Love & Let Go - Awaiting

Do you remember the first moment when you learnt that Santa Claus isn’t real? Or, the day when you learnt that the favorite soft-toy you used to cuddle as you fell asleep, or the small soldier that you used to treat as your favorite action hero, or that toy gun which made you feel so protected and daring, were all mere illusions, just pieces of many materials, to help fan the fantasies of the nascent minds? Or, the time when you learnt that animals cannot talk and behave as we humans do, as we have been always taught in all those childhood stories, which are nothing but ways of instilling morals and principles in us?

As we grow up, our toys, our favorite cartoons, our beliefs in fairies, our fears about the monsters in darkness, all of these get discarded. While being disillusioned about monsters and demons does not bother one much, the disenchantment about one’s toys, fairies and angels, does kill a part of us. All of us slough off that childhood innocence, like a snake sheds its old skin, to grow into adulthood. It is an inevitable process in the life of any human being. Knowing that the doll is just that, a doll, and never was and never will be a real companion is a pain that all of us need to face. But it is an unconscious process. As I once read somewhere, ‘we grow up in the space between two days - the day when we used to play with our toys and the day we stopped playing with them’.
 

While this pain or process is a natural thing, not all of us take easily to it. Some people just agree and let go simply, while for some people it is some serious eye-opener. Learning that it was not a fairy that exchanged one’s tooth for a few coins but one’s mother, learning that it wasn’t Santa Claus that struggled through the chimney, but one’s father that piled up gifts and toys near the Christmas tree, these are all things that can strip the fascinations off a young mind. But, some children do cling on to their beliefs, even as they grow up and enter into adolescence. And the ridicule that such believing minds need to withstand can be soul-crushing.
 

Imagine having to face such ridicule for many years, especially when one is an adult that still happens to believe in fairy tales? The only difference is, the person in question does not believe in tooth fairies or Santa Claus, but in the presence of one’s soul-mate.
 

‘Love isn’t all that great as you think of it to be’, ‘love vanishes after an year or so into marriage’, ‘there are no ideal relationships’, ‘you cannot remain perfect companions’, ‘there is no one called a soul-mate or a dream-companion’ – all these and more. Now, I am not here to argue in favor of celluloid-type romantic musings, because one does understand, as one grows, that love isn’t always about red roses, clasped hands, and walking into the sunset, but about ensuring that the bond does not grow stale, commitment does not turn into confinement, and one another’s presence isn’t taken for granted just because it is secured, and to value one another’s presence instead of treating it as a given, only to regret it when one of them leaves – for a while or forever.

To be continued...