It was only after I moved away from home, family and madras, did I get a clear perspective of what people were really like.
You realise whom you thought of as overbearing was just a caring sister.
The person who questioned your decisions and criticised your actions was only being a true friend.
The colleague who spent every night at your place was probably just sponging off you…
Put some distance. That's when you get a clear filter.
That’s when you learn to separate the chaff from the grain.
Like the management joke that goes – not everyone who shits on you is your enemy, not everyone who pulls you out of shit is your friend…
It’s merely a myth that the more time you spend with a person, the better you know him/her. You need distance to gauge a person.
After being ensconced in a routine of sorts over the last 5 years, I got my distance and my space, when I took a break for my second pregnancy.
So you move away, and see yourself and the people around you from a telescopic distance. And their character just pops up. Like pieces of a puzzle things just fall in place.
The insecurity behind a person’s martyr act;
the defensiveness behind a person’s long drawn explanations;
the rabble-rousing behind the uncalled for confidences;
the guilt behind a person’s exaggerated laugh;
and also the trustworthiness behind a person’s brutal honesty;
straightforwardness behind their indifference;
the care behind the non-stop calls;
the warmth behind the silence…
You get to see people for what they are when you remove yourself from the environment.
Just as distance is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, it also helps in shaking yourself out of false intimacies.
But that doesn't mean you won't repeat the mistakes, trust blindly and get taken for a ride. It just means that you fall a little less harder the next time around.
Antenatal hormones can really bring out the philosopher in you.
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