The light coming from the vehicles on the other side of the road was creating a strange pattern or at-least it seemed to Patrick that it was. Well, he wasn’t sure whether it was the light or his thoughts that were playing with him. Just two hours before he was exhausted from his long day at office , too tired to even step down the stairs , he had to take the lift from the second floor. And now thinking back he smiled , for he had no realization what so ever of any gloominess , tiredness that was there. He laughed that how rejuvenated and lively he was feeling, realizing how a good company can transform a person within hours, actually he didn’t even require hours all it had taken were few minutes for him. By now he knew that it was the effect of meeting her.
It wasn’t that Patrick had met Natalie for the first time that day, if any one were to ask him about their first meeting Patrick might take days or at-least hours to conclude it. But nonetheless , every time he met her it gave him the same satisfaction and happiness that he felt for the first time, more might be but not once he felt his excitement has eroded. And yet every time he met Natalie he would come back with some strange feelings or questions, the answer to which he wanted to tell her but could not tell her somehow. All he wanted to tell her was that she had the right to happiness like everyone else , that it was perfectly alright for her to be selfish for her own happiness. He wished he could tell her all he cared was for her to smile , to live every moment , to feel happiness that has eloped her till yet.
Natalie had asked him “How easy it is for people to be free ,careless and excited? , I wish I could also be like them. How people would not care for what future has for them and do everything in the present”. “What’s wrong in doing that?” Patrick asked her. “But why do something that lasts for such a short interval , why feel good about something that you know won’t last forever? “ she said.
“That is where you are wrong”
“Oh really , dear do explain how?”
“ I will with pleasure” , he said . “You see all we always tend to do is to do things keeping a future in prespective and while doing that often we have to either look the other way of being happy or we find an alternative where we compromise our essential internal and emotional satisfaction to something that we try to tell our-self is better for us.”
“And what is wrong in doing that?”
“Ohh , you see what we end up doing essentially is that neither we get a short and instant good feeling and nor do we find in future what we were looking for in the first place. While it is okay to do what is necessary but it is also okay to do now and then what you really want to do. It is rather good sometimes that we do things that make us feel how beautiful and fantastic life can be. That it is essential that sometimes we take all that the life is trying to give us without holding our selves back , not thinking or judging that it will last for few months , days or hours. Because a moment of fulfillment is worth living for a second than a life where we have always eloped things for a better tomorrow. Because we forget that a better tomorrow can only be lived if we have a good today. People forget that to live today with everything you have and feel is better than a tomorrow where you have to seek happiness.”
“But how could I be happy today knowing that what I have will be taken from me someday”?
“By realizing that what you have got today was what you were looking for yesterday and are still trying to find in tomorrow. You can be happy because while the yesterday might have been bad , and you have had bad experiences , the present is better because you have dealt with the past and reached here. And every step that we take towards a better present will erode the bad path that we had taken yesterday. We can be happy by realizing that most of us regret tomorrow for things that we missed today. To aloof yourself of something that is not yours is different than to accept something today that might not remain yours tomorrow.”
She did not say anything but just “hmm” and smiled , a smile that was unique , a smile that was hers own , a smile which had a sign of accepting to what he really wanted to say her and yet had not said. A smile which he knew was his today but might not remain his tomorrow.
