One thousand days of solitude...

It has been a long while,
a little over one thousand days of  self imposed exile, -
an exile with a quest,
for some repose and rest.

It has been a while,
I have lived a life of solitude,
skimming the surface of loneliness.
A little flutter would make me dive in,
and life was an act of fine balance.
With days of quiet perseverance,
and nights filled with reluctant prayers for deliverance.
Deliverance from a life of monotony and regimentation
to find a life of passion and exploration.

One thousand days, it has been,
living in these wondrous bays of the pacific.
Filled with moments of exhilaration and desperation,
speckled with moments of abject hopelessness and sheer bliss.
I have lived and learnt.
I have fallen and risen,
I have loved and lost,
but I have learnt to keep walking ahead,
to keep trudging along,
holding onto hope and believing in randomness.

I have wandered through many a cities,
marveling at the roads traveled.
Made notes in my head,
for stories to be told at the homestead.
Every journey left an imprint,
a new memory to be cherished.
I stored snapshots of the world spinning by,
as I gazed by the sidelines,
with hope and fear, with awe and wonder,
at this world of great splendor.
I found more of me,
as I saw more of the world.

I have imagined possibilities,
and relived past realities.
I have created fantasies,
and seen them crash into realities.
I have found a little more of myself,
in these twisted by-lanes of life.
I have lost a little too, straddling these multiple worlds.
The girl whose laughter echoed in the halls,
only feels like a figment of my memory,
with a tenuous claim to reality.
But I meet her every now and then,
and so I know she is not too far away.

As another year winds down,
I look back at the good and the bad.
Thanks to them, the world appears a shade clearer.
And I am a little stronger.
I look ahead with reluctant hope...