The in-between

There never is a black or white,
There's only grey and off white. 


I'd like to write about ambiguity, about vagueness. Today however, in a very unambiguous manner. Atleast, I will attempt to. Self reflection in abundant quantities has led me to one definite realization- we underestimate the existence of 'in-between-ness'. (I said i'd be unambiguous not articulate, so making words up is allowed). This is probably not the most desired conclusion of my eccentric, overbearing, why, even annoying thought process, but this is well the only 'definite' conclusion I could draw. Simply because everything else lies scattered in pieces, everything else is uncertain, vague, caught between a million shades of grey.

No, I don't intend to sound preachy or pseudo intellectual. And no, am not nuts. It's a tough deal to explain. While writing this, I can think of people (friends, if I may add) who will read, roll the eyes and brush it off saying it's Riddhi (Infact, that happens a LOT, about too many things and I will elaborate on that in another post). But I want to give a concrete shape to these scattered, indefinite thoughts about indefinableness itself and what better way to do that than dump my pretty page with details.

Let's start with relationships. Specific to my case, my relationships with people are seldom 'defined'. There's a close, a really close, a not so close, a socially close and the shades of grey are endless. I can count using fingers of one hand people I would actually bare all to. Yet, relations with people, experience, memories have this innate ability to stay with me. For a very long time, if not forever. Since I don't always know how to address these relations, they are tagged as friends. There is family too. In the case of family, it is all defined. I think before I could learn anything else, I learnt how to talk and the second that happened, I had relatives teaching me to address them in a special way for each of their 'special' relations with me. But, you know thing is, these definitions were forced upon me. Who is to say i followed them? Family comes under one big block for me and all the members of it form another million shades of grey. Darker maybe, but still grey. No black, no white, no perfect circle, no edges. Just fluid, not concrete.

I have begun to realize it is a conscious effort- maintaining the in-between. It's so much easier. It's non committal and free and oh so very spacious! I think maybe I fear 'concrete' in itself. Definitions can be suffocating, they imply limitations, restrictions and no scope for imagination or the unexplored. The grey on the other hand leaves room for that which is undiscovered, that which is a risk, but that which i yearn. So I go on, moving from scattered memory to another; one incomplete ending to another; asking questions; exploring variety; all this time knowing fully well that the path i tread lacks stability. Still, atleast it quenches my thirst for freshness, newness, even though am fully aware that all that is new today, will one day be boring and all that seems interesting today, will one day be annoying.

Maybe for all my courage, so to speak, for all my extrovert nature and social outward-ness if that that's what you want to call it, there is a part of me that will always hide behind the curtains. That's the part of me that still keeps me going.

~