Better Late than Never

All our young lives we search for someone to love, someone to make us complete. We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope, all the while wondering if somewhere, somehow, someone perfect is searching for us.
-The Wonder Years

There are thoughts that force me to do some soul searching, especially when the preoccuptations of the day have passed, when I am by myself, flirting with my thoughts, juggling them like circus balls in my mind. I wont say I am haunted by them all the time, but I know they are there, at the back of my mind, floating around, poking into my self, probing, asking me questions, getting no answers and then mocking me for my impuissance.

I am not troubled by most of these thoughts or questions, whether they are regarding my career, my accomplishments, my bank balance or my crappy middle class tin box on wheels. These are rather ephemeral in nature and I usually cast them aside or give myself a pep talk on being optimistic and how the night is darkest before dawn and blah...blah...blah...you get the picture. But one thought screws with my head relentlessly, it makes my mind feel like a block of wood going through an industrial circular saw blade. Why is this you ask? Well it's this reoccuring thought of finding or should I say the possibility of finding that oh so illusive soul mate, if anything like that exists at all.

For most people, this question is either normally answered by an affair that stuck or a teenage romance that matured as it hit adulthood or an arranged union organized and in some cases thrust upon them by their all knowing-supervising parents, with all due respect of course. But for the few unlucky ones like me, who are still searching and getting old in the process, this becomes an endless wait for a person whose number of qualifiers become inversely proportional to the time we have to wait to find them. Because as you see, the longer your clock keeps ticking and the more you have to wait, the more you are willing to compromise and drop some of your (spawned out of fantasy, dreadfully reminiscent of romantic movies or songs and idealistic) stipulations.

But the real problem is when you end up like me, unwilling to compromise and forever ready to believe that just like I am searching for someone, that someone, somewhere is searching for me. Not ready to accept someone unless I feel they are the one for me. I know it sounds delusional and impractical and borderline childish and people who know me would probably not believe that I even endorse such a viewpoint, and I don't...atleast most of the time I don't. I'm Working, keeping busy, meeting friends, wrestling with whatever life throws at me. But there are moments...of self doubt, when you have a bad day, when everything you do goes wrong, when the world around you seems to be falling apart, when you can't tell anybody else in the world the conflicts inside you...that's when you wish that there was someone who you could turn to, someone who would listen, the comfort of looking into their eyes, knowing that you are safe and nothing else but you matters to them. Even when you have a bad hair day or look like something a herd of cows left behind, they will think you look your adorable best. It's when the realization of not having anyone to break your fall dawns, that you begin to comprehend how alone you actually are. The feeling doesn't last for too long, but it lingers. And that lingering for how ever long it decides to stay, leaves you feeling a little hollow and a little more incomplete everytime.

Now I am not saying that everybody needs that someone to feel complete or fulfilled, you never know they might make your life more complicated and frivolous. But just by virtue of being there for you, they make a difference. Anyone who says they don't, is just lying to themselves. Even the toughest among us need support, some times more than they will let us know. In any case, it makes the world a lot less scarier place to live in...period!

So will my endless wait for that person end? I dont know!...no one can answer that question...maybe it will..it might as well happen tomorrow...or maybe I will have to wait a lot longer. Of all the things in my life I have no control over, this is something that I am in charge of, or atleast I live in the illusion that I am. And I will wait for as long as it takes. How will I know when I meet the one?...well I guess I will just have to trust my instincts and as far as I know myself...when the right one comes along...I will just know! I might make a few mistakes here and there...but find her I will. And when I do or better still...she finds me...I will ask her one pertinent question...

What the hell took you so long?!!

and I think I know what she will say..."I got here as fast I could!"