Walking Down Nostalgia

Looking through old emails is so much like a walk through the past. I’ve never done either before today. And now, when I did, I come across mail that ranged from normal to moderately normal back then. And now when I look back, I cannot imagine how I crossed over all that like I have. All that love, that trust, that friendship. Where are they now? From an addictive attachment, we now merely communicate… Occasionally.

As I read through those mails of yester days, I can sense that euphoria, the expectation that each contained. The words I see are too simple… No ballads of love. No eloquent poetry. No emotive literature. In fact, all the words within could have as well been obscured. All I needed was the end. ‘Love, Reena’. It probably is the signature she adds through every message and mail. But still I yearn. Looking through the words… reading between… savoring the thought of those days…

I read my replies. It all comes in a blur of focus. Absolute joy shadowed by a cowering pain beyond reason. It was different back then. The bursting emotion that cried as it got caged through the agonizing distance. The ineptitude of expression over phone and mail and messages. I convince myself that they are merely letters. I try and shut down that powerful surge of thought. And yet…

We thought it was to be. I knew it. I knew perfectly clear that I could love none more…

I read that mail. I hate myself for still having it. I cannot bring myself to delete. I read it again, as if to find some clue, some line that I had missed. Some hidden meaning, when I just as well know there are none. I try to imagine… if only I had known….