It's Autumn's Day 🍁

It feels surreal, and quite old but what I know now is definitely something I don't wish I knew at sixteen or eighteen or twenty. Because what's the point of growing up if you know early on what you're meant to learn with time and age? 

I do not understand when people make reels about '10 things I wish I knew when I was 20' because thank god I didn't know anything I know now at twenty because how exactly would I learn new things or have all the experiences I did back then if I was already aware of the right decisions to make? Mistakes are such an integral part of life and experiences are exactly what we will remember. If we don't experience it, its as good as my last semester's syllabus in my memory. Experiences ensure you remember your learnings for a long time and can actually apply them as and when needed. 

At sixteen, I just hoped my birthday would end soon. At eighteen I was happy and glowing but I kept wishing for one birthday call that never really came. At twenty, I was content with where I was in life, unaware that everything will soon fall apart and I'd never have everyone I love under one roof on my most important day and that's why I'm glad I didn't know back then what I do today and I don't know today what I'll figure out two years from now and so on. 

Life doesn't need to be planned out, life doesn't need to be taken lightly enough to fumble its best moments but it also doesn't need to be taken too seriously that you forget its meant to loosen up and live. 

But what I really mean to express is, I have met so many versions of myself and I know you did too. You probably don't like celebrating birthdays or maybe you think its no more as fun as it once used to be and I get it but I hope you celebrate the versions of you that survived through the testaments of life that once upon a time felt torturous and impossible to get through. I hope you see what a strong , resilient soul you behold and I hope you love yourself for it. Life is unbearable for all of us, its the same story in different scripts, the same poem with mingled verses, but you are neither the story nor the poem. You are neither the plot, nor the verse. You're above and beyond it, you are what makes it up and you are where it all ends. You choose what the next chapter is going to be like and that is your power. 

Sometimes, we meet people we think we cannot live without, they become the sunlight coming through your window after a rainy day, or the flowers at your feet when you walk out your home, they become the sounds of the water rushing towards the shore, they become the very fabric of your soul and so when its time for them to leave, you resist it like a body thrown in water resists drowning. In panic until the realization of its inevitability dawns and then in acceptance once you know there's no way out. 

All I hope is you've lived enough life before you drown that your soul remembers to resurface. Allow yourself the grief of loss but also allow yourself the faith in life that you will come back a changed human, changed because now you carry remnants of someone you deeply cared for within you, changed because now, a part of them lives and beats within you. Just like a poem would always be a part of me, it would stem from the depths of my soul and surface when triggered by the scenario universe creates for me. You too, can make art out of life, just please never ever give up on it no matter what. 

There's a book by Paulo Coelho called 'Brida' which I often revisit for it explains this very quote from his other work. The heart has its own ways and it will not be quietened by your attempts so its best to listen to what your heart wants. But don't mistake the heart's wish from the brain's attempts to seek comfort in known patterns. Your brain would want you to return to a known source of pain instead of an unknown source of peace just because it would rather choose the comfort of memory than the discomfort of life sometimes. Your heart's wish is what guides you towards exploring different facets of the world and of your own self. It tells you to look deeper within as well as around. Sometimes the universe also plays a part in it, it brings you constantly back to a truth, a place, or a person until you accept that you were meant to be there. There's always a reason for everything, it just comes to you at the right time. 

Happiest Birthday to all the versions of Autumn I had the honor to live through,

The transition from Dhyana to Autumn Rose to D to Dhyana again was definitely worth it. I cherish each one of them and I'll forever be in awe of what they were each capable of giving back to the world and to me. 

I hope you, my dearest reader, find the same love for yourself that you probably already have for others, or for your art or for your dreams. I hope you remember to take care of the very soul that it all stems from and I hope you forgive yourself time and again for the things you could not do. For regret is the worst sort of heartbreak.