Running Away from Love
It is easy to take some people for granted. They are undemanding. They are always by your side. In their eyes, you can do no wrong.
It is easy to become impatient with some people. They are slow. They forget. They get things wrongs.
It is easy to feel so much love for someone and yet never express it. The daily interaction somehow doesn’t seem conducive to an open confession of love. The slight embarrassment of opening yourself up like that stops you from telling them how much they mean to you.
I have taken her for granted all my life. She is old now and worn out from many battles she has fought. Her world revolves around me. And I find that suffocating. A part of my life story is an attempt to run away from her.
A dreadful phone call came this morning. I thought I had lost her forever. It turned out to be a false alarm but I can still sense the cold dread that ran through me as I held onto the telephone receiver. I thought of all the times I was not there for her, all the times I was curt with her, all the times I wanted to say how much I love her but I stopped.
I am not a bad person. I am considerate. I understand pain. I can empathise with people. And yet with her I am rarely any of these. Her neediness drives me away. Her clinginess makes want to take on an anonymous name and disappear into the world forever. Her leaning on me makes me want to be mean to her, to drive her away.
And yet she is the single most important person in my world. Though I have managed to put more than a 1000 miles between us, I know that she is the only person who gives a damn about what happens to me. She remembers me in her prayers every single day.
My mind still goes numb with fear when I think of the phone call this morning. Perhaps it’s time I stopped running. Maybe while she and I are still alive, I should tell her how much she means to me.
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