I was a mermaid

I was a mermaid. I lived in the blue-eyed ocean. Amidst the coral castles and the seaweed gardens. Id lived there as long as I could remember. There were waves of longing, turbulent thoughts, foams of fantasy and unfathomable depths. Every object had a thousand shades- each tint mysterious, every hue captivating. I could feel life as vividly as the ever-present sensation of the water gliding over my body. It was a world where things had to be perceived, not just seen. Where touch was sensation, sight was vision, dreams were apparitions. Every sense was magnified many times over, and a new dimension was born. A thought behind every thought, a reason beyond reason. A strange awareness existed. A heightened form of living. Where it was not important to me that I breathed, but it was important to listen to what my breath imperceptibly whispered.

There were unexplored nooks in the unchartered seas. I swam in them, discovering so many new worlds. Most of them within myself. The deeper I dove, the more there was to lose myself in. It was beautiful yet scary. I was afraid. Afraid that I would lose my senses. That I would dive too deep. Too deep to ever resurface. That I would drown within the very bottomless depths that drew me in. It was a lonely world. In a world of men and machines, mermaids were a precious few.

I was alone and different. I wanted so much to be one of them- the men who lived on land. The frivolous joys, the houses of stone. Everything real and practical. No time for dreams. Dreams which made me sigh and tugged at my heartstrings. No space for forbidden thoughts. Thoughts which haunted me with ‘what ifs’ and ‘wonder why’s’.

I was so tempted to live in that other world. Less beautiful but infinitely more simple. A place where I could live, and pretend that there was no more to it than that. A dwelling-place, which would give me shelter but would banish the profoundness and the ache I felt deep within me. There I would be free of all those longings which possessed me, for all that I could never possess, but would continue to search for in the mysterious caves of the sea.

One day I saw him looking into the waters. His feet were planted firmly on land. He was like a rock. The waves would break themselves at his feet. But he would never budge. Never be carried away on unnamed journeys and untamed flights of fancy. He was looking at his own reflection. He would never see beyond it to the depths below. He would never seek the treasures that were buried deep down under. He laughed and his laugh held no dreams, no hints of yesterday, no hopes for tomorrow. I looked at him up there- so oblivious to the undercurrents. I wanted to laugh too because suddenly I realized that the answer was so simple. And I made a decision.

I left the sea and went up to land. I walked with him, I talked with him. I loved him for all that he didn’t say, all that he would never feel. Life was black and white. Day and night. I reveled in it. My newfound freedom from my freedom. The closing of the doors. “Why feel too much when you can feel too little” he said. He was my escape from all the truths which I could see, but didn’t want to. He would look at the horizon but never wonder what secrets lay where the sea met the sky. He would live and yet never ponder upon why he was alive.

And with him I would forget that I had unanswered questions. With him, I would forgo the thirst of my soul and only remember the needs of my flesh. I was free from myself at last. Free from the shadows which had possessed me, made me feel too much. Free from the pain that knowing too much can sometimes inflict. Free from the burden of sensing everything down to my soul.

He offered me the world. The world as he saw it. And I just closed my eyes. Content to see the world through his. When at times the old existence which I had forsaken, nagged me in the deep recesses of my mind at a vulnerable moment, I pushed it firmly away. So what if he wasn’t a mermaid? Better to walk on solid ground than float around. So what if he wasn’t a poet? He could make me laugh, right? So what if he didn’t really understand me? He loved me, didn’t he?

He was a man and he could never be a mermaid. I could never tell him about my world. Because he would never comprehend it. It would be like trying to explain colour to a blind man. But I knew that all that was a part of my relinquished past. And it was upto me to adapt myself to the new world I had chosen. And I saw no reason why I couldn’t do it.

And so, I lived in the superficial world and I said shallow things and I made him laugh. And I laughed too, but now my laugh sounded hollow. I spoke in his language because he would never understand mine, but now my own language seemed foreign. I was so busy trying to fulfill him that I never noticed how unfulfilled I had become.

But one day I woke up and realized that I was stifling, suffocating. All of God’s good earth had become too tiny for me. I told him I had to go away. Forever. I had made myself the woman he wanted me to be. But I had never realized that he was not the man I wanted. I hadn’t understood myself, so how could he have understood me?

Now the waves are calling me back. “Life doesn’t work that way”, they say. “Come back to where you belong. Don’t run away from who you are. Sooner or later it will catch up with you. You can fool the world but in the end you will not be able to delude yourself. Come back”

I am a mermaid. I will go back. I belong to the sea. I have come to terms with who I am. Maybe it was a long and hard lesson but I learnt it. Maybe I am one of the lucky ones who saw the light before darkness fell forever. I have made peace with myself.

Maybe I will never dare to love again, but that is all right. Life is certainly not a fairy tale. There are no happy endings.

But wait- what is it that I see over there, near the sunrise in the horizon, coming oh so slowly towards me. Oh I hope it's a merman….