Essence

Her head was heavy and she was struggling hard to stay cheerful while doing the dullest of the jobs: looking for a useless lost item from a heap of things. While going through a maze of crap, her hand struck against a black diary and she suddenly pulled it out of the drawer, absolutely not expecting it to be there.

'Whoa!' she quietly exclaimed. It was her OLD diary. She wasnt a regular journal writer, but yes she had always been a scribbler, random bits, off and on. She turned the pages and she couldnt keep the chuckle ... it talked of Ammonium ions, and of the South Asian irrigation system, and of electronic tunneling. And of random bits that could cross through the mind of a wannabe-intellectual eighteen year old! ;)

Smilingly she kept surfing through the pages when all of a sudden her eyes traced a three word sentence..

Happy Birthday Love!

Her eyes froze, as if the sight was stabbed there.

Slowly, ever so slowly she turned the page over to go to its origin. At the previous page, which belonged to a different era, in a different world.

Had it not been her own writing she couldnt have believed it to be there. A witness of that time and that land in this life.

Her eyes slowly moved ......

You find true love when you are not afraid of being rejected, disillusioned and dismayed. You dare to take the risk. And its only then, that Love, after testing your potential to contain it in your vessel, allows a free access to itself.

There have been many tough times. But accompanied by taking the Risk; and trying to move forward every time, falling in love again, and again, and yet again with each other.

Last night when sitting with you, while you laughed and I grumbled, I felt that true happiness that is so priceless an offshoot of being in love.

I thanked God. For being alive.

And for being by your side.

I love you. More than I ever thought I could be able to.

This moment may not last for an eternity, but these moments of gratitude shall bear a testimony even on the Day of Judgement.

I thank God for having sent you in this world, so that I could be by my soul mate.

Happy Birthday Love.

The diary felt heavy in her hands, and she put it back on the table. Still open, still readable.

And with a piercing pain in her heart, she discovered that oozing spring of salty waters in her eyes, much to her surprise, gushing of gratitude. For the moment that was now there no more, but which had happened, sometime, somewhere. That she had lived. Breathed. And in which she had felt so truly in love. So genuinely thankful, the essence of being in love!

She thought of the person, and smiled for the smile that they had shared at that moment.

The smile, the gratitude, made the head light, and the heart cheerful.

Gently she put the diary back, for she had yet to look for the lost item. 

Lost. She thought and smiled. Like this moment was till now. 

The freedom to be not tied down by the weighing blocks of experience, but belonging to time, moment by moment, was truly liberating.

"I Am the Time", a thought reminded whispering in her head. 

And she beamed. On belonging to Time.