Black boxed Happiness

Hi Aditi,

How are you doing? It’s been long since I heard from you. How is everything going on, work, family? Is your office still after that signal or did you change to the new building? Hope everyone at home is healthy and fine. I wanted to tell you something, my dear. So just thought I will write. Remember how often we used to write earlier? Those were real days of friendship. I really miss you, dear. 

You know right, I loved to paint as a kid. My dad bought me colours whenever he could. He was delighted every time I showed him the paintings. My mom, she made those paintings into a scrapbook and said she would gift it to ‘him’, who would marry me.

I still wonder why! I painted when I was happy, sad, lost in thoughts, worried, tensed, shaken and whenever I wanted to.As I grew older, I found it difficult to paint and solve trigonometry in parallel. You see, I loved angles, shapes and curves, but not their math. I loved the colours- every possible shade of them, but I was never bothered about the science behind it.

But I was to prioritize maths and science over colours, shapes and curves.I grew more inwards as more of trigonometry ate me, more silent as more inert gases covered me, more invisible as more optics hit me, and more weak in heart as the more I shaded its diagram. All I cared about was the colours in those pie charts or the periodic table, the light prisms emitted, the curves of digits or letters or images of the respiratory system!My brain was good, touch wood, I passed every exam I appeared. I, like all of them, became a graduate. And even a post-graduate. I got a job, got married.

My mom forgot her promise to gift that scrapbook. I will not blame her, for I myself forgot about it. I lived a happy life! But that happiness was defined by whom? I don’t know. I own a car and now a flat, though on EMI. But I have no colour pencils, no paints, no canvas. Sometimes I feel like I have become old to paint anymore! These days I just spent as the regular me.

Now you will be confused about what this ‘regular me’ is, right? Listen, starting the day with an alarm – recollecting the list of ‘things to do’ – being in the kitchen for some reason – making some random food – being in the office, with no idea why is that excel sheet is even open in my desktop – back in the flat, being a person who is just meant to be there – aren’t these symptoms of just that ‘regular me? This is not me. I can not recognize myself.I want you to please realize that I might burst out anytime. I want to wake up before the alarm, recollecting the same list, which I need to do, but with a smile! I want to cook some good food. Drink my coffee before it is cold. I want to know why there are excel sheets, and then make those reports with some pie charts and coloured cells.

I wish to come back home every day and be me. I want you to understand all of these and tell me, what I need to do.Please tell me that I need to find those lost boxes of paints. I need to recall the combinations of colours that would be perfect in any canvas. I need to get the canvas set, and I might even paint the things you prefer. I will still smile and be happy. You too will be my dear, because you will meet that old Aditi once again.Dear, this is what I wanted to tell you. So, I am blending the paints and getting the canvas set. And all I want is you to smile and say ‘go ahead, kid’. 

Yours lovingly,Aditi.