Heartfully Holding

Song & Notion - Where Does The Good Go

I hoard. 

I lug.

And eventually, I tire.

About a year ago today, my life traveled across the Atlantic ocean for over two months and finally reached my home in Mumbai in an unbroken, unharmed condition. My life meaning my stuff stuffed in two large boxes (Ok fine, and a suitcase too!). And this was after I myself had traveled back with three fully-loaded suitcases in my last trip from the US, after having wrapped my life up. And let it also be known that the final trip was after having already dumped the first load of my things in two bags in my penultimate trip from the US to India. The final piece of information I would like to add hither is that NONE of all this stuff included any utensils or furniture.

So it must be clear to you by now that I come with a lot of baggage. A complete cliche´, I know, but it's true - literally and figuratively. It's quite embarrassing that after living the life of a consultant in and out of a carry-on bag, I never mastered the art of traveling light. But in my defense, I did get quite better at it thanks to my Monday to Thursday consulting schedule. It was only in my personal travel that I ended up lugging bags that must have seemed to be filled with logs. 

That's the 'lot of baggage' side of me. The other side is the hoarding side. This one is a bit tricky for I love myself for it at times. Remember how I mentioned that the stuff that came in almost 10 full-size suitcases wasn't utensils or furniture, but my things?

My things - oh my things! 

Now I can understand owning excessive clothes and books (which does account for about 60% of my things) but what sometimes makes me bite my nails is the thought that I own way too many baubles and trinkets collected over a long period of time - and preserved and carried along with me to all my different habitats. Of course, I can tell you a wonderful story behind each and every object. For instance, them plastic beverage cups from Wicked and Hamilton that were safely packed and paid for to be brought across the Atlantic Ocean. Plastic beverage cups, which in the first place, need not have been purchased, forget preserved. But there they were amidst all my other things. And yes, when I unpacked them I know memories of the wonderful times came rushing back to me. Which is what makes it harder for me to be hard on me for hoarding things. I mean I am sure we all own things that are beyond ancient, hold on to maybe a pair of jeans which we know cannot and should not function as even a rag, a blanket that should be burned lest it houses insects and germs over all those comfortably snuggly nights, a bag that is so tattered and ragged that any new mending is as good as creating an entirely new item in itself. We all do it, right? So I should just let go of all this wondering and pondering, correct?

Yep! Them golden words.

Let it go.

It must be almost a decade now that I have gone on dates and maybe I have not been prepping myself well all these years. For the other day, I was asked a question on my first date that I had never been asked before ever. 

"What would you say is your biggest flaw?"

I will be honest, I was impressed. It wasn't what do you think is your AOD (thank God for that!) or what do you hate about yourself; it was a safe establishment of the premise that we are all flawed, followed by a genuine curiosity about me. And therefore I answered with equal sincerity.

"I don't let go easily."

I really don't. 

And some times it proves to be my strength while at times it dooms me. The earliest begrudging memory I have is of me losing my crazy ball(remember those?!) and sulking over it for the entire of the vacation with my family; and when my mother tried to make me happy by buying a new one and pretending to have found it, I managed to sulk a further ten days as I could 'recognize' it wasn't mine! I have mourned lost pens, scowled over torn books, lamented dented water bottles and of course struggled to let go of some people too. Take Lexie Grey of Grey's Anatomy, for instance. Howled and how (after emptying a full Vodka bottle though) after her death - and then burst into tears randomly a few weeks later too. But on a far less dramatic and slightly saner note, I have managed to hold my emotions for people, real people in my life for the entirety of my life thus far. Happy emotions and sadly the sad emotions too. Both come with their obvious pros and cons. I can still laugh as hard as I did almost two decades ago over something silly my friend had said, my heart still bursts with joy and happiness over a special moment and I still can feel the hurt of disappointment by someone.

We all create memories and carry them along with us and relive them too. But reliving is different from living in the past, isn't it? That is the fine line I have always missed. Especially when it comes to unhappy or dissatisfying moments. All this hoarding and lugging around has its tiny bursts of joy but most of it generally stems from incompleteness or fear of losing the good. And I can vouch for this because there have been times when I have had to let go of things in my life and I have done so with absolutely zero hesitation or sorrow. Simply because I know I had truly moved on.

Of course, there are things in my life that I still haven't moved on from - the book someone never returned, the call that never got responded, the email that never got a reply (yes, I write personal emails too at times besides messages). And those are the times when I remind myself of all the good times in my life that I have easily forgotten as well. For no matter how much I hoard, how much I hold on to, there still are those precious golden moments of my life that simply seem like a haze now. Moments that seemed so significant and ever-lasting once, and now they seem like someone else's life story. Makes me wonder, that after all this hoarding and not letting go, how easily have some of the best moments of my life simply become a blur now. Some of the good merely stays on, some evolves, some gradually fades while some good abruptly takes off.

Odd isn't it? The good vanishes some times. Literally goes poof! What can one do about it?

Crying is one way to handle that unbearable loss of the good in your life. Do that; I myself do it really well and quite often. But then there is something else too. Listen to Tegan and Sara!

Every time I have shared the lyrics of 'Where Does The Good Go' by Tegan and Sara on social media, I have received concerned and consoling replies. Yes, the words are quite sad, must admit. But give the song a shot, will you, next time you wonder what happened to that good in your life. Whenever I have heard the song, it's always brought amusement, curiosity and finally gratitude to my mind about the good things of my past. It helps that while my mental thoughts are on that track and the audio track has its own pop and pump, the visual images I get are of Meredith playing the song to Cristina as a surprise and them breaking into their dance routines. For anyone who has loved these two characters in Grey's Anatomy, this song, despite its morose lyrics, is nothing but a gleeful dancing outbreak. Yes, it ironically does make one wonder Where Did the Good days of Grey's Go, but in the end, it's hard not to smile and groove ridiculously to the tune and let even the good go.

So I don't know if I will ever learn to live and travel light but I know that there is a cheerful lightness that this song brings to me and helps me remind myself that the bad doesn't stay forever just like the good.

But seriously, Where Does The Good Go? :)