Insecurity

It happens with strange regularity and leaves me completely helpless; helplessness is a feeling that I detest from the deepest pits of my heart and its in these deep pits that my insecurities reside. They live in such obscure corners that I fail to reach them in conscious state, maybe that's why they are manifested in my dreams so tenaciously.

In my family, I am famous for being strong, sensible, practical and independent but that is a mask that I have successfully kept on for years now. Only a handful of people know that under that mask lies a silly, insecure woman.

I encountered death quite early in my life when one of my uncles passed away all of a sudden, I was not even seven but I could make out what was happening around me, he was newly married and not even thirty. As a family it was hard on us and I often saw my grandmother getting into fits and then passing out, there were conversations at home that I was not suppose to listen to, but even a child's brain instinctively picks up things that are forbidden.

Next was the person I was closest to - mama, his death was not so sudden, everyone knew he was sick, and getting worse but I never accepted it, just like I did not accept his death. It has been twelve years but I feel he would walk in any minute calling out for me. Somewhere I hold myself responsible for his death -- I had dreamt of it barely a few months before he passed.

Post that death became a reality, when there was no death, its shadows loomed large -- in form of my mothers sickness, my lost child and several others -- such nightmares constantly haunted me, when I shooed them away, they hid in the cracks and crevices of my mind. They often play hide and seek with me since. If you look closely, you will often find me standing next to my kids or parents - while they are in deep sleep - making sure that they are breathing. I just did it with Pakhi this morning.

Throughout my first pregnancy, I felt unhappy, disturbed and unsettled, I consistantly had nightmares for those six months. I would wake up shaken in the middle of the night -- alone. It was just matter of time before I lost the baby. I did not mourn her as much as a mother is expected to, perhaps I was prepared. 

Not even a few months after that, before stepping out for dinner one evening, I casually told Debashish that I had a feeling about my grandfather not living very long - within minutes we got a call from my brother to inform us about his death. He passed away, just like that, he was not even sick. Premonition or plain co-incidence, I don't know.

Just as I have gotten used to the presence of the nightmares and the morbidity that enslaves me post that, people around me too have. They know that every now and then, I will wake up and wake them up. My husband is usually at the receiving end by the virtue of him being the closest. But he too, can not appreciate what I go through, like any logical person, he tells me that it's just a dream and I should not think too much about it. I have learnt to keep my nightmares to myself now.

Premonitions, Signs, intuitions whatever they are - they leave me uneasy, guilty and anxious. No sooner than the after affect of one wanes, the other one makes its way. It was just two days ago that I had a tryst with one of them - yet again. I try my best to shrug them off, not to think about them but they keep coming back - like a stubborn stalker.

I'm not sure what made me write this today. I realise that as a reader you should not be burdened by my fears and anxieties but as a I writer, I felt compelled to. I was actually working on a post about something else for the past three days but somehow its not falling in place, the sentences refuse to flow and thoughts are entangled. Its true that when you have many things to say, you fail to articulate them in a logical manner like it is also true that its easiest to talk about something close to your heart -- and death has been very close to my heart -- after all, I felt it in my womb.