Promises

Promises, we all make them, we all break them. I stopped making promises sometime back, when I realized that making a promise ties you to something. And when you fail to fulfill this promise, you feel like you have betrayed someone. You have betrayed your self. Then you feel guilty and ashamed. You can avoid all these emotions and feelings, if you stop making promises.

But people have promised me things. Even when I've told them not to.

The promise of love
Quite a few of my friends have promised to love me forever. It seems so easy I guess, to love someone. But to continue to love them, even when you really get to know that person, that's what's difficult. So none of these people kept to their promises. They promised me love and a forever. I got neither.

The promise of friendship
A friend promised me that he'll be my friend until death parts us. But what he actually seemed to have meant was that he'll be my friend until I tell him there's no place in my life for him. Truth be told, that space he once occupied, remains empty. But none of that matters. What matters is that broken promise. Now may be you think I'm being unreasonable, a typical girl. We push people away and then expect them to fight back, and prove they are worth it.

But I don't want all that. All I want is for him to at least remember that promise. He doesn't. And he never asked for a proper explanation, he just hit me with the hurtful truth. And then, he left. He left after I did, but he still did leave. Which I guess, was expected of him. But what about that promise? Why didn't he say something about it?

Because promises are meant to be broken. We make promises knowing we won't keep to them. "I promise..." has become as meaningless as "I love you". We rob words of their meanings, and yet, those very words we say come back to haunt us. So when he said, "I promise to be your friend" he actually meant that he'll be my friend until life, and not death, pulls us away from each other.


Our parents promise us so many thing. They promise us love, they promise to catch us when we fall. But they too know that soon enough they won't be there for us. Maybe because they can't. Or maybe because they shouldn't.

People do the same. "I promise to be there" and you look around after sometime, and they aren't there. Friends promise us love, comfort, happiness. But they fail to give us those things.

Isaac, in the Fault in Our Stars says, "Love is keeping the promise anyway." And even though I know promises are meant to be broken, some part of me still hopes those promises won't be broken. Maybe out of a sense of duty, maybe out of love. Either way, we keep hoping those promises will be fulfilled.



In the Zahir by Coelho, the protagonist goes on a long and exhausting journey in search of the woman he loves and in search of him self. It takes him two years, nine months, eleven days and eleven hours. But he gets there, because he made that promise, to him self. And this is what is expected of us when we make promises. A fight, a journey. No matter what the costs, we must, absolutely must fulfill our promises.

I smile to my self when people make me promise them things. I smile when they try to do that childish thing where you keep palm on palm and swear or promise. As if this bonds the two people forever. I refuse to make promises, and when people promise me things, I tell them not to. I'd rather continue to love them once they leave than hate them for that broken promise.

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