by Sharda Chaitanya
Dear Year 2013,
This is it, Babe. It's over. What can I say? What do we say? It's been 365 days and we are finally saying our good byes. It's a big deal. Although we have been close, we have not been friends - frenemies, I believe is the term the kids use. It means someone, or in this case some time frame, to which we have become attached by some social or timeline necessity, but who we simply don't like. And we feel they, or it, do not like us. We are in proximity to each other not by our own doing, but by fate, destiny or Karma. But there we are, uncomfortable and awkward in each others presence and unable to do anything about it.
2013, let me be straight, you were a task master and a bit of a bully. I am not going to sugar-coat this by saying, "Oh, thank you for showing me how strong I can be", or, "Oh wow, look, another obstacle to overcome, just when I thought I would be getting a break". Yeah, and, "Oh my goodness. You gave me something. Oh, no. No. no, no...there it goes. You took it away before I could even enjoy it". Yeah, that was you. That is how you affected me. Up and down up and down - barely a respite before I was on to another issue that came from out of the blue for me to figure out what to do for it or with it or to it. Then when I did finally get a foothold on the situation, THAT was turned upside down and sideways, throwing me for a loop and finding myself back at square one.
It didn't take me long (well, sort of) to realize your skills as a master illusionist is what kept you going. And still, that didn't quite compute for me. Your sense of self-satisfaction and smugness was a tell. I began to think you weren't that smart. Then I realized you must be working in collusion with some higher power, someone else was calling the shots and you were simply taking orders. That was it! The audacity, I thought. I was beginning to feel betrayed. When I decided to test this theory, I saw you for what you truly are (were). You had no concern for anything other than how to demonstrate your talents irrespective of your effect on outcomes. Really, 2013? Really, you couldn't stop for a moment and come clean with me, even while you saw me struggling and scrambling for answers, grappling for a way out and searching for solutions? It occurred to me that you wanted me to be distracted to the point of near exhaustion. It was then that I saw the truth - you were nothing more than the magician in the madness. Deceptively weaving your plots in the shadows, manipulating time and space for the propagation of your enterprise. You wanted to break me so that I would slow down enough to stop all that forward momentum, gather myself and return to what I know is the real truth.