I am me

It’s been over 2 years now. The same office. The same route to work everyday. The same people. The same faces. The same meaningless conversations. The same canteen. The very same dreaded canteen food. The same old work under the guise of new.
She never really liked what she was doing. So, she bore whatever work fell into her plate and did it with the required amount of involvement and a pinch more than that of indifference. She had long since come to understand that it was just means to an end. She did not look forward to feeling elated or like shouting “Eureka!! “ every time she made some amazing breakthrough. She was good at it, didn’t mean she had to like it. And it paid more than she could earn elsewhere, if she even knew what work she could do elsewhere. Seemed like years of training and repeated-constant exposure to her environs had turned her into what she sometimes despised in others – a modern day slave who harbored illusions of being different, being something more than all the other sheep, who was pure brain and had great potential just waiting to be recognized. And of course, one given 8*8 sq feet area, walling the slave in as much as they believed they used it to wall out the others.
That is the problem with knowing so much theory, being able to think out something, rationalize it, think of your situation as if you were seeing yourself through the third person’s eyes. You just lose track of what you want to do, what you are, what you can be, what you truly like and what defines you. You become another wallflower. And she was at the brink of falling over that line.
She looked at each place and identified it with the people that made it as it is. It gave her more pleasure than most other things to be surrounded by people who were waiting to be read and understood without them knowing it.
There were people she used to like to work with, people she liked talking with, people she would meet up over weekends for a cup of coffee and fun. But it all seemed so long ago. Sometimes, she felt like the survivor of some war, one who could only search for people who were part of her surroundings once but are no more. She looked around and felt like strangers had occupied the place that belonged to her friends. Like the table they always sat at in the canteen, many a time, was occupied by people she had never seen before. And she always felt that twinge of regret of have not gone away herself.
Moving to a new place seems to be less taxing on emotions than to live on in the same place with space and memories to fill in the gaps.
She moved forward suddenly as the bus stopped with a jerk. She had reached her slave factory.
As she got off the bus, she smiled wistfully at the thoughts that had filled her head through the journey and she shook her head. Another day, another beginning. There’s always hope, you just need to want something badly enough.
She saw a friend waving to her and moved towards her with a big smile and said hi. And she heard in return.
“Hi Stuti”.
That is me. Remember it. I am not Employee Number 213456. I am Stuti. I am my own person. I have hopes, desires, wishes and a life to live all by my own rules. Remember that and today too will pass by without you wondering why you feel like a part of you dies everyday just by being here.