiia Rozumna via Unsplash.com 



I know a lot of it is inside my head. I mean, I got my PhD degree this year. Released two new songs. Finished my faculty orientation course. Have signed up for a refresher in January. When that is done I will be ready to begin the paperwork (oh joy) for my stage 1 promotion. But paperwork and data-entry aside, it's a stable job that I think I'm moderately good at. I enjoy the company of my colleagues, I (mostly) enjoy teaching, I get a regular salary. I have platforms to express my rambling word-salads (sorry about that), I go out to movie lunches with friends and I go on great vacations. For any same person,  that ought to count as arriving somewhere. And I have arrived somewhere. It's just that I can't stand still. I keep wondering where I'm going next. I keep asking if my voice is heard, or if I'm singing my soul out into the vacuum. And I keep wondering if there's anyone out there waiting the way I am waiting,  to arrive somewhere, together. I keep wondering if they will hold my hand. 

This is not discounting one thing for the other. I've always hoped to be more than my job title,  but I am also made of the things I do. I have spent seven plus years with Mervyn Peake and Gormenghast,  and it has shaped the person I've become,  just as the person I am has shaped the thesis that I someday hope to publish as a monograph. And it is because of who I have become as a person that I long for someone to see me as I am. 

But so what if nobody does? Keep doing me. No one's ever perfectly happy, but I'd rather be unhappy the way I am than any other? Does that make sense? I'll have moments, I'm sure. That's the mind for you, harping on absences. And as much as I dislike waiting rooms, I'll never regret the journey that's brought me here.

And it's time to stop waiting, for now anyway. I'm on the train, gazing at flashing windows of light in the darkness, going somewhere. Here's to arrivals and to better journeys. Excelsior!🍷

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