At the brink...

A lot can happen over a short period of time, the clock ticks at its own leisurely pace, making you ache with untold agony for a moment far better than today and yet the cruel hands of the chiming time-piece work at its own accord. You spend each day in humdrum monotony and yet before you know it a long span has passed before you, unknown to your conscious mind. You are somehow in the same place where you first started your frustrated contemplation, yet so much has changed, something’s more subtle than the rest, others enter your life like a force to reckon with.
I have been insanely busy with work, for the first time in a long time; I am actually satisfied in more ways than one. One of my life long dreams may just shape into a lucid reality and I am absolutely stunned and awed at my good fortune. I know that people actively work long and hard to get to a place that I am at. Every conscious moment and effort single handedly focused on his or her dreams and aspirations. I am not strong enough to possess that fierce determination, in fact I am rather frightened to exhibit or even contemplate such fervor. I float in an out of my dreams and nightmares, often lost in thought, spinning tales of a glorious satisfied existence, yet too weak to make it a stark reality. Yet here I am, at this very moment, at brink of a fantastic break that other would kill for. It almost seems unfair to those poor bastards that have tried so hard and yet struggle incessantly. I almost feel like I am unworthy of it, that the success and satisfaction that may come my way at the end of it all seems undeserved. I want to run away from it all, give up mid-way for a continued existence of mediocrity, believing that I don’t deserve better, yet every cell of my being throbs for it.
Although the opportunity was unexpected, I have struggled with it, spending every waking moment shaping a tale that may metamorphoses into a spectacle that may bring unfathomable joy or great shame. Right now I almost disregard the consequences of my actions, they almost seem irrelevant, the process excites it, it gives me the confidence that I have lacked for a while. I know for sure, that I am capable nurturing my desire for story telling, whether it is something that the whole world may marvel some day, or a few indistinct scrawls that may remain hidden in an aging note book away from prying eyes of the world is secondary. I have the capacity to write, that’s good enough for me, at least for now.
Maybe one of the reasons I am so afraid is somewhere deep down within I feel like I don’t really deserve to be happy. Be it love, life or career. I have enough skeletons hidden in my closet that make me shudder in my quietest moments. Acts of intolerable cruelty exhibited on my part under a façade of goodness. For all my lack of faith in God and the universe, I am a firm believer in Karma. Whatever I do be it good or bad is going to affect my existence, in this life. I fear that I have cashed out on my karmic balance and all that remains ahead is great darkness. Every time I close my eyes I can almost imagine being alone forever, it’s frightening and yet somehow comfortable, it’s as if I have almost accepted its inevitability. It’s my punishment for abandoning dad when he got sick, instead of sitting by his bedside and comforting him in his moments of excruciating pain, I selfishly ran away in the arms of “H” to seek my own solace and peace, unsuccessfully. At the end of it all, I managed to ruin two relationships, one that mattered the most and the other that mattered significantly. I was so caught up in my own grief and misery that I failed to notice the misery that I had caused to those around me. Mom was at her bravest, never giving up hope, doing the best that she could to keep him alive, I did not contribute one bit to ease her suffering. I don’t even know what “Mits” was going through, I never bothered to ask, I always thought she was too young to fully comprehend that her father was slowly dying. After all she was only 12, do children really understand these things at such a tender age? I wouldn’t know, I honestly can’t remember what it were like to be 12 once. I was so glad when he moved in with grandma; it was a relief not to have him around all the time, always so angry and melancholy. I was guilty at my relief but glad he was out of sight, yet he always lingered in my mind, still does, after all these years.
I wasn’t there when he died, college has whisked me away to America, I remember walking into my dorm after my uncle gave me the news, I forced a few tears out of me, it seemed like the right thing to do. I felt hollow and empty; my roommate “L” gazed at my ashen face and immediately knew something was wrong; I shed a few more tears as I told her the news. We went to Joe’s room to seek distraction; I stayed for a while but couldn’t sit around for long. I stumbled to the swing outside Adam tower and sat there for a long time, slightly swinging back and forth, my mind completely numb. I walked to the library around midnight, the campus was deserted, I stood in front of the giant gothic entrance admiring the magnificence of its structure in the hue of the tungsten lights. I crawled into bed fifteen minutes later, after setting my alarm clock for my seven thirty class. It was the longest walk that I have ever taken in my life.
I don’t think I ever properly grieved for my father, yet I grieve for him every single day. When I sit across a cute guy at the café, I turn the other way because I don’t feel like I deserve to be attractive to someone else, when I fail to peruse the men that show interest because I don’t think I deserve to ever be loved, when I occasionally kiss my best friend who does not love me, I feel like unrequited love is all I should ever get, when I loose a job or an assignment and meet with failure professionally I almost see it as divine justice. Sometimes I wish so desperately to have just a few more moments with him, just so that I could tell him how much I love him and how incredibly sorry I am.
When I occasionally hear stories of how miserable he was with grandma how she slowly but surely zapped his morale and will to live, I simmer with anger, yet back then I didn’t so much as bat an eyelash in question or protest when he left, relieved that he was out of here.
I am so damn close to almost getting what I want; I am scared that things will fuck up because of my past mistakes, I will once again be punished for my cruelty.
I wish so desperately to know that I am forgiven, that he still loves me, that I deserve all the happiness and success in spite of the errors of my ways, a few answers that I will never get.