Living Like An Island

I live like an island.

A part of an archipelago, a group, a band.

I can see others around me.

But nevertheless an island I am to be.

I was 7 when as a good student in a religious Catholic School I learnt that hymn...

"No man can live as an island,

Journey through life alone"

At 7 I didn't know what it meant. Its catchy tune just made it a fun song to sing along.

Old Habits Die Hard. Even at 15 I sang it as I did when I was 7. I never thought what it meant. It was only when I left the comforts of my childhood school to join a new one that I felt the meaning. Leaving the warmth of a place I had known for the last 11 years, next only to home, was not easy. Leaving a place where everyone knew me, called out to me, smiled at me and talked to me was not easy. Leaving a place where I was a somebody for a place where I was but a name on the rolls was not easy. I walked the corridors of my new school as a nobody. I was desperately lonely. People looked through me. They didn't talk to me. They didn't even realise I existed. On one such occasion, at a morning assembly, that fateful hymn came up again. That day, at 15, for the first time I heard what I sang. I stifled my tears.

I did make friends eventually. But it took me almost a year. And till then, I spent a whole year being an island. I did everything on my own. I wasn't happy. But I claimed I was used to the solitude. I lied to myself.

Since then, I have often left a familiar place for a new one. Each time I have felt trepidation in my heart. Each time I have set foot in a new environment, I have sang the hymn quietly to myself. And each time I have triumphed over incognity.

But today I burn my bridges again. I try and build bridges with my surroundings. I fail miserably. I drift outward into the open sea with nothing to hold me down. I become an island. And I tell myself I am happy. I tell myself I have finally attained the freedom I have always seeked. I tell myself that there is no greater bliss than being a floating island with no strings attached. I convince myself of the opportunities the future holds and that can be achieved only by looking far far ahead. I keep repeating to myself that looking back is doom for me. I am sure that independence is what I seek and what I shall attain. I tell myself the hymn was only a child's song. It has no truth in it. I look into the mirror and see the smiling face of one who's happy. I also know I am a good actor. I know I am lying.