Not knowing it all

I’m in between some PowerPoint presentations which are scheduled to be presented the next day. Overworked and exhausted, I look around to change the flowers bought from my evening stroll a couple of days back. They look pale, faded, and dead. I’m trying to figure how things would have worked out had I been living in the city where my work is located — the folks I’d have interacted with while going out for my morning coffee run, the dogs I’d have patted below my apartment. The hustle for the bus during the peak working hours and the kindness of strangers in art galleries, glances exchanged in grocery stores, and witnessing the sun rising from my studio apartment room.

It’s late, I need some sleep. I dim the lamp and get into bed with a web of thoughts. Do, I make it to my career in finance? In how many years? Why does everyone else’s life seem happier than mine? Was it my fault for the last relationship not working out? The questions seldom end, the answers remain unanswered.

I think of times when I had no clue the previous night of the outburst of rains and the cancelled classes, and the joys that followed thereafter. An SMS stating — have a safe flight from a loved one, a stroll with someone you adore and your fingers touching the other’s; a sudden gesture of affection. The kindness of a friend whom you just met over a train journey a couple of hours back. A midday call from an old friend, a slow dance with your favourite song on.

The anticipation of whether dinner would lead to something more significant with the man you’ve gone out with, the sudden watssaap message from a friend to check on your health, parents at the arrivals strangely looking across unknown faces to have one glance of you, after months of waiting for you to come back. Not having answers to weather your bed will still be made when you return back home with fresh linen bedsheets.

There’s a sudden beauty of not knowing it all, to not know how a friendship would unfold over a couple of months, to not know how those twinkling eyes would stare at each other when they meet next, to not know how the fish recipe you learnt from your grandma would turn up when you plan to make it on her birthday. To not know, how beautifully one kiss can convey those strong emotions that you both have been feeling. The beauty lies in just not having answers to those questions.

To absolutely not knowing it all. Magic happens when you know nothing at all.