Tears of Joy

"He loves me… He loves me not… He loves me… He loves me not… He loves me… He loves me not…!!!

The same litany has been playing over my head for the past couple of days…

Does he love me? Or am I just another person to him?? Does he consider me as significant?? Does he love someone else..?? Is someone else more important to him than I am? I am sure he loves me… I am sure he considers me important… Has he not told me that himself so many times… Every time I snuggle up to him and rest my head on his broad shoulders and he soothes away the creases on my forehead with his hands, Every time I hold his hand and he looks at me with those patient eyes willing me to open myself up to him… Every time I find excuses to be near him and just have him touch me… be it a ruffling of the hair, a tweaking of the nose, a pat on the back, a tug on my ponytail, or just plain holding my hand to show solidarity…. It feels so good… it feels like I belong… it feels like I am wanted…

We’ve had fights… and like how!! We’ve fought like cats and dogs over issues so trivial that now when I think of it, it seems so funny! Of course that’s not to say we’ve not had serious fights… fights that have left both of us in tears… fights that have scarred our minds in angst… but it always healed… no slight cracks… no gashes or remnants!! But now when I think of it… I feel a strange kind of alarm… an odd panic that rushes through me when I think of the future…a sense of dread that fills me up from within..!! Maybe he did take it a little more seriously… the fights… maybe he actually has not forgotten about them…he always did have an elephantine memory… (A faltered smile!)

It used to be so easy for us to understand each others’ nuances… a glance, a look, an expression, a swift meeting of the eyes, a smile tugging the corners of the cheeks… it used to be so easy, so uncomplicated!! But now… I don’t know!! Somehow after what happened I can’t seem to find that special connection that we shared… it’s almost like it’s withered away, shriveled into nothingness… a vague feeling of emptiness growing inside me… There’s a distance that seems to be creeping up between us… I can feel it when accidently our fingers brush… it’s almost like he’s not so bothered about the aloofness between us…

Ever since he announced it yesterday at the dining table, as smoothly as knife slicing into butter, just like his words sliced into my heart…my heart has been thumping loudly… there is SOMEONE ELSE! Someone else he has found... someone better than me to spend time with… someone who would now give him company for everything… now he would not depend on me…!! He would forget about me!! Or would he… he announced it so calmly yesterday… but I caught the look of happiness on his face! That fleeting expression, the mindless gaze… I had not seen it very often… maybe once or twice in our entire time together!!... What could I say to that??

I am happy for him but now my happiness is gone right out of the window… I feel jealous of the person he has chosen… envious of her… they go everywhere together these days… shopping, walks, movies, choosing invitation cards, buying stuff for their new life together… couple of times they invited me too… but it tore me apart to see the closeness they shared… I declined later on…. I did not wish to spread my feeling of gloom onto their lives too…

I saw the first draft of the invitation…

I felt tears cloud my vision…

My brother was getting married…

Getting married to his long time sweetheart…

The wedding invitation glazed over with my tears…."