Pickled.

In the end, old emotions, when revisited, are much like biting into an old pickle, isn't it? I love pickled green chillies. Every time a restaurant serves it as a condiment, I gleefully fill my plate up with it, and proceed to numb my senses with its flavour and disregard the original flavour of whatever noodle I had ordered it with.

Emotions and memories, with the gift of hindsight, are just like those pickles. They still pack a fiery punch, especially when bitten the wrong way; but its spiciness isn't even close to the heat, pre-pickling. It has extra flavours- sour or sweet, depending on the pickling. And if you're smart about it, you keep it away, in a jar, until it is ready to be opened. If you open it up too soon, you end up spoiling the batch of pickles, for good.

My sticky fingers need to learn not to open up this bottle. I finally found the jar on Friday night. I never thought the jar would come in that form, but it did.

I don't think I've ever felt my heart break in two the way it did on Friday night. And it wasn't just my heart, I felt my world shattered. For the first time in a long, long time, I felt naïve. I felt that my entire universe had come crashing down, and I just kept thinking on the ride home: "How could I have been SO wrong?"

When I came home, he attempted to rectify it. In a way he did, but I don't think he knew what was the extent of me that had been damaged that night. A part of me died that night. The part of me that trusted in the best in people. The part of me that always fought the arguments when other women said "All men are the same".

So here I am. Broken. My only hope is that I do not seal myself with unbreakable armour, just for the sake of being whole again. Because in the end, that is the only true unfairness to me.

.................................................................................................

On Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night, I was convinced that I would never entertain ideas of you, in that light, anymore. Because honestly, your confession changed my entire view of you. I was almost repelled by you. And I meant it when I said, that night, I felt used, disposable, interchangeable.

This morning though, my fickle heart turned on me and I awoke to those thoughts again. And then you texted me. Wishing me a happy Monday. Clockwork.