jo march would never write like you do.

 to : jo

the smallest person on earth.

dear jo, 

every time I realise I have to email you, it's simultaneously realising that I've reached a point where I can't help myself anymore. That's never a nice realisation, the helplessness. right now, i feel like the smallest person on earth. sometimes, i see all these sick people being taken care of and understood and their sickness being romanticized, and it is confusing. because when i get sick, it's something frustrating. something inexplicable. something convenient. and the guilt that consumes me after I've said this is unbearable.

i don't think my mother would have tolerated me if she wasn't family. because nobody else does.

the worst part about having a disease, is that you carry it around with you your entire life. and when people get close to you, you empty this bag and they see it and then it becomes a suffix to your name. it becomes you in its essence. and you hate it. but you can't change any part of it, because you didn't induce it in the first place.

and then you go through the cyclical suffering that you're familiar with, but the people around you aren't. nobody ever is familiar with it, and half of them don't even know what it is.

that's when the detachment starts.

or worse, the attachment deepens.

i grew up having a disorganized attachment style, and that showed up later. but during this time, when i got more intolerable as i realised i might have lost somebody, began the excruciating everlasting pain and fear of being left.

i think it feels like tearing your fingers apart.

it felt like a huge hole forming inside you, that sucks all of the joy in anything.

and your brain associates everything that made you happy with the other person.

when i get sad, i get really really sad. like the kind where you don't eat or sleep or move or defecate kind of sad. so, when i get to hear - why can't you get up and do something ? or why can't you change ? i lose my cool. but then i'm also very very sad, so i just sit and cry more.

i don't think people understand that if i had the power to change, i would have already.

like, shed my skin and burn it all kind of a change.

for the longest time i actually did try, you know? try to fix myself somehow. it doesn't work like that.

in the process, i just hated myself even more. for being the way i was. pain is very unfairly romanticised to be sold in packaged cartons by industries.

 they do the opposite of what i'm trying to do here. it starts seeming convenient and fun. and interesting and cinematic.

it's not.

~

i think i could be loved if i was normal. maybe even close to normal.

something haphazardly shut down with a person very close to me, and the aftermath of the end is worse than the duration of it. especially because i'm horrible at letting things go. 

it hurts when you realize that the other person didn't reach out because they want you back and because they understand. and it is worse when you realize they probably won't. want you back or understand. because you come with a horror that is indescribable.

and then you beg to be taken back.

i feel like the smallest person on earth.

my throat hurts.

breathing hurts.

and the world is collapsing.

and i think i'd choose the recurring pain over the separation.

half the days i don't know what's wrong with me.

yours ? sure.

h.

-

to : h

Hello h.

It is so very sad when a loving relationship ends and you have described so well how you feel. You feel helpless with a hole inside you and are suffering pain.

Am I right in thinking that you are blaming your bipolarity for the break ?

You say you don't think you can help yourself. What do you think might help you ?

I hope writing this email has been some release of tension for you.

Jo

-

to : jo

re: the smallest person on earth

dear jo,

today i slid the window to the side and i felt the air on my face. it was raining and there's an earthy aftertaste. there always is. on my way home, i asked myself if it was the rain that i liked or the fact that i had a place to stay dry during it ? did i just like the rain knowing i had a safety net if i didn't like it anymore?

i've noticed that i've made my breathing a conscious action. and every time i don't breathe to completion, i get nervous. and then the breathing never happens at all.

i feel so anxious all the time.

i get especially anxious when i lose my safety nets.

meanwhile, this week i have come to terms with the fact that

i don't think i have ever understood the concept of an ending.

i'm used to fixing things, or waiting or even unconsciously expecting it'll resume at some point in time, right ?

-

today i met someone i had needed closure from, a long time ago. the person never did give me that, and however much it hurt, i accepted it and swallowed the fact that i wouldn't get it. i was fine with that because as long as i'd never see them again, i knew i'd eventually forget.

i do forget.

i forgot.

and i saw this person after ages and he smiled at me and it was as if huge time gaps of history had been erased. and as amicable as he was, it was evident he didn't want me to stick around. he needed me to clear his guilty conscience. and i think somehow i did.

his remedy for the situation was a hug.

and it felt strange. all the love that had been there years ago, was gone. i think i was holding some unsaid expectation of friendship from him. 

it took me some time to understand that he didn't care. and more time to understand that even in the little conversation we did have, after all these years, he still subordinated me.

~

when i came back home i watched 500 days of summer.

there was this one conversation that i liked.

         

                              TOM

                    Summer, hold on... you don't

                    believe in love?

         

                              SUMMER

                    I don't even know what that word

                    means. I know I've never felt it,

                    whatever it is in all those songs.

                    And I know that today most

                    marriages end in divorce. Like my

                    parents.

