Abandoned and Alone

So here I am, back in the land of the living. Not that I have been hanging around in the land of dead or even the un-dead like some male version of Buffy or the Halliwell sisters. Spring is in the air, and there’s a spring in my step, I have a new job, a new phone number, new computer, new clothes and like Lady Marmalade before me, a new attitude. I am back to using my mind, my Internet connection and my iPod. Could things be any better? Valentine’s Day is now just a blurry memory and my favorite Indian holiday of Holi is just around the corner. I have already taken my left-over and unused colors from last year and placed them out where I can gaze upon them from time to time. I can’t wait to be covered in layers of pink, blue, green, red and other assorted colors.

But it is not all daffodils and tip-toeing through the tulips. There is an emotional monsoon looming on the not-so-distant horizon. It was just the other night, over dinner at a fabulous flat across town that Stephen dropped the bomb. There we were having the obligatory bubbles from the yellow labeled bottle when it was announced that he and Pierre are leaving Delhi in just over two months. I was immediately crushed by the insensitivity of the decision. My first thought was “what about me?” They should know by now that I have serious abandonment issues. My emotions spanned the entire Oscar winning range. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit someone. It was all very Sally Field at the end of ‘Steel Magnolias’. Questions like “who will we do Sunday afternoon drinks with by the pool?” and “where will I ever get another gin martini?” filled my head like a bad hangover. I was drunk with despair, high on hysteria. I had been unexpectedly blindsided by the cruel rickshaw of reality. But then I asked myself “what would Scarlett (O’Hara, not Johansson) do?” and so I decided to face the issue head on taking a deep dive into the sea of denial. Now at least, I have someone other than my parents to blame for how my life is turning out.

It’s times like this I am thankful for friends like Chris and Poul and their freezer dedicated to the vodkas of the world. No matter what the mood or the occasion, they have the appropriate vodka which they keep at that perfect brain-freeze inducing temperature guaranteed to dim the lights of even the brightest of sorrows.

I know everyone thinks I will crumble. That I will lay down and die. But no, not I. I will survive.