Are you with somebody?

Night Cap. It has been a long time. I look around and I see you inside behind the glass checking your phone.

I glance away.  You had said in an email three months ago that you loved and respected me and that you would let me know when you wanted to meet.

I walked across to the tables furthest away. I looked back and realised that you might have seen me.

It is the seventh anniversary of the day you sent the first email which had started with an apology for not getting back to me. You had said you hoped to meet me to talk about work then.

So I sit and talk. The phone rings. I see your number. It has been almost a year since I heard your voice on the phone. Like how I walked away, I cut off the phone.

The Gita though is in my mind.. what kind of jackass am I, 43 years old.. and hanging up phone on people who I care about. I had rehearsed in my head many times.. what would I say or do if I ever I saw the number again on the phone.

I call back. Try to put on smiley voice and fail.

I am in Nightcap you say.  I know I saw you I say.
Are you with somebody you ask?
I say What.. the voice is harsh and I do not want to deal with eyes looking away again.

Are you with somebody?

I say yes, yes .  I say How are you?

There is deathly silence.. the phone is cut off. I am with somebody and I apologise.


I come home and laugh because that morning I had written that I had let go of you and that I hope any future encounter with you would be one in which I could be useful to you.

I send you an email the next day , as I always do.  I express regret that we could not be normal.. go up and say a quick hello or hi and that I did not work on trying to manage the connection we had and did not have in a better way.

You do not reply.


A woman wrote that "Forgiveness is letting go of the hope for a better past. "
The time flies .. so quickly that with you.. all the dysfunctional moments of attraction and rejection rapidly become a past in which I keep trying to rewrite the scripts.


I hope one day that will change. I hope that any accidental meeting between us in future would at least have us both smiling and a hi, nothing else.  I know I do not do polite well. Forgiveness I guess also means letting go of the hope of what might have been.