Adios!

We all have regrets in our lives and we all have speed breakers in our path. But most of all we have our ghosts – our own personal ghosts!
Ghosts of our past, memories that haunt us, people who turn into ghosts and never leave our side.
Once in a while, a sudden gust of directionless thought leaves you breathless! A random sight triggers some distant memory and a familiar ache in the pit of your stomach. Some foreboding event looms on the horizon and makes you stumble and stop.
They’re everywhere – ghosts who suddenly become a reality and shake the core of your being!

Some leave you dejected, some helpless... and some times some one just takes away a part of you and leaves you behind to pick up the scattered pieces of your broken heart.
Try as you might, it’s never easy to run with these ghosts with a smile plastered to your face. But we try...

We battle with these haunting; and we regret that we haven’t been at our best while dealing with them. Many times we try to run away, stress out, we refuse to acknowledge them, feign blindness, and then once in a while let them haunt us so terribly we nearly break down and destroy ourselves.

But through all that and more, what you learn is the importance of perseverance, hard work, and patience... the importance to hold yourself with pride and to move forward no matter how many times you stagger and fall, no matter how many times you’re left broken-hearted.
You discover that becoming selfish isn’t such a bad thing after all, especially when you train to prioritise your life and worry about nothing else.

Eventually of course, you learn to live with these ghosts. You look at them and smile, making peace with their proximity. They still follow you everywhere, but you don’t look over your shoulders fearing them anymore.
You learn to take them with you as your companions. They become your experiences, your teachers, your masters, your lessons. They guide you through, reminders of good times, protectors from the bad, making you stronger, making you wiser! You realise over time that they’re not your enemies; they aren’t here to haunt you, to make you miserable… as long as you learn to accept them as a part of your psyche, a part of your existence!

In time, some of them will become nothing more than milestones in the path that you’ve carved out. And slowly as you keep moving on, you’ll notice that you’re carrying fewer ghosts than what you started with.

P.S. - on a lighter, brighter note, I want to tell everyone that one such haunting has left me to become a milestone – I’ve cleared my exams and I’m now officially a Chartered Accountant.
Adios my friend, my nemesis!