The other day at night I dreamt of Baba. I dreamt he died all over again from all that pain. In my dream itself I tried to rationalise the feeling by telling myself it is alright. He cannot suffer all over again. It shall be exactly three years next week from the day he died. It seems years ago but it didn’t happen so far back. Sometimes I remember that day so clearly, I remember every feeling I underwent, the fact that I was probably on the phone with Shivi at that exact moment when he passed away. I remember living in denial for months and how I convinced myself life was going to go on just fine without him. It didn’t go on just fine. It went on definitely but no I miss the man every single day. I miss him when S talks about chilling with her Dad over drinks and dinner and having fun, I miss him when T exclaims how her Dad is so kind and would give her the world. I often wonder how we deal with grief. How we have to, so have to put on this brave face in front of the world and and how people always empathise with you or say you are so strong. I have heard that I am so strong statements or how magnificently I am doing statements so many times after Dad’s death. I wasn’t even doing that well, hell I went through such strange phases in my head and the cracks appeared so much later. How that insecurity of him not being around manifested in ways that I am not too proud of. Yes I realise grieving and healing is a long process. You don’t get up one day in the morning and it is gone like whoooshhhh. Naaaa it is long and tiresome. For some people it is an intense period and for some like me it took time to even for me to realise that he wasn’t around. Death has this debilitating effect. It can make zombies out of us. Besides sometimes you are expected to justify every single emotion you go through and the world only likes happy, sane people in control of every emotion, every action. Besides nobody likes sad people. I don’t and nor would you. I think I did a such bad job with my love life last three years or so. Some of the men I have been with in the past actually give me the creeps now that I look back. Why would I even give them a shot? I was running behind that elusive fantasy of happily ever after. The only predominant male figure of my life had ceased to exist. I tried to see bits of him in all these men and my God they were as farther away from him as they could be. I think I turned promiscuous for some time. I tried too many of these men. I was wrong about most of them. This realisation has crept in very very slowly. Must’ve been after my engagement broke up. That one month after my engagement I actually introspected only to jump into some needless emotional relationship all over again to realise once more this was a sham. I was wrong but this time I did not bend backwards, this time I did not beg or plead. I let go silently. Slowly and steadily I have realised that being in love and being in something which is excessively emotionally dependent is different. Love for me shouldn’t be this constantly craving feeling, it should be something which is just there, silent, stoic but there. Yes that is the love I am in search for. That “just there” and “it is understood” feeling.