Habits (Part 2)

I couldn't remember where the months went by.

Sounds overly dramatic? 

Well, it is not, and it is much more common than we might imagine.

Most of us, whether aware of it, or unaware, space out sometimes. Those short bursts when we perform an action, but have no recollection of it later on. Although usually, these are physical things - leaving our keys in a drawer, finding ourselves with an open bottle of alcohol on our couches - these activities can be mentally demanding too. From not having recollections of a meeting to doing our job duties on autopilot while thinking of something else, it all is the same.

But in the moment, as we live it, it feels natural, nothing out of the ordinary. Except when a long while later something from that duration comes up, and we have no memories.

And that?

That is scary.

The same thing happened to me. 

It was a cold evening in January. Jovial and merry spirits all around, the staple when it comes to new year. A slight drizzle tapped at my small windows, pattering gently, but at a constant pace. 

It is a small room, not even a proper office. There's just enough space for a small, sheesham wood bookshelf, a table and a stool, all a rich dark brown in colour. 

I sat facing the light brown wall, another dark cinnamon coloured cabinet mounted on it, right above my head. 

The small yellow lamp sitting in front lit up the papers on the desk. Annotated, coloured, enamoured with all sorts of arrows, diagrams, and explanations on the margins, written in my own cursive scribbles.

These were concrete proofs that I had gone through them not once, but multiple times in the past year. 

But all my head could muster was a weak acknowledgement, akin to greeting a stranger. 

It was all new to me, as good as never seen before. All the equations, all the notes, all the hours I had put in, they were nothing but muffled echoes, echoes that seemed to be auditory hallucinations, except that their existence was right there in front of me.

The rain started to pick up pace. The gentle winter drizzle had turned to a howling shower and battered heavily against the windows to my right. The little heater in my room kept whirring at different frequencies, as the voltage fluctuated due to the winter rainstorm. The whiteboard that covered the whole wall behind me reflected a melancholy yellow circle at its midst, from the stoic lamp that was on the desk.

I looked out of the window for a while. My girlfriend messaged me a "hello". Ignored her. I switched the phone off and rummaged around in the drawer attached to the desk. In there, I found the blue diary I had bought the year before , in the new year frenzy, by fervently saving up for it throughout winter.

I read three pages out of the twenty something erratically journaled entries I had managed the past year. And much like the notes and numbers, these too, felt like someone else's stories. 

The windowpanes vibrated, the wind, the neighbourhood dogs and the rain wailed, the family outside the room bickered and laughed at the same time, the heaters whirred and the compendium of the everyday din muffled my sobs as I broke down , the first time in three years.

And I cried through the night and fell asleep on the carpeted floor, the bitter taste of coffee in my mouth.