Letters In The Time Of Corona (4)

For Salim, and for Marjaan. And for the fears that we share. May they not come to pass.

Over the years, I have learnt, that it isn’t an absence of fear that makes one courageous. It is in the ability to look the fear in the eyes, trusting that whatever it is will pass.

That said, I must confess, a lot of things scare me. I am terrified of cattle, for example. With their wild horns and deceitful calmness, and because they are bigger than me. They scare me to pieces.

Once, I had to climb a flight of stair cases, because they somehow found their way past the gates of the mall I was in. Which reminds me that I have a phobia for heights too, not so bad, not as bad as my phobia for crowds, and confined spaces, and spaces that aren’t familiar.

See, this is why I don’t go to the markets. It isn’t a spoilt, bratty trait. It is, that I could faint, have dizzy spells, go crazy from the very many people, walking around me. People I do not know, people that will suddenly make it hard to breath and think.

There are exceptions to this fear I have of being enveloped in a place, in a space, in a person. Like when I am in front of a crowd, when what I say, and what I do determines the reaction of my audience. I get an energy surge, a power rush. Almost as if I thrive on control. I really could have been a drug lord, I suppose I do thrive on control. Till life made it clear, that there was to be none.

First, life sent me Dr. Husband. No, this isn’t another diss at the single people in the world. And Salim, you must understand how this feels. One day you are your won boss, your own master and controller general. Then you meet this person. At first, you fight to not have yourself ingrained in their veins. You fight to not fall. But you fall anyways. You fight to keep your heart to yourself, the treacherous thing uproots itself from your chest, races to this person, and settles in their hands. So that your heart is at their mercy. The total lack of control. The ability to love with abandon, unconditionally, and so vulnerably, so dangerously, you are sure to die if they ever toss your heart in the drain. That lack of control that we embrace, Salim, is what will be the death of us. It is why we fear at this time.

It is hard to not think of control, and lack of it, when we realise that the people who hold our hearts could leave us, and us, them. And how it may not be our faults, and how we may have contributed to it, in a way.

Ask Marjaan, there’s a way, when you have no hold on how your affairs will go, that you start to see the things that you have not done. The things you could have done, the way you could have prayed, the way you should have loved. So that you lay awake sometimes and you think about God, about negotiating with Him, saying to Him, so if I wake up at night to beg you to keep him/her alive, will you? Or should I fast? Will you keep ‘em safe if I fast all day, everyday?

Ah, the burden that comes with not knowing what more to do. And the ones that comes with wishing we did some things earlier. Like, if we called this person more, sent that text, made that memory. The search for something to hold on to, while everything falls apart. The willingness to live. The guarantee of death. The realisation of mortality. The denial of truth. The acceptance of truth. The resolve to love and live for as long as we draw breath. The hope that our resolve will be enough. The belief in hope. The belief in love.

We fear a lot of things, but we fear most that we are useless, or less than useful. We fear for love, Marjaan. We fear, that we are not designed to be enough protection for the people who hold our hearts.

I understand this fear. I understand the fear we both have. I also understand, that fear, in itself, is a useless commodity.

If what we have, what we only have, is the present, then we must live it. Not without fear, no. With fear, but with something even bigger in our hearts. With love.

Have faith,

Nana.