I quit my job at Citibank and all I wanted was to travel. And yet I felt guilty, and there was nothing I could tell myself to justify the regret I felt that I hadn't said goodbye.
Every day I scoured this Earth to find happiness. I didn't find it or anything else to soothe my soul at all. I found wonderful places.
This was the opportunity I would have done anything for. I got to escape, but here I was, a stranger in a strange place. I was just a drifter who never stayed too long, and no one seemed to be curious about my story the way Meera had been.
I remembered asking her about her writing once.
'I'm sort of jealous,' I admitted. 'I am great at numbers and figures, but I don't think I'm any good at putting words together. You can write and your heart sings on the paper.'
'I want to inspire people with my writing. I want to touch their souls,' she said. 'I want them to say, she feels us, she moves us.'
I could hear her voice, but when I tried to picture her smile, I struggled to call her up in my mind. I wished I had a picture of her, but no camera could ever capture the look in her eyes and the feelings in her heart when she looked at me.
Yes, I finally started to admit, I needed Meera in my life.
What had come over me? I had promised myself never to fall in love! But I broke my promise when I looked deep into Meera's eyes. She was the universe in which I was discovering myself for the first time. She was the most amazing woman, with a face of an angel. Her curiosity about the world around her always seemed to be empowering topics that would fascinate me for hours.
I remembered how thoughts of her came to me during my journeys. Shivering in Alaska, the northern lights reminded me of the green jade necklace she liked to wear.
In Cape Breton Island, I sat on the edge of a cliff, threading my fingers through the grass, and remembered when we walked to the park together, holding hands. The day she took her sandals off and walked barefoot. The day I kissed her. I closed my eyes. I could feel the softness of her lips on mine.
I thought of the little girl in Boston and how much Meera would have loved playing with the green balloon dog in the pool with her. She had a way of grabbing the important things in life and not worrying about what other people thought.
Every stop on my journey, Meera was with me. I might have been trying to escape from everything when I left India without saying goodbye, but somehow, Meera had followed me everywhere.
Meera. She always came into the café with such a bubbly personality. There was nothing that could or would stop her. There was nothing that could keep her down. She always wore a smile on her face; it made you feel like life would always be a wonderful place to live in.
Suddenly, I realized I didn't care about travelling. I missed her and I missed my life in India. The fact was, for so long I'd cared only about travelling, I didn't realize there was more to discuss and more to say to one another.
I never really left the café, but watched from afar as she looked around for me. When I asked her how her day was, she would always answer with, 'My day is better now that you are here.'
~
Every sunset I saw from different places of the world only reminded me of all the times I'd spent with Meera. We were in different cities, across the world from each other, and you can call it silly, but it felt as if we were still connected by each sunrise and each sunset.
I had left without a trace, without a goodbye and without telling anyone. But I had my reasons. I wished I could tell them to Meera. I thought about what the man in the park in Paris had said to me: 'In the end, we always regret the choices we didn't make, the love we didn't accept and the dreams we didn't fight for.'
I needed to get back to my friends. All of them: Kabir, Nisha and Meera. I hoped my abrupt departure hadn't damaged our friendships. And if it had, I needed to go back as soon as possible to ask for forgiveness.