The Waiting Game

Expectation, they say, is the root of suffering…

And if you ask me, they’re not wrong! But then, am I the right person to decide? My opinion could be biased because my expectations have almost always led me to pain. But then, there are those in the world too, who know the recipe to make Happiness, with just the correct amount of Expectation and the accurate amount of Commitment. (If you happen to be one of them, please do share the recipe for the benefit of those who are hopelessly starved)

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Before M painted my world red, I had actually never expected anything like that to happen in my life. I never thought it was possible, given my circumstances. And yet, when he came, I surprised myself with the realization that I had waited for it all along. There he was – an impossible dream that became my reality; but even before I could get a hang of the new wings my life had given me, he had turned back into a dream, more impossible than ever before. I had expected too much, asked for too much, and life had shown me where I belonged.

Night after day after night after day, I used to wait to treasure each syllable uttered by him for me, wait to capture each glance he would be kind enough to throw my way, wait to cherish every little touch of his on my skin. Yes, I was hopeless, I was helpless. I had completely lost myself in that waiting game, so much so, that I didn’t even realize that soon, I was the only one playing the game. The waits had slowly become longer, and eventually, turned endless.

A little part of me, perhaps, still plays that game, and I wish I could, but I just don’t have the heart to kill that part. I heard this somewhere… and I know how true it is:

“The most difficult to do in the world is not killing a man, but killing your dream”

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VS was not a dream. Nothing after M was. Whether anything or anybody could ever be, remains to be seen.

VS was a fantasy though. A passionate fantasy. When I look back at it today, I can remember almost nothing. It has all turned smoky, almost as if it had happened in a faraway place to somebody I don’t know. In fact, I might even be able to make myself believe that it had never happened at all, were it not for the potholes it has left for me on the road to Trust. I do often find myself analyzing those potholes and waiting for answers to pop out of them, even though I know that those answers will change nothing.

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Waiting is a game. It comes packed with excitement, frustration, anticipation, joy, sorrow – every damn thing you look forward to in a sport. And hence, there have to be rules for the Waiting Game.

But I don’t know what they are, or whatever I do know are the wrong ones, for I have certainly always found myself at the losing end of the game… I seem to always start as the one who is waited for, and end as the one who waits. It makes me edgy if I know that someone I care for is WAITING for me. I almost look at it as a punishment to them, and can’t relax until I have ended it for them. And yet, season after season, I find myself serving the very punishment I hate.

There is something certainly wrong somewhere. Is it that I expect too much? Can you be happy if you don’t expect? Can you be human if you don’t expect? If expectation is the root of pain, is it not the source of happiness too? Must I know the rules of this game, to stop losing?

I want to stop Waiting… I’m tired of this game… And there are two ways for my being able to STOP the game… One of them is not in my hands, though… And the one that is, might be just as painful as the game. Yet… I’m sick and tired of this game.