Hide & Seek

Perks

There are two contrasting   perks of being ill.

Satisfactory; Positive: Your parents starts being too caring. The relatives stops being a jerk. You get gifts. Nap- lots of sleep.  Internet  time. You get people to cater you whole week. Friends and family  are on call 24/7.

Unsettling; Negative: Overprotectiveness- from parents, ofcourse. The hospital  staff personally  knows you. Medications. Lots of meds. You change, you drift apart and find yourself slightly different  from  where you belonged. The longing of returning literally crushes  you and its frustrating!

I can't  compare to either. When my parents found out about  my heart everything  turned mayhem. Like  flood had entrenched   our home  and they were flinging  all round the house for a safe spot. They were so shocked and perturbed and fraught and worried out of their  mind they alomost  signed  on  a consultant.
Few tests gave the acclaimed  conclusion of my weak heart and the general direction  it were going; to death. And the next thing I know  I was being hospitalised with lots of medications.

I cannot remember  Before.
Before was good enough to have anything ingrained on my mind, it was only After that I started brooding  over more. Perhaps it were the reason  I were dying or could it be that we only remember the thing we wants to. And in my case I remember that few months after my first surgery  a governess ( I liked calling her that. A new word I had discovered recently),  who started coming for  homeschooling me, for I was restricted to be out  more than few hours and parents weren't taking any risks to jeopardize my state as it already  was and I was very young to oppose them.

These were not the things what  I particularly  wanted to bat my mind on out of my grief of what I went through but because  this were only things to remember. I read somewhere  that when we die there is a phase of seven minutes  when our entire life sweeps before our eyes  and I wanted to have something  for that journey.

The gorverness, Ms. Shirlin was pretty and fun to be with. You see, I was already on the verge  of death, so it was a pestering a thought as why do I have to even  study? A resonated question as it was with my days probably  few, it stopped larking- she was but few months with me.

At first it was enthralling like after months of winter the spring decided  to give me a visit, but then, it got boring, really, winter was back  and this time with a storm making all these creeping sounds deep within  my heart. I would see my friends coming from  school  late afternoon  and playing  in park in the evenings from the window of my bedroom.

However, I wasn't  around  for long  to feel despondent for we moved and I didn't  spend more than six months in any school to make friends.

Though, at last, after the transplant, we return  to our hometown, Goa. I had spent seven years of my life here, eight months of homeschooling, had incredible  friends and the neighborhood  changed so much in the span of ten years  it was almost unrecognizable. And with that, had altered the neighbors. People left and new came.

My preschool  friend who I used to play Doctor-doctor with. My best friend. She used to live one house away from  mine in the lime green colour two storey  house with lots of window and walls covered with ivys. And now there were no ivys. The colour was an awful  orange and family living were so vivacious they invite everyone in for  a tea, even the milkman. Probably they had the idea that everyone in Goa were super friendly and generouse.

So, when we got home we met new faces, it jarred me. I wondered  how could  you leave your own home? But then,  I did too. And like mine they  must have had a reason. I just  hoped they would  some  day, come back  home, like I did remembering  the day how they all cried as I waved them goodbye and stepped into the taxi. That day I didn't  know that I would  ever return  and I was so young it never occurred to me to take their numbers.

The sudden  change was so drastic  it veered everything and perhaps  it were  coming. Because changes come slowly. Like  when we resolve  to revamp  the look of our bedroom we couldn't  finish it in just  in few hours. It has to be done slowly and carefully  or else things around  will topple  over shattering into million  of shards and the  paint to conceal the decrepit colour  will smeared all over the place leaving a mark heavy as not removable. Deep and there. Forever. Reminding the slip we had.