He prayed to God to protect him from his enemies and he
started losing friends. He was sad. He was lonely. And he complained God for
what he did. He didn’t get his friends back. He kept crying. He fell down and
there was no hand to pick him up. Somehow he managed and felt that getting up
without someone’s help was not that difficult as he use to consider it to be.
And it was revealed onto him that he was a stronger person than the image of
himself he had in his mind. He stopped complaining God for making him weak.
But
still he wasn’t happy with God for taking his friends away. He kept waiting for
them to visit him but they never came. He kept waiting for their calls and
messages but his phone screen never blinked with their names. They had betrayed
him. In anger (or may be disappointment) he broke his phone. He went to a park
and sat on an old broken bench. He bought an ice-cream from a vendor. Memories of
good old days flashed to him when he could sacrifice anything for his friends. He
wanted to have the same ice-cream once but he had to let his desire go for his
friends would be embarrassed if he buys such a cheap stuff. “Well I don’t have
to care about anyone now”, he told himself to console his dejected heart. And this
was true to some extent. After all he had made decisions he never wanted to,
for the people around. He started talking to himself and he realized he was talking
to himself after a very long time. He had been so busy with people around that
he could never manage to write his diary in last 2 years. He realized he was
missing himself. He felt a sense of being “the original me” after
talking to himself. He remembered all the good and bad deeds of yesterday and
somehow promised himself to avoid the sad things and try to be happy the next
day. He did an analysis of his personality. He was used to seeing himself from
the eyes of others through their comments about him. Watching himself with his
own eyes was a different experience and he found out he was different from the
person about whom he had always listened carefully. You know you are always careful
when people are talking about you. He realized he always had to pretend to be
someone happy and courteous when people were around. He was a fake person with
lots of sign boards around him in the presence of others but now he could
remove those sign boards of his name, degree, profession, income, social status
etc and see the innocent person behind these boards. Loneliness had made him
fearless and in a way indifferent to what others may consider him to be. Then he
started analyzing behaviors of others. People were all sugar coated. He started
seeing inside of them. He was able to see through the masks on their faces. He could
figure out the true meanings of flattery words. He was getting smarter, he thought.
He saw an old lady sitting alone on another broken bench and
he thought he will be getting old in a year or two. “May be I’ve spent enough
years far away from God, it’s time to turn to him”, he said with a glimpse of graveyard
in his mind. Thinking that he may never get a chance to feel closer to God, he
decided to talk to Him. He asked God to forgive him for his mistakes and make
him a better person. He had forgotten God long ago but now he was really
missing him. He wanted God to listen to him and answer him. Although HE was
never in his preferences and people were always more important for him but
still he was hopeful that God will not betray him. He had always given more
importance to parties, work, family and friends and he could never find a few
minutes to sit in solitude and talk to God but at that moment he just wanted
God to listen to him. Everything else had become worthless. His heart was crying
and he was not able to speak. His voice was struck in his throat but he knew
God could listen even if he didn’t speak. He felt as if God is listening to him
and is happy on his turning to him. God never asked him about his years of
indifferent attitude towards God. That made him thankful to God and one day for
no reason he opened his diary and wrote,
“Loneliness thou are
a blessing
Thy mercy made me able to be me
And thy fruit is recognition of the faces
For thy presence takes me to the places
Where I find him who never betrays
Come to me and be embraced, he says
Loneliness thou are a blessing”