Being reborn

Standing by the stove draining a batch of pakodas from the hot oil, I turned to my friend standing by the side. Her eyes looked faraway as did mine. We just wrapped up a good 20 minute conversation on what most people would call sharing raw emotions. Very rarely you find people in your circle who have walked in your shoes and when you do, there is a certain connect that is immediate.

These winter has been one of change for me. As Spring approaches, I feel myself stirring from a deep hibernation. One that lasted a good five years. I notice a spring in my step, a smile that seems a permanent fixture on my face and an increased inclination to be social.

This week at work, I ran into an old colleague. One whom I shared office space with about thirteen years back. Even as we stirred our hot chocolate and traded a decades worth of news, it struck me how easily I am able to talk about certain things in my past. I no longer feel the choke at my throat. I seem to use the past tense rather than the present. The subtle things that only I notice.

Driving back from work this Friday, I felt a deep sense of peace pervade me. I realized in the two odd months I have been at work in my new office, I have made more friends than I did in my previous job where I lasted close to five years. And I realized it was not the workplace, it was me. I had a feeling of being reborn. A feeling akin to shedding old skin and growing a new one. A sense of leaving one past behind and rediscovering the me from another. A younger, more adventurous me.