         

                              TOM

                    Well mine too but --

         

                              SUMMER

                    Oh yeah, And I read in Newsweek,

                    there were these scientists who

                    found that by stimulating a part of

                    the brain with electrodes you can

                    make a person fall in "love" with a

                    rock. Is that the love you're

                    talking about?

          

it felt strange. like how when you're a kid you're like i'll never have orange ice cream and then you grow up and it's like wow, orange ice cream isn't that bad.

anyways 

it felt like two parts of my head having a conversation.

it's a past version of me mocking the me i am. after having gone through everything.

I dont know.

I dont know.

every day I know I little less.

yours, because you're a safety net,

h.

-

to : heeya

Hi h,

It's great to hear how you articulate your thoughts and feelings in such detail. Sounds like you like writing a lot.

You say that you feel breathing has become a conscious action which makes you nervous and anxious, especially when you feel you lose your safety nets. Could you tell me more about this feeling, and what do you feel your safety nets are? 

Endings are incredibly difficult and often complicated. They are a weird concept to get our heads around so it is understandable to feel like things will resume at some point.

I can imagine it was confusing seeing the person from your past that you had been seeking closure from this whole time. How do you feel after seeing him? Do you feel you got the closure you had been searching for?

The film you mentioned seems to have resonated with you. It is a lovely movie.

Keep talking.

Jo

-

to : jo

a certain doris day song

dear jo,

is it a little silly that i look forward to your emails ? all you do is listen :) strange. the people around me do too, but you're too monotonic to affect me. 

my breathing is a little better now. i see that things get better when you stop trying to better them.

i don't know what really happened, but one day i woke up and i was okay. the people i interact with are very very frustrated with the recurring inconsistency. 

one day 

i woke up and the only thing i could think of was

if it's gonna happen, it'll happen. 

imagine that. it's that simple. i mean, i could move mountains, but it wouldn't change the other person's mind. if someone didn't want to stick around, that's alright. i just needed to segregate myself from it.

there was this one car ride back home when i was a kid, and i was leaning against my mother, and she started singing 

 Qué será, será

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see

Qué será, será

What will be, will be

that song stayed.

~

for the longest time for me, the idea of an ending of any relationship, was amicable. ironically, it never was the case in real time. meeting him was anything but closure. maybe at this point in time, i no longer needed closure. the person felt very foreign now. imagine that, looking at someone you've cared for, for so long, as a stranger. 

it felt liberating almost, the way i looked at him and felt nothing. in fact, i gave him the closure he needed. the conscience he had to clean. 

i had loved him once. the me back then, would've wanted him not to carry a guilt. even as i spoke to him, i didn't want to ask him why he did what he did, or if he felt bad. 

we talked, and i said it was okay.

everything was okay. 

i was eons away from him even as i stood there.

~

i decided to que sera my way through things. because, it's only when you let go of the chokehold that one can breathe.

i can breathe and it feels so good :)  seriously, i thought i'd have to go to a doctor for that.

(man i've made this long. a little apology to jo here)

i think i'll stop with the self destruction and the pushing, and i'll let her be. i'll let myself be. 

sometimes people are exhausting.

sometimes i'm exhausting.

and you've been absolutely wonderful.

i'd say yours, but belonging is such a heavy emotion,

h.

-

to : heeya

Hi H,

It was great to hear the positivity in your last message. I am glad you have decided to try and stop over analysing and "just let things happen". It appears that this simplicity of approach is having a positive impact on you.

I am glad you say you are "getting a little better" that is a huge step forward for you and one which will i hope gives you encouragement to tackle life with renewed positivity.

In your situation, moving on initially seems hard and feelings are often very raw but time brings with it the perspective to understand and the ability to deal with it.

How are your mood fluctuations going? Do you still think it affects your relationships with people?

Jo.

-

to : jo

re:re:re:re the smallest person on earth.

dear jo,

in indian history, there's a certain nawab who loved dogs. i don't mean love, i mean love. this dude had an extensive collection of over 800 dogs, each affording individual accommodations, caretakers, and even masseuses and he spent over 2 crores for the wedding of one of his dogs and invited dignitaries from across the region and made it a state holiday. during the partition he sort of left behind his wife and child, and fled to Pakistan with his dogs. imagine a moses-like figure leading 800 dogs over the border.

this story kept me going today. the mullah and his dog cult.

i slept after ages today. properly, after two whole weeks. the stinging pain in my forehead has stopped, and i am much less crankier.

these days, i'm feeling so much. i am letting myself feel so much. i don't think the holding back has ever helped the way i thought it did. 

the minute you realize you're feeling, you realize you're alive. breathing.

even as a collection of people, do you ever have moments where you feel everything so intensely that it reminds you that you're alive ?

sometimes i tire myself out. but i can't even stop.

