Complete in the company of solitude.....

Off and on I have realized that I am quite the feminist, even if not to a point of extremity, but definitely not to the liking of many. I possibly wasn't so right from the beginning, but time and tide have brought about quite a few changes in me. Probably its nothing unusual.....that's the basic nature of time....to bring about change, for the better or for worse. People who have known me since those early days, might agree to my personal observation that I have changed drastically in many aspects.....from being the soft, docile, reserved and shy person to one who now voices out her opinion loud and clear, sometimes to the displeasure of many around J, one who is very vocal about her standpoint irrespective of what others would feel or think about her based on that.....I guess I have become sort of unapologetic about being ME....now if this is seriously a complete turn over, or just a facade to handle the rough tides in the ocean of life, while deep down I am still the coy one I visibly was at some point of time.....I still don't know!

Coming back to the point of being 'quite the feminist'....given this, I would any day choose to tread a singular path rather than fall back in line with others to simply have the comfort of company. Of course easier said than done....there are still numerous roadblocks every time I decide or wish to take the road less taken....sometimes I make it, while sometimes I am still forced down by pressures of societal norms and emotional harnesses.

For the few (or many) times that I have actually been able to take the off beat course, I have realized a very subtle but extremely basic truth that goes with human existence.....I will not term it as a need, because it is possible to survive sans it, but it still is a very elementary instinct, that being the longing for companionship. 

I realized this through a lot of encounters amongst which, is a small incident that I would like to bring up in this context. Having been known as an animal lover, I had a birthday gift of a lone fish as a pet from one of my friends early this year. Although happy, I was also extremely apprehensive about taking care of this fragile creature as my complete past pet experience lay with pooches and felines. Nevertheless, I tried my best to give him the best of whatever I could gather about his needs. Things went well for quite a few months with occasional bouts of disturbance, but eventually falling back to normal. In all these days that this lone tiny living being was with me, every time I was alone in the house due to professional commitments of my better half, although confined to his area of a few gallons of water....he gave me a sense which said "someone is there"....an unexplained sense of company. However, a few days back when inspite of all the efforts to keep him going, I lost him, the same house and the same situation of staying alone in the house gave me an unpleasant sensation of being totally on my own....ALONE!!

Given a set of circumstances and situations in life, isolation or existence in solitude might appear to be an inevitable and also a nonpareil solution. It takes a mighty and free spirited heart to embrace the decision of solitary existence leaving behind all the shackles that are meant to bind you up with your surroundings of live and inanimate objects. At this juncture of life, being on the wrong side of the thirty mark, and also having become the sort of person who is unapologetic about being herself, I admit that I prefer to be on my own and live life on my own terms and given the choice and the chance I would choose to do so any day. But at the same time, there is this unseen and unknown apprehension,sitting pretty somewhere on my mind, of living a completely solitary life.

Solitude has always been a very captivating idea to me right from my early years. As a teenager, one of my favourite poems had always been 'The Solitary Reaper' by William Wordsworth. I am sure most people would have read this poem at some point in life. The idea of a young woman reaping and singing a sad song to herself alone in a field somehow just caught my attention, never to leave J. I also have a couple of favourite quotes on solitude that go as below -

"Solitude is painful when one is young, but delightful when one is more mature", this one by Albert Einstein and another one by Henry David Thoreau that goes like "I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude"......coming of age in life has enabled me to strongly relate to the idea churned out by these quotes.....somehow making me feel liberated, complete and at peace in the company of SOLITUDE.....a feeling that is so endearing yet unnerving!!!