Hiralious

It was all fresh in my memory and theirs. We were meeting for the first time. They looked at me expectantly, as if, how I felt had to determine the course of our conversation.

"I don't care" I said. 

And my heart felt like it needed as much convincing as the people I was saying it to. 

Some days later, we were all hanging out. I decided to test the waters. "I don't care'" i whispered. Something kicked and squirmed and protested inside me with the intensity of a misunderstood and angry child.

I retreated. 

For days I did not say the ominous words.

But then one day I saw them worried.

"I don't care" I told them reassuringly to their face.

And I heard my voice coming from the hollow of a life-size wound up doll.

Still? I wondered. 

But I did one thing I had to do. I lived through it. 

One bright day, we were having cocktails under the winter Sun. The whole day had 'happiness' written all over it. The setup was perfect, even symbolic of the freedom I wished I could feel.

"I don't care" I said with a laugh. Hope skimmed the edges of the sentence.

But not all of me laughed with me.

I didn't say it anymore.

Today, on a day as ordinary as any, I was going up in the elevator with a cup of coffee in my hands. I spilled some. 

But I didn't care. And I said that much aloud.

And I realised I didn't care about a lot more.

I said the words aloud again, just to be sure.

"I don't care" my reflection in the elevator mouthed with me.

I checked back with my heart, there was no disagreement this time.

It was all of me there.

And I smile at how in the journey of life, you cannot make yourself go from the point of caring, to the point of not caring by your will alone. And how anti-climactic it can eventually be, when one day you discover that your heart has really healed from the blow it received. It doesn't even announce the coveted transition, even to you.

 It does not boast, it does not yell back in reaction, it does not paint its recovery into flamboyant picture of a victory. 

It just doesn't feel the same way anymore. 

To no one's benefit or harm, not even your own, it feels.