(i wonder if my doctor thinks i'm relentless)

i'm scared, but not anxious. it worries me when i understand that my coping mechanism doesn't help me cope anymore. now i have an ugly hand to prove it.

all my coping mechanisms are unhealthy. whether it be people, objects or the self.

i hope you're not a coping mechanism.

even if you are,

i hope it's not bad.

yours because it has started to rain,

h.

-

to : heeya

Hi H,

I'm pleased you found an interesting story to distract you, but more pleased to hear that you are feeling more positive and that you are getting better at managing your emotions. Do you feel more secure having defined what you are going through ? Is that often a reliable justification or explanation to your behaviour ?

Do let people close to you know that you're experiencing heightened emotions. This allows them to be better equipped when you react in a way you usually don't. 

Besides, we are happy to be a healthy coping mechanism for you as long as you need us.

Take care of yourself.

Jo

-

to : jo

re:re:re:re:re: the smallest person on earth

dear jo,

today i stood in front of an aquarium, tapping at specific spots on the glass. in the beginning it was an attempt to figure out whether fish have spatial intelligence, but after a while both the fish and i were bored of it (attention span of a goldfish). so instead, i stood there watching them eat algae off the floor.

it has been a tendency of mine to perceive beauty as complicated.

with all the books and the intricacies of language that i was introduced to at an early age, i think i came to the conclusion that everything beautiful must be complicated. if not at surface level, definitely in its essence, right ?

the simplest truth i learnt this week was that 

not everything convoluted holds beauty and meaning. and not everything beautiful holds complication. conflict. grief.

i never thought fish would teach me simplicity and the necessity for adequate surface vision. there's so much to learn everywhere :)

all my anguish seems so bleak when you subtract the profundity. 

all along i was afraid to seem simple. 

there is such joy in the little things.

i'm a lot like the fish in a way. with touch. i once touched the side of a koi fish without it swimming away. that was however, after four hours of sitting with it.

i don't like new people touching me even in passing. even with a fascination. i got really wound up when someone did, and it bothered me much more than it should have. i did end up however giving him an unnecessarily intense response. the discomfort is heightening.

you have to sit with the fish before you can dip your hand underwater.

days get tiring every day

are you not tired yet ?

of the world?

of me ?

h.

-

to: heeya

hello h

How are you feeling now? The way you describe how your moods shift with your condition, how they affect your sleep and the way you react to others was very clear and helpful in understanding what life is like for you.

I'm glad you are finding the joy in small, simple things -  have you had  any good or special moments since you last contacted us? 

Don't worry that we will ever get tired of you because  that won't happen. We are here for as long as you need us, especially when you feel tired and low.

Jo

-

to: jo.

from: heeya.

hey jo,

i didn't get a chance to write back to you. i also never got to opening your last email.

i read through the last couple conversations and i did laugh a little. maybe that's what happens when you grow out of situations, things, people, yourself even. 

it's been 2 months since i wrote to you. not that everything's been peachy, mind you. it's just that i've learnt how to deal with things a little. the process of that is never pretty. everything i have let go has claw marks on it.

my anxiety is better now. i'm a little sad, but my body is working. a little better. sometimes i get sad, but i'd rather deal with a sadness that is self induced. 

interacting with people and setting boundaries is new for me. i've never really known where to place people. whether i'm supposed to have a backup plan in case shit hits the fan. i'm learning. maybe if i had a more peopley girlhood, things would have been different. my solitude has made me more self contained than i would like.

i trust myself when i say it is unsafe for me to form relationships with people. often, as a result of my isolation, it becomes a distorted relationship with the self. there are multiple factors too tangled up for me to bring out. too much for me to understand even with all my depth and perception.

more than that, there is a certain deficiency that brings me back to the same situations i have lived through, over and over again, across oceans across timelines. 

until i have that figured out, i won't ever escape this perdition.

to the next person asking me why i don't trust or why i don't get close, i simply don't. 

it's not because of all the people, or my mood disorder, or my parents.

i, simply don't.

i'm very happy in my own company. i always have been :) 

that doesn't mean i'm closed off and voluntarily cutting myself off from the plethora of people and things and life doesn't work isolated, yada yada. it means i'm just comfortable, and i like living without the risk. i'm growing out of the want for risk.

and i really don't let people in. because if i do, the expectation sets in me that the stay is unconditional. 

somewhere there's a good tortoise metaphor for this.

-

i think the beauty i saw in words got too disfigured for me to keep.

it is tiring now, when i get asked why i hold doubt. or why i interpret the negatives of it.

in a world like so, most nice things are either paid for, or hollow. 

and every experience enforces that all the intellect and art and profoundness is only so in the eyes of the perceived. it is tricky when the one perceiving has learnt to romanticize bad things to keep living amidst it.

i would call it distortion rather than a delusion. 

endearment is overrated and short lived. like candy left outside the fridge.

-

thank you.

it is nice, having you.

jo march could never write like that. 

maybe i prefer you to her.

-

see you soon,

h.