Uncomfortably Numb

Why do people enter our lives? Some mythologies theorise that every person we know in this life, we knew in our last and will know in our next. But, what’s the point? Why do we love people who’ll leave anyway? Why do our hearts latch onto them so that when they leave, the pain manifests as a chest ache? Why do we meet people who paint the sky a loving colour of purple-pink just for it to start raining? 

I once met a boy whom I couldn’t have; I couldn’t call mine. It was a useless crush. Useless why? Because every time we spoke, I smiled in a way that didn’t hurt my cheeks, which meant that smile was genuine. But whenever the call ended, a profound sadness would overcome me. My feelings felt redundant, useless and purposeless. He was someone else’s. Where I loved what I felt for him, he loved what he felt for her. 

They say when your life feels like it’s falling apart, it’s because it’s going to rebuild to resemble something more beautiful. No one talks about the gap between that time. That time when the holes in your heart that are meant to hold people and love them just feel like…holes. You feel the weight of every single thing you once held dear first strip away, fibre by fibre, so that each pull and tug hurts, and by that point, you're so exhausted from feeling only pain that you wish to feel nothing at all. You want to find solace in the numbness, but you know you won’t.

It’s worse for people like me, who give everyone and everything their all. We vacillate between wanting numbness and wanting love. There’s no middle ground because half-heartedness simply doesn’t work. Videos and reels of “How to detach yourself in 10 days in 10 easy steps” don’t resonate because how do you stop giving your heart to people? 

So when I feel too much, I race to feel nothing at all. I would pay someone to take away my phone and give me work to do. Maybe I’ll teach kids, be a librarian, or work at a country club. I’ll be the protagonist in an Imtiaz Ali film who eats her lunch alone. When you’re away from people, even those you love, no one can leave. 

Sometimes, I wonder where the answers to my questions lie. Or whether there even is a singular answer to every question. Sometimes, I wish I had dials on myself that I could adjust: tone down the feelings for that boy I have a crush on, and tone down the excitement for things that will most likely never happen. Isn’t it easier?