‘Word by Word’ is a column by Garima Behal on learning to ride the highs and lows of everyday life

It’s the final week of the year. And it’s freezing in many parts of the world. Even the sun, it seems, is hiding behind his quilt of clouds. While I do seeing miss him, it’s Bella I yearn to see even more. If you had told me in January that I’ll miss her in December, I would’ve pegged you either for crazy or crazy ambitious.

You see, Bella is a dog. And every time one passes me by, I experience mortal terror. Multiplied by one hundred. My breath refuses to come, my heart skips several beats, and my arm becomes a meadow of goosebumps. I have changed countless streets to avoid running into strays and happily abandoned my daily steps goal to rush home when one decides to co-walk the track in a park. 

Just in May this year, I froze on a hiking trail because a mountain mutt decided to accompany us. A stranger-turned-friend on this solo trip of mine had to whisper encouragements into my ear and hold my shoulders tightly to get me to take the next step.

So, when I gestured ‘come’ to Bella as she sat bored on the porch outside her owners’ (my neighbor’s) home, I left myself pleasantly surprised (in addition to mildly apprehensive despite the wired-mesh gates between us). I didn’t expect her to, but she walked over to the edge of the gate and sat, wagging her tail, expecting me to talk some more. 

That day I was at a total loss for words, thanks to my childish delight and adult shock mixing up in my brain. But then it became a ritual, me beckoning to her and she sitting by the gate, sometimes trying to get closer by extending a paw or turning up her nose, or barking loudly after I had said goodbye. 

As I look back at the year I’ve had, I notice this theme. Surprise discoveries, accidental friendships, and unexpected experiences have either become rituals or memories that will last me an entire lifetime. 

Like stumbling upon this thing called manifestation and realizing it was just a fancy new-age term for knowing what I wanted and working hard to achieve it. Like casually telling my uncle I wanted to ride a scooter so I could travel alone along the winding roads of Vietnam through paddy plantations—only for him to actually teach it to me. Like entrusting my life to a bunch of 16 strangers through bus rides on roads with 70-degree inclines and through hailstorms that left our narrow trek route ensconced in a sheet of slippery white ice. Like taking my parents for their first international trip, stepping (or sinking) foot into the desert sand for the first time, gathering the courage to wear my first bikini top on an ‘imperfect’ body and riding up to the 125th floor of the world’s tallest building in under a minute. 

The year I’ve had was a happy one, mostly, as the bright and shiny colors on the monthly mood tracker between the pages of my journal will tell you. But it was also a sad one, as my broken handwriting on those pages will. 

After losing a favorite aunt to stage 4 cancer, life was about sitting by the glistening waters of Lake Pichola in Udaipur for a candlelight dinner with my mom and a friend, marveling at the shimmery reflections and stifling tears because I knew that’s how I would always remember that moment—as one with the news of her passing away. It was about catching a lot of planes and trains to undo catching feelings for people who didn’t feel the same way about me. I rushed to friends, hoping for them to heal the hurt, while I felt the loneliness of being loved far too much by them and far too little by myself. And I drowned my sorrow in the Bay of Bengal and the Persian Gulf because, as someone who doesn’t drink, I couldn’t drown it in a bitter, burning bottle of alcohol.

My point? 

Life is life. Life doesn’t care about vision boards and international trips, and frivolous concepts like personal happiness and personal tragedy.

This is perhaps why 2022 was as awfully fucked up and as frighteningly beautiful as every year before it was and as every year after it will be. 

The years, they never change. But they do make us change. They give a 6-year-old who was chased around the park by a mongrel the courage to temporarily leave her deep-seated fear aside and call out to her neighbor’s golden retriever. They propel a shy introvert to sign up for group trekking trips with non-dog-fearing extroverts. 

They allow us to hope. To dream of everything, we thought impossible this year. Because, if we’re lucky, we realize we will have another chance to make it all possible in the next.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of MyndStories.