It started like a normal Wednesday for me. I was up till 2 am yesterday night, woke up at 8 am to attend the 8:30 lecture, got done with classes and checking notifications on Facebook, when I realized I needed to give words to all the thoughts that have been swirling around in my mind even since 9 am today morning when my Macroeconomics teacher, while describing monetary and fiscal policies claimed, "I am not who I was a day ago. None of you are like me, well, atleast I hope not. How dull would life be if that were the case!". And it made me think of changes. Changes in places, changes in people, changes all around.
It used to bug me when I found people changing. Frankly, it still does. I have a hard time accepting change. That actually is something I won't mind changing in me at all.
I lived in Calcutta as an undergraduate student. I never wanted to go to Calcutta in the first place, but with time I started loving the city. I think it will take a lot for me to stop loving Calcutta. But I went to Park Street on New Year's Day this year. I think I was visiting the place after 8-9 months and I found the changes. I saw a new French eatery Au Bon Pain right at the spot where Music World used to be. My friend and I, infact had breakfast at Au Bon Pain that day, and were trying to remember the old place. I was thinking of the number of times one of us would wait for the other in front of Music World, if someone was running late. I remembered all the times we would go to Music World to just look at the music collection with no intention of buying anything with my friends. And I missed it. I know I missed it because I am thinking (and writing) about it. But I got over it. I did not hate Au Bon Pain. I won't like Park Street any less because Music World closed down.
Unfortunately, accepting changes in people isn't so easy for me. I put in a lot of effort on people and relations, and when someone just changes without any reason, I find it hard to deal with. I consider the concept of 'drifting apart' a load of crock.
I am listening to "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri as I write and I am thinking of the amount of synchronization it will take for two people to change in the same way to love each other for a thousand years. You would say love matures and love changes. The whole five phase shenanigan. But just stop and think about the amount of unhappiness you see around you. And, as I started thinking today, I got more and more inclined to believe that it is all because we change, and we change in a way that we stop being important to the other person, or stop caring for them, whatever be the case.
This, in turn makes me realize how precious those friendships or relationships are that I could sustain for all these years. I have a couple of friends who I have known and loved for close to two decades now. We have grown up, we have moved apart geographically, but I have never drifted apart. We have all gone through phases, be it the geek phase, the nerd phase, the most popular boy/girl in school phase, the cool dude phase, so on and so forth. My point here is, I acknowledge that we have all changed, but should I begin to think I was just lucky that we all changed in such a way over the time that we still remained important to one another. It would have just as likely been a case of 'drifting apart'. Or, would I be correct to claim that not everything changes?
I, for one, have not been able to start/stop loving someone as I changed. I know I have changed. Some changes I feel myself, some others around me point out. But, that has never screwed with my feelings. I still hate my first roommate. I haven't spoken to her in more than a year, and haven't met her in close to two years, but that doesn't mean one fine day I start considering her something which I didn't the day before. Ofcourse, over the time, I have changed, and I know I don't let people affect me the way they used to before. So, if I meet someone like her now, I am sure I will totally ignore that person and be indifferent.
What I am trying to say here is you can not stop feeling what you feel because you change. You might not feel the same about the same person if you met him/her today than when you originally met. You might find that person hard to deal with and make a conscious effort to move away from him/her because you have changed now. But, I can't buy the fact that the feeling just vanished one fine morning.
But then again, as the title says, we aren't the same! So, maybe this is just me, and the rest (or atleast a part) of the world works differently.
It used to bug me when I found people changing. Frankly, it still does. I have a hard time accepting change. That actually is something I won't mind changing in me at all.
I lived in Calcutta as an undergraduate student. I never wanted to go to Calcutta in the first place, but with time I started loving the city. I think it will take a lot for me to stop loving Calcutta. But I went to Park Street on New Year's Day this year. I think I was visiting the place after 8-9 months and I found the changes. I saw a new French eatery Au Bon Pain right at the spot where Music World used to be. My friend and I, infact had breakfast at Au Bon Pain that day, and were trying to remember the old place. I was thinking of the number of times one of us would wait for the other in front of Music World, if someone was running late. I remembered all the times we would go to Music World to just look at the music collection with no intention of buying anything with my friends. And I missed it. I know I missed it because I am thinking (and writing) about it. But I got over it. I did not hate Au Bon Pain. I won't like Park Street any less because Music World closed down.
Unfortunately, accepting changes in people isn't so easy for me. I put in a lot of effort on people and relations, and when someone just changes without any reason, I find it hard to deal with. I consider the concept of 'drifting apart' a load of crock.
I am listening to "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri as I write and I am thinking of the amount of synchronization it will take for two people to change in the same way to love each other for a thousand years. You would say love matures and love changes. The whole five phase shenanigan. But just stop and think about the amount of unhappiness you see around you. And, as I started thinking today, I got more and more inclined to believe that it is all because we change, and we change in a way that we stop being important to the other person, or stop caring for them, whatever be the case.
This, in turn makes me realize how precious those friendships or relationships are that I could sustain for all these years. I have a couple of friends who I have known and loved for close to two decades now. We have grown up, we have moved apart geographically, but I have never drifted apart. We have all gone through phases, be it the geek phase, the nerd phase, the most popular boy/girl in school phase, the cool dude phase, so on and so forth. My point here is, I acknowledge that we have all changed, but should I begin to think I was just lucky that we all changed in such a way over the time that we still remained important to one another. It would have just as likely been a case of 'drifting apart'. Or, would I be correct to claim that not everything changes?
I, for one, have not been able to start/stop loving someone as I changed. I know I have changed. Some changes I feel myself, some others around me point out. But, that has never screwed with my feelings. I still hate my first roommate. I haven't spoken to her in more than a year, and haven't met her in close to two years, but that doesn't mean one fine day I start considering her something which I didn't the day before. Ofcourse, over the time, I have changed, and I know I don't let people affect me the way they used to before. So, if I meet someone like her now, I am sure I will totally ignore that person and be indifferent.
What I am trying to say here is you can not stop feeling what you feel because you change. You might not feel the same about the same person if you met him/her today than when you originally met. You might find that person hard to deal with and make a conscious effort to move away from him/her because you have changed now. But, I can't buy the fact that the feeling just vanished one fine morning.
But then again, as the title says, we aren't the same! So, maybe this is just me, and the rest (or atleast a part) of the world works differently.
