Eleventh Hour

There are things that take time and then there are things that take way too much time. The latter sits in the eleventh hour more often than not. The tragedy is, among the things that make themselves apparent in the eleventh hour, coming into terms with ourselves is one of them. So how do we come into terms with ourselves? Could it be with corollaries? Realizing our mistakes and building on them unknowingly? Maybe a song, or a conversation with a friend, or a film, or a book? Irrespective, but why does it have to be so late? There is certainly beauty in things taking their own time and one might even make the point that sometimes, if not always, this is for the good. For the good? In retrospect, in this case, we are looking away or even denying that stolen pasts and cancelled futures are actually closer to our fragile hearts than we would think. I used to like things taking their own sweet time and pickle for a bit. There’s flavor and assurance quite often. But with life being the fastest thing that goes by us, time makes itself scare before we blink. The stuff that we probably did not realize was important is now anything but tasteful. The heart yearns but yearns late, maybe even a decade late and who knows?

The breaking point in all of this is the realization that the sentiments that survived all these years are genuine expressions of authenticity that we probably did realize but also perhaps denied. So if there is one aspect on which we could narrow down on with respect to coming in terms with ourselves is the realization of the violently denied moments of authenticity that refused to die. The only truths we would ever come to learn about ourselves are found in these moments. Shouldn’t authenticity and the idea of truth imply each other at the very minimum? On the surface yes, but the profundity of finding what’s true lies in the idea of how long the authenticity of the self was at the receiving end of denial. Tragic as it is, there is something addictive about this because this opens up a story. A story so small that it seems insignificant in the grand brilliance of our universe but then this universe is incomplete without this story, and arguably we would be left with a little less, if not no brilliance. Of course, these are our personal heartfelt and heartbroken moments of brilliance. A life that completes life. The silver lining in all of this, is that we finally come in terms with being able to understand ourselves as we find the compass of our heart and soul. There is direction. But if we can’t be there, there is joy in knowing that our heart was in the right place without budging; staying painfully put yet unacknowledged. This realization is self-forgiving.