Time Flies

How time flies, doesn’t it? It’s 11^th December again. Life has reversed its gears from happiness to sadness and back and forth countless number of times. I sit at my desk looking at my life in retrospect; it’s almost midnight. Through closed eyes, I see a quick flashback of my life. What I remember distinctly is that chilly night of 11^th December 2013. I didn’t attend Choto dida and Choto dadu’s marriage anniversary celebration because I had to prepare notes for a boy in my class: the one who didn’t budge from not only breaking my heart but also abusing and gaslighting me. Even through closed eyes, I can see all of it, clear as a daylight. The first day we saw each other, the day he told me he had a girlfriend and I stopped talking to him, the day he showed up at my physics tuition and then the last time we ever met when he tricked me into believing that to love means to touch. Ironically, he never loved me, but asked me to prove my love by letting him in through the fragile naivety that covered my soul, mind and body. Although years later when he apologized, I told him that I have forgiven him, truth is I can never forgive him! He adultered my soul (and every belief that I held close to it). I will never forget the lackluster I saw, when I looked up in his eyes as he was still in the middle of manhandling me. I do not remember how long I foraged to find some emotions in his dark brown eyes that day, but I do remember that I had delved deep enough into them to not only realize that there was no love, but also no sympathy or compassion for me in them. I will never forget the last day we spoke on the phone, and I ravaged my heart, cried in pain for him, all until I heard his only reply ‘You deserved it!’ I hung up. There was nothing more to speak about. Life changed for me from that point onwards. In a few months, I unraveled the part of me that loved writing, I poured my heart into research and social work (an amalgamation that later became the purpose of my life), I found love and got heartbroken several times for a decade henceforth.

And yet, years after years after years, I would still repeat that little simple sentence to justify every time something bad would happen to me : 'You deserved it!' Such is the power of trauma, that it transcends time, space and being.

Suddenly, jolted back to reality, I feel a tear escape hurriedly through my cheeks. I open my eyes as epiphany sets in. It’s 2022. The bad dreams are gone. The bad dreams are long gone. Only its obstinate vestiges will never stop adultering my soul (and every belief that I hold close to it).