Also, hope.

                                                                                                                                                  PC: Cherin Paul

 I just feel exhausted and numb, devoid of joy or grief as I go through life’s motions these days.

Death wasn't around a lot when I was a child, I remember the sadness that came with losing my Muthasha 4 years ago, how it took months and years to finally accept his death. It is so true that you will miss a person more only when you know they are moving away. You won't shed tears until you hear a death of someone you know. The news continuously talks about death numbers these days, I don't know when did I really stop acknowledging it, when did I stop empathizing with it how did I become numb to the news of people's death? Is it because I spent the last few days grieving a stranger I knew from a WhatsApp group while knowing just her name and her oxygen saturation levels.

The other day I randomly messaged a close friend asking how she has been? She replied saying her father who is a doctor has been in CCU and critical for the last 10 days, I didn't know what to reply to her, I finally texted her yesterday hoping he would have been fine, but no, he is still not. I again didn't know what I should text her, what will she be expecting, will she be ever expecting a reply? NO.

I happened to speak to a close friend today about this. 

[1:06 PM, 5/22/2021] Deepthi Karat: I don't know how long we will all mourn?

                                    Is this
                                     going to be a perpetual emotion ?

[1:10 PM, 5/22/2021] Sree Ram : It’s a privilege to be surviving bro. Be grateful for                                  being alive in this situation

                               I feel it’s time to reiterate the fact that we only                                      have ‘present’ with us. Future is just a notion with                                    the ambiguities which surrounds it has become                                           increasingly starking. Be grounded and be kind and be                                   empathetic as those are the only constants in life. 

                                 I don’t know what I wrote, but, at a hopeless time of                                    grievances, I think it’s just embracing what we have                                      makes sense. Absolute sense in a state of void. 

 says another friend. 

How did I become not so strong enough to console a dear friend ?

I really want to be there for them, its really hard to know how to act and what to say.

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be such
a devastation
where the happiness of spring
turned into a state of demise
for mankind.
How the beautiful dawn of
cherry blossom lost
in the middle of the way.
It became a standstill.
It was enough heartbreaking.
We became monotonous
with no patience left in us.

 Everything is blowing up around us, waking up every day to find reasons to stay sane. 

With Anger, agony, and frustration we continue hating ourselves and pushing our loved ones away. 

But with hope <3 

The world is a brilliant resilient place 

And we will fight it 

One at a time.