Happy Teachers' Day

Dear Life,

I know what you’re expecting – “you suck”, “you fuck us daily”, “glad it is getting over”, “you couldn’t have been worse” I know, that by now you’re just scrolling past the trolls, memes, and tweets. After all, there’s not much you can do it about but honestly, you aren’t that bad.

You must be thinking why I’m writing this letter to you suddenly after this 21 years 7 months and 20 days, reason is “Teachers’ day” is around the corner and you have always been a teacher to me. I know last few years didn’t go my way, you brought me E grades, my first heartbreak, depression, anxiety, and what not. You came along and handed me blank page and a pillow. So I cried on both.

No matter how good or bad the situation is, you have always taught me something. No matter how rudely or nicely I behave with you, you gently handed my belief. My forever’s, my happy endings, my perfect partner and a dream. “here you go”, you said, “play with these”. Fail, fall, lose, fight, rise. Just don’t let them go”.

There were nights when I cried myself to sleep counting the no of friends I’d lost and there were those when I lay awake till 3 in the morning talking to people who’d called to wish me a “happy birthday”. I still can’t say ‘I love you’ to the love of my life without taking 3 deep breaths. And I don’t know how to spell ‘forever’ anymore.

I’ve seen relationships crumbling like sand castles. I’m scared when my best friend calls me at 2 in the morning, terrified that he’ll be sobbing and drunk on the other side of the phone telling me how yet again someone said “it’s over”, just like that. There were days when my bathroom mirror saw a tear stricken face that still won’t let go of a lost lover, and then there were those when I sneaked into the college washroom to do a happy dance holding my marks sheet. And wait I still haven’t any “Back” in engineering.

So trust me when I say that you haven’t been that bad because I’ve also seen a man still writing poems for the woman he left. I’ve seen the woman shed a tear every time a certain song plays. I’ve seen people confess how they wished they’d hugged longer before the goodbyes, that they should’ve stayed, should’ve cried. When the loud music ends, I see them holding their whiskey glass, and staring into the distance as if raising a toast to the ‘what if’s’.

Trust me when I say that you haven’t been that bad, because if I still hold the beliefs you handed me, I’ll pass them to people who have let go of theirs. So a very HAPPY TEACHERS’ DAY.

Yours,

Not a sincere student