the path i didn't travel

I was just planning on writing something and I just happened to know my laptop had been abandoned with Microsoft word for days. So first thing first, got it installed. It’s been some time, I have not written anything concrete. Well, I had my excuses alright. Exams and busy time were my two very favorites. Now what? I have no more exams like the real ones, the night pullers. That question really bugged me and I had to think it through to come up with the real answer. I finally made a commitment to myself; I will continue writing no matter what. Already I m done with the first paragraph bragging about the whole messed up days of my time.

I have always wanted to write about the paths or directions or bearings, if that sounds fancy. I even spent some of my amateur poetry on that one. But I could never get anywhere close to the finishing line. That poem was never born as I know it. A lot of we people make choices, decisions, plans and strategies for life. If we put our thoughts together and think then we realize that we have made plenty of choices, a lot of life changing decisions and hand full of such plans that never worked out for us. A lot of people have postponed their exam preparation plans, including the one writing and the one reading this. A lot of us have denied choices we had been offered with and still playing ahead in life with regrets. A lot of people with impeccable agendas have failed to keep up with their promises. This agenda word always reminds me of the former rebels and present-day fragmented Maoist party. They would always say agendas and shit but we know how thrashed our country has become with their agendas. I don’t want to drag that depressing tale into my writing, not now when I am finally feeling good about writing.

We have our paths confirmed for this time ‘now’ and we carry our baggage from the past. Good portion of that baggage is filled with past regrets, a lot of them with resentful memories. Few of us, we still grieve over the choices we denied. Some of us might still linger in this thought, life could have been just better had it been those days again; I would do so many things right this time. I would dust off so many of my messes and try creating very little this time. But there is no going back to where we came from. Hearts have been hurt, people have cried their eyes out, children have grown into men and men got older and died. Life doesn’t give that second chance to everyone. But life is about the second chances we create to live better. Better than now, better than yesterday and better than any time in the future. We live now, we breathe oxygen now, the clock on the wall reveals this ‘present’ for us now. There is no past there is no future those are our imaginations, wild, wildest imaginations.

But it is not really easy to believe this way. Believing is really a tough exercise. Even with the god, it’s not easy keeping that faith alive. We had our doubts about gods, even when we were children. We questioned to every god’s action with our parents as children. We questioned this every time why god, why me? We found it hard to believe sometimes, there is any god up there during those times of trouble. And the next moment we are happy, we yell ‘thank god’. Believing is a practice but less when it comes to god and more when god doesn’t favor you. We were parented that way. God has nothing to do except good parenting. And everything rest is evil about God. No bragging much of my atheist thoughts today. I will save it for some good time later and it’s still in progress this whole atheist thing. It takes some good practice as well. But believing is a practice that is what I m sure of now.

I have forgotten how to change paragraphs while writing something long. I lack a great deal of practice these days. The thing that I do with my random thoughts about the paths I didn’t choose is I tell it to myself, ‘well that can’t stop me from taking chances in life’. It could certainly not stop me from wanting writing this, I can tell. I know I am babbling on the fifth paragraph already. I made it to the fifth paragraph, but I guess a lot of people didn’t even bother getting here.

 We have this weird ability most of us dare to think that ‘I can make my own choices for my time and for someone my age’ and rest are simply confused. But if you still don’t believe me, you got to think of the time when you first learn to ride bicycle. Your parents won’t allow you to ride the bicycle twice your size, but you would still sneak out the house and hit the road and not think how furious your parents are back home. You would feel the cool air whispering across your ears, look at the people around you when your eyes were done focusing on the handle, when u were just procuring the confidence to show off trying to rise to the seat and leave both hands free. Not until the time you bumped on some speed breaker and lost the balance of the steel; No, you don’t realize you have made the wrong choice in the first place. But that wrong choice has given a lot of drivers. Some of us drive ambulance to deliver sick people to the hospital saving million lives. Some of us are pilots who fly like birds and deliver people home to their family to their destination. Some of us drive school bus and deliver children to jail, just kidding! Some of our parents still give their children ride to school no matter what type the vehicle is. Life is good because there is nothing called perfect. Even the bad decisions for the time being when we broke out of the house with the bicycle and got hurt have taken us somewhere in life.  Just we have to do is put all our guts together to sneak out of the angry mind, bereaved soul, hurting heart and hit some road again.