Smeared Love

It was 4 am in the morning; Izza woke up with smeared makeup and colours of forgotten love in her head. She loved those mornings when she woke up to the darkness and no one asked anything from her. When she was under no pressure to exist. This was something of which she was in constant need of. She stood up from her bed following the daily routine and stared at her reflection in the glossed front window while bathing as if to make sure, moment by moment, that she continued to exist. 

All she wanted was to live a life where she could be truly herself, and be okay with that. She had no need for material possessions, money or even close friends. She never understood people very well anyway, and they never seemed to understand her very well either. All she wanted was the chance to be the creator of her own world, her own reality. The thoughts which she loved to think about once, the memories which she held up to the light and viewed from every angle--it suddenly seemed a lot safer for her to lock them in a box now, far from the light of day and throw away the key. 

It was not an act of bitterness but an act of self-preservation. She wanted to run away from the memories of her bitter past, she wanted to disappear somehow. Although she had left the man she loved with madness because he cheated her with many other ladies, but somewhere she still felt guilty; guilty over what might be the condition of her ex(whom she never wanted to leave). 

She was angry at herself and the world and everything in it. She had been hating herself for quite a long time and now it was enough, she had decided to move on. She had decided to go on a rehab camping trip to Nainital with her two best friends Tanya and Dimpy, the two musketeers who had been with her since her early childhood and were her partners in crime. They knew her in and out, although they were unaware why she broke up with the man of her dreams. 

They boarded the flight at 2pm in the afternoon, it was autumn; the springtime of death and Izza’s favourite season. She loved autumn and the redness of leaves, she somehow loved the way the breeze blew during those odd months. Although she was mentally stuck, and she had all these feelings and emotions inside her that she knew she finally had to come to terms with. The three friends sat in the airplane and took a deep sigh of relief, somewhere inside they knew this was the best chance to leave behind old things and have new experiences which would lead them to a better life.

 During the flight they all fell asleep but the bond forged between them was not one that could be broken by absence, distance, or time. And no matter how much more special or beautiful or brilliant or perfect than each friend was then the other, their friendship was irreversibly altered by time and they would always be together. 

When Izza, Tanya and Dimpy reached the camping sight they thought that this was the place their hearts had yearned for. Whole day they played games, trekked along the moist wooden forest paths and talked. They internally felt happy and satisfied. Izza realised that life always does not ends or starts with people, there are adventures waiting to be discovered and feelings waiting to be felt. Her sense of realism helped her to balance her life. She now believed that she could truly change. She learnt that while wounds can be inflicted easily upon those we love, it's often much more difficult to heal them. Yet the process of healing those wounds provided the richest experience of her life, leading her to believe that its possible for her to fall in love all over again even when there’s been a lifetime of disappointment.......