The Wikiness

Before I met you, I didn’t know a dosa from a donut or a puja from a post office. Now I enjoy, admire, and even enact your Brahmin heritage with you, a privilege I never imagined possessing.

Before I met you, I had grown accustomed and comfortable in my four walls. I’d sit indoors attenuated, only touching the world through media, like TV, radio, or books. I did not relish going out.  Since you, my walls have dissolved and my horizons exploded, I regularly fly thousands of miles to engage with you in wild, beautiful places on the earth. Thanks to you, I’ve rediscovered what magic travel can do to body and mind.

Before I met you the world wasn’t as quirky, “fun,” or contradictory as it is when we’re together. You replace my controlled, boring space with a playground of upside-down passages and see-sawing challenges. My flexibility grows strong, You are the singing master of my soul, but you don’t abuse your authority. Your spontaneity keeps my brain and spirit limber. 

Before I met you, I wasn’t comfortable sitting in silence with my thoughts. I wanted distraction, for fear of what I knew would arise in the silence, the voice of my critical parent. To sit quietly with nothing to hold my attention felt like torture. In prefabricated mental scripts–NPR, audiobooks, anything–I found my release, safely away from my unexamined self. Your days include long stretches of peaceful silence. At first, this disturbed me, but now I relish the still, quiet spaces in our days. They contrast, throw into relief, whatever arises in the foreground of my mind. Silence is now the open space in which I do the painful decoding of my programs and my loving work of reprogramming. 

Before I met you, I kept my emotions biochemically curbed, tight between extremes of joy or despair by SSRIs. The drugs secured my ability to keep my day job but robbed me of life’s fullness. A stultifying hedge stood round my heart. But in the garden of love you’ve planted for me, there is space where my feelings can just arise, spiral to the sun, find full expression, and then pass away, quite naturally. I don’t 

repress or resist so much anymore. Your love lets me bravely face what arises with curiosity and humor. 

Before I met you, I didn’t feel secure enough to get to know and start a loving relationship with myself. But your constant, unconditional support provides me safe anchorage, where finally old wounds can heal.

Before I met you, I was more than a little cautious, and a people-pleaser par excellence. You valued me, which empowered me to set boundaries and thus encouraged my exploration.  

In other words, before I met you, I was a husky, leafless stem. Most likely, I was destined for the compost bin–total disintegration. Then came you.  Now I’m a supple, flowering branch. For me, you are the difference between winter and spring.