reading through SK’s entry on a dirty room, this particular line caught my eye.

“he didn’t give me a chance of showing him this clean and organized side of me” … “but then..shouldn’t it have been a lifetime of chances?”… “What happened to ‘in sickness and in health. Till death do us part’?”

now that i think about it, i seriously wonder where did all my chances go? looking back, i think i didn’t give enough of them… or maybe didn’t receive enough of them. but whatever happened, i know one thing for sure… they weren’t enough.

and now, i keep giving even less to other people.

just yesterday, i found my mother giving advice to a cousin on rebuilding his broken engagement with the same girl. “if she realizes her mistake, then its no harm done” she said. in his case, the girl was at fault so the line makes sense. but in my case, if we did realize our mistakes… would it make the harm go away?

for years, i’ve been coming to grips with myself. trying to be comfortable with who i am and what i do. growing up, i was the subject of ridicule by a lot of people. whether it be because of my size or my tantrums or even my glasses. yes, i know that’s no excuse now, but it happened and it shaped me.

when coming to my own, these experiences, or rather, the consequence of these experiences would rear up their ugly head again and again. to this day, i feel threatened very easily. i have developed commitment issues both in my personal and professional life, and an irrational fear of confrontations. to top it off, i am shy by nature and it takes a lot of effort to open up to people.

these days when you meet me for the first couple of times, you wouldn’t even realize anything from the statement above as true. again and again, i’ve been told off when i claimed that infact, i’m an introvert. i meet people with zeal during meetups and get together, end up in the middle of whatever is going down and have long drawn out, even heated debates with people on various issues. i’ve also been known to be street fights and have scars to prove it.

it didn’t happen overnight. it took over a decade of practice to get right. to look past the fear which tormented me at every social gathering, at being face to face with a new person, or to accept the spotlight every once in a while. baby steps at first, a little move here, a little there…

but every now and again, things fall apart still as easily as a house of cards, and i’m back to square one.. the doubt creeps back in and i close back up in my shell… and that’s when most of my relationships come to an end…

nowadays though, they’re coming in far and few in between. these bouts of doubt and self-deprecating behavior. phases, my mom calls them, but now, they’re taking away more from me than i have to give. back when they were frequent, a lot of people, i still consider friends, just took in stride. ‘mansoor is in a phase’ they said. it hurt to hear, to be classified like that, but when the bouts subsided, i still had friends around. now, these are becoming more intense, and when i do come out of them, i find myself being more alone…

to date, i’ve lost more people than i can count on my fingers… friends, confidants and allys… years of friendships and understanding and love… all broken because they had had enough of the phases. so badly were the bonds cut that i wasn’t even given a chance to patch things up. “i’m much better off now mansoor than i ever was with you”. again and again, the same line repeated itself…

and so, my reservoir for second, third and fourth chances to people is also slowly reducing. it’s funny, because there was a time i believed that everyone should be given enough chances to do the right thing. afterall, even God gives us another chance to be good as long as we’re breathing. otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many people on earth anymore.

i know i can’t ever truly stop giving anyone else another chance to prove themselves, right or wrong. i don’t have that finality within me to give. yes, its reducing, but it’s still very much there… the question is, should i still expect it from others? or in other words, should i keep setting myself up for pain and misery whenever the next phase subsides? it’s better to come out alone, when you’re going in alone in the first place…

i’ll leave you with a video by the pussycat dolls, titled ‘i hate this part’, maybe this is what happens on the other side?