Impermanence of Permanence.

It’s that time of the year again. Well that time, when your Facebook is filled with the lovely marriage and honeymoon pictures of your friends. It’s really vibrant, a culmination of the shades of reds and pinks and a bountiful of “awwwww’s”, under the pictures.

This has become more so as the years go by, as you realize people you once played house-house (desi kids playing ghar ghar in the 90’s) are actually settling down in their own Ghar’s. While you may feel happy, sulk or just unworthy of your lonely single confused self, you also secretly take learnings for your wedding, which probably might not happen anytime soon. But still, what’s the harm in dreaming anyways!!

Well some like me, start analyzing their life. Finishing more than a quarter of life, it’s hard to believe how many times we thought of a “forever” with someone, and now that person’s face probably is as vague as your kinder garden memories. And if you are not that lucky, maybe you still remember him, fondly or furiously that is a different question altogether.

So while all these thoughts ran in my mind, I thought about how our life is filled with so many “temporary” memories---temporary people, romances, dreams, goals etc.

Hence this post is dedicated to that Impermanence that completes our Permanence.

I’ve met some incredible, radiant people in my lifetime who I don’t talk to anymore. They are all phenomenal people who have divulged onto different paths. It’s gloomy realizing that the people we were once closest with, are nothing but familiar strangers.

Then I think what exactly is meant by the permanent people? Or is there anything in life that actually means permanent. Even nature around us changes, the calendar changes, even stains from a “permanent” marker can be made evanescent.

So probably, the whole idea about having permanent people is vague, but still we religiously want to believe this.

We don’t meet anyone by mere accident unless obviously, our biological relations. There is always some intrinsic reasoning as to why someone enters and exits our life.

Our life happens to be defined mostly by transitory feelings and people. We spend so much of energy focusing on the fleeting things, that our whole existence slowly revolves around it. But still, no matter how long we revolve or how we make them our center of attraction, sometimes people are only meant to stay for the time being. Which is undoubtedly ,one of the hardest realizations we have to face.

It leads to an unavoidable sad feeling. We’re resistant to let go of them, because we begin to adapt to them. What we fail to understand that some people are meant to be temporary, as much as we wish they weren’t.

So what you could have told your younger self to save it from the Permanent people vicious cycle?

Not everyone is meant to be a permanent fixture in our lives, or we'd never experience the change that brings us to newer and even better experiences.

1. Sometimes those very people who come and go are the ones that can lead us to new opportunities. Just because these people are only in your lives momentarily, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't enjoy every second that we have with them.
2.  Some people are meant to just have fun with for the time being, before you each move on in different directions, and that's okay. Those people can still be the ones that you look to with fondness, when you tell your favorite stories.

Regardless of if they are in our lives for a week, a few months, or twenty years, when they exit, they become people we look back on yearningly.

How you choose to respond to those who come and go in life?

The decision that comes after someone leaves has the potential to leave a lasting impact on your attitude toward others.

With some situations, it's an easy in-out decision to make: your old classmate you shared lunch with, if someone who makes you laugh during work quits their job, you probably won't hold it against them. It isn't always that easy though, when someone cheats in a relationship, it seems almost impossible to see a time when you won't be bitter towards that person.
But no matter how bitter or sweet the experience with that person,one question you should really ask yourself:

Are you going to have hard feelings because things didn't stay the same, or are you going to move forward, and be grateful for the time that you did have with that person?

As for me, I’ve shared my deep-rooted thoughts, fears, secrets, and dreams with people that are no longer a part of my life. I don’t regret it one bit, because at the time it was exactly what I wanted to do!

Some came in my life to show what is right and what is wrong, to show who I can be, to teach me to love myself, to make me feel better for a little while, or to just be someone to walk with at night and spill my life to.

The time they left was no wonder devastating for me, it felt that half of my world has come crashing down. But it passed and a new fleeting feeling came, along with a few new people.

And I am nothing but proud of these feelings, these loses, those tears I shed and those smiles I shared. Because when I look back, I can now see how every person I’ve come across has played an unheeded role, in shaping me into the person I am today.

Sometimes, we just lose someone without a reason, Life moved fast and you changed. People will ask, “why aren't you friends anymore?” and you don’t truly know the answer. We all have these types of people, the ones that we go from talking to every second of every day to knowing about their life only through an Instagram post.

But that’s nothing really to be ashamed about, we do think of them as we pass their houses, as we remember an inside joke, or maybe as we feel loss once again in a different form. Things around us remind us of them and the role they played in our life, but we no longer feel the urge to make them realize this, that doesn’t mean we unloved them, it only means their iota of permanence in our life was affected with the changing cycles of our life.

The sooner we realize the fact that not everybody is meant to be a permanent part of our life, or there is nothing permanent as such. (We even meet our life partner at the age of 25-30. And then again we can’t really count on future); the easier it will be to relish the novel connections and appreciate the time we have with them and gracefully allow them to exit when it’s time to. We need to make the most of the time we have with each other, and focus on being in the present. Let go of expectations and assumptions and make as many beautiful memories as one possibly can.

We can learn so much from the limited time we get with someone, it’s easy to get lost in the negatives that consume us, but it’s even easier to expand on the positives they have left us.

While writing this, there are many people who came into my mind, and I am sure you even must have thought about some dear one, so there is just a summing up message for all of them:

To all the temporary people I've met in my life, please know that I carry a piece of you around in me every day. You pop up when I'm least expecting it and I reminisce on the time that we shared, reflecting on only the positives. We might not be together any more, but you still remain in the fundamental parts of my life that contributed to my growth into the person I want to be.