Bed time stories.

Although the lives we live change with time, the heart remembers. The years I spent away from home, for work, for studies, for work again, are all colored with the same shade.

I had friends and colleagues at work, but at home, I was alone. I used crazy routines to forget that fact. Worked 22 hours, spent 3 hours in the gym; days lost exploring library stacks by choice.

They all worked for a while and then one day, didn’t.

London, New York, Singapore, Dubai, Nairobi. Solitude was a curse. You were awed by the intensity of bright shinning lights, but then darkness caught up with you.

At the start, I didn’t have a choice. At least I thought so. Then I did. But I didn’t take it. It took Covid-19 to rewrite my routines for me.

We think it is about making rational choices. It is not.

For me it was about feeling that what we all feel at home. At home. Family and roots made me feel complete. I was fortunate and blessed that I was forced to make that call. Many of my friends couldn’t.

I hope one day they can.

First light. Dull ache. Nothing broken, nothing missing.

The faint drifting scent of not being whole.

Crisp air on the walk to the station. Once a portal to a different world. To different feelings.

Not anymore.

Volume on full. The silence of shuffling feet. The breeze of muted conversations.

Subversive, anonymous chaos of touch. A sea of humanity.

Not my definition of companionship. Not my flavor of intimacy.

Still, I miss it at work.

Work, where cold long clean lines talk to me. Where warmth is a human weakness and connections happen over sockets and protocols.

It didn’t start dark, dull or grey.

There was life here once. Dreams and colors too. Brushed by time into bleached blurred blotches.

A fading memory of something you felt once.

All set to let go, but you won’t let it.

It’s the only bread crumb trail leading back to you.

We all figure it out, some sooner than others.

It’s not them. It’s us.

Solitude comes by choice. 6th sense and warning flags. Leave this one alone. He likes it that way.

There is no shortage of company or colors in my world.

Outside in, that is. Like I have left my reading glasses at home.

Sometimes, something reaches out across the drone of traffic. On the walk back from work.

A face, a passing glance, a name, an impression. I look up.

It’s just disappointment.

Home. But not home. Not the one I grew up in, or with.

Lifeless bland kitchen.

Flat meals.

I should be grateful for the rush of flavors but I am not.

Dull ache, simmering inside.

Good night, old friend, the dry river bed running through my heart.

Let me put you to sleep again with bed time stories.

You know we are not the only one. The flickering lights tell tall tales.

Of made up excuses, stamped and memorized. Like muscle memory over years.

Triggered every morning, every night. As grief spills over the edge.

Before we fall asleep.

The million reasons why, we can’t go home.

Or the one reason why, no reasons left to head back where you were once complete.

Breadcrumbs trails. Dry rivers.

Dull ache.

I started traveling for work in ’95. Didn’t stop till Mar ’20. The words that you read wrote themselves across 25 years.

The first hint of a draft came while commuting for work in London in ‘96. The themes evolved as I grew older. I couldn’t tell if what I felt was infinite grief or after effects of a bad trade.

Finally sat down and wrote this as an illustrative story telling exercise for the class I teach.

The prompts and texts are mine. The images courtesy of Dalle2 Image generator.