My desk and my system sat there exactly the way i'd left them, my water bottle at the workstation with 'MADHURI' inscribed in it was filled with fresh water. The floor was abuzz with activity, calling me to join in the frenzy to meet the deadline of firing the pages.
A pile of press event invitation lay there, and i instinctively grab them to scan which of them would be exciting to cover. Then i realise, I don't work here any anymore.
It's then that the trauma of quitting your job hits you. The same chair and workstation where i sat for the past one year, where i cried with frustration, jumped with joy, stole afternoon naps, quietly devoured a whole bar of chocolate without sharing, watched youtube in spite of the pending deadline, decorated with stuff toys and feng shui artifacts and even meditated.......
All dissolves. Quitting this job has been enormously painful, especially the ending part where it dragged on for days.
And now its finally over, and it's sapped me dry of all the energy, on top of it, dealing with a lot of uncertainties that were hounding me. I'm sick of answering every other person 'whats next!' as if it makes any difference to them.
I shoot a mail to my team members, saying goodbye and how nice it was to work and blah, feeling numb inside. My emotions are dangerously bordering towards what i've not had for a long time.....depression! And am surprised at myself.
Like wow, its been more than two years since i've been properly depressed. Saying this,
i just laugh at myself. At how stupid the whole thing sounds. And suddenly i also feel enormously blessed, for understanding the tricks for not feeling low.
Its like a life jacket, when you see every thing in this world as transient and somehow finding a sense of certainty in uncertainty.
That's what i realised. The body needs to work, and mind needs to chill out, and most of the time i was doing the opposite, getting my mind worked out and freezing my actions, i guess we're programmed to do this, especially when we feel down.
Another trick i've discovered to get out of feeling down, is to not take it seriously, because every time it feels as if its gonna stay forever. But it doesn't.
Knowledge and meditation and kriya act as an anaesthetic to pain...even though you feel the pain, you can accept it and go through with it, feeling light inside. Without carrying a heavy load in your heart, coz that's what blocks love. And love is like oxygen.....
And i feel light as cotton candy inside. Though i might still burst into tears.
So that's me quitting as a copy editor of Times of India. And this will probably be the last time i type a story in this system. Stories have an ending and beginning, but they never stop. Even if they are not published, even if there is no byline. And i guess those are some of the best stories in the world. Stories that cant be told, but experienced.
