Learning to be alone

It was a typical monsoon morning. The sky was grey and grumpy. It had rained that morning and the roads were wet. It wasn't the fascinating first rain of the season where you smell the earth and fill your heart with joy. It wasn't the rain that made you want to go out and dance. It was that steady spitting of heavens that made you feel that someone was mocking you. It was the kind of rain, it was the kind of sky when you want to kidnap yourself from society and snuggle under the bed covers. It was the kind of pajama morning when you wished your wardrobe had only pajamas and you had no other clothes to wear outside. That was a good enough excuse not to step out under that grey excuse of a sky. You want to pull the covers over your face, shut your eyes tight and not go out into the world. And this feeling got all the more worse when you had school that morning.

I could imagine what my younger daughter was going through this grey morning as I walked her to the school bus. I had been there before and I knew exactly how it felt. It was that morning when your mind was as grey as the sky. It was that morning when the heart was as damp as the earth. The slightest emotion could bring a tear in your eyes. Her elder sister was already getting into the bus, as she turned back and waved at me. Her eyes said the story, she felt alone. Her sister had settled in with her friends, there was chatter in the air, but she was not part of it. She looked around, alone in that small bus, alone in that big world. She walked looking for that empty seat next to her own dear friend. The seat was already taken, her friend was next to another girl and my baby didn't know where to sit. She looked around, she felt alone in that big bus. I felt a bit more helpless than she did. She felt a bit more alone that I did. She looked around and found an uncomfortable seat. Her eyes searched for company, but the world seemed busy. She looked out at me through a gloomy foggy window, through the chatter of the other kids, through the wailing of the new kids, through the laughter of the older kids. Her eyes said to me that she felt so alone. My eyes said to her that I was with her. I was helpless, she was alone, but our hearts were together on this grey grumpy morning. And until I get back from work, until she gets back from school, we will learn to be alone as the sky spits out its gloom. We learn to be alone as the clouds clear from our minds. We will learn to be alone as the chatter pours in from the world. We learn to be alone as the light begins to shine through, as the joy starts to seep in. We learn to be alone as we learn to live. It is just a grey morning, but the sun will soon be out.