A couple days back I read these two lines somewhere. I have tried to remember it but can’t really put a pin on it. Anyway, the line goes,
“I’m good at lying I learn that from you”
No jargons. No difficult emotions. Just some simple words strung together to mean something devastating. Did the person who wrote it think that this line can stir feelings in a person? Let alone make her write something of her own? Maybe they did. Sometimes the blue curtain is a metaphor for the writer’s depressive symptoms.
Anyway, I noted down these lines almost 5 days ago on my notes app and forgot all about it. Then yesterday I read it all of a sudden and I could not think of anything other than how we all lie about how we feel about someone just to make sure we don’t mess up what we already have going on. We gulp down our feelings with vodka (well it’s whiskey or tonics in my case), we turn a blind eye to the stolen glances, pictures taken amidst all the chaos, the smile, the soft eyes, the smirks etc. Basically we LIE. Again. And again. And again. Till either of the two things end up happening: either you remain in the status quo or one of you ends up in a situation where you just articulate how you feel in a moment of acute anger. Either way, you destroy something. The first option destroys the two of you. The second? Well, the second ruins the friendship.
“I’m good at lying I learn that from you”
2. The Fear of Ruining It
This line stirred something in me. Ever since I read these two lines one phrase has been going in circles in my head. “Ruin the friendship”. Just that. Just those three words. I cannot help but wonder how many people are currently thinking about the same thing. Weighing their options. Battling the possibility that if they cross that metaphorical line, they might mess up the one bond that is synonymous to home for them.
How many people are keeping their feelings to themselves only for their eyes to show the bare truth. How many people can see two of their friends in love- except for those two idiots. How many people gave up the idea altogether.
People who read my blogs on the daily, know that I grew up on a daily dose of romcoms. Especially Hollywood romcoms. And if you are one of those people who has consumed their share of these movies, you know the friends-to-lovers trope is a common theme in most of them movies. Think Monica and Chandler from F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Two friends who know each other since years find each other in love years later. Or Jake and Amy from Brooklyn 99. Or Penny and Leonard from The Big Bang Theory. Or movies like 13 going 30 or 500 days of Summer or a million more. There are so many more from where these came. What I mean to say is, we’re sold this trope because this is one of the most beautiful bonds to think about. But what about the weight of actually risking the friendship?
3. The Quiet Shift
No one really talks about what happens before that moment. The almost-confessions. The way your words stop just short of meaning something. The way you start noticing things you never paid attention to before—who they text first, who they sit next to, whether their voice changes when they say your name. It’s subtle at first. And then it’s not. And suddenly something that felt easy starts feeling careful. Like you’re constantly editing yourself in real time. Because now there’s something at stake.
So you lie. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just in small, convincing ways. You say it’s nothing. You say it’ll pass. You say you’d rather have them like this than not have them at all. And maybe that’s true. Or maybe that’s just the version of truth you can live with. Because the alternative is terrifying. Because the moment you say it out loud, you can’t take it back. And the worst part is—not that they might not feel the same—but that they might look at you differently after. Like something has shifted. Like something has been broken.
And maybe that’s why that line stays. Because it’s not just about lying. It’s about where you learnt it from. It’s about how the one person you want to be honest with is also the one you hide from the most. And somehow, that feels like the biggest betrayal of all.
4. Choosing the Risk Anyway
Now despite the mess, despite knowing the price, we still fall in love with the one person we should not. Despite all of the things I just said about the weight of risking the friendship, I will always say friends-to-lovers is one of the best ways to fall in love. Imagine finding your best friend and also the love of your life in the same person. Isn’t it special? If you haven’t had the chance to feel it, let me tell you that it is one of the most amazing feelings.
I have been reading quite a lot about this “trope” nowadays and I completely agree with what my fellow bloggers have to say. The “slow burn” is easier said than done. The “confession” is easier said than done. There’s a lot at stake even without the other person not receprocating the same feelings. But while the 30-minute sitcom episodes or 3-hour movies hardly show the struggles, (simply because it’s not possible to be true to the art as well as the reality of the trope) I will always crave for what Monica and Chandler had or Jake and Amy had. Or what my parents and my friend’s parents have.
I want someone who knows me without me having to translate my soul because we speak the same language (even if the dialect is slightly different). I want someone who did not feel attracted to me because of what I had to offer, no matter how little. I want someone who saw me and found me interesting in the unromantic way. I want someone for whom I did not experience falling in love, at first sight. But rather one for whom my feelings developed, slowly and steadily. A love where I started noticing the little knowing smile he has when he knows he struck a chord. Or the baby face he makes when something doesn’t go his way. Or the way his eyes always find mine amidst the chaos. I want to feel the safety of friendship with my person and be undeniably in love.
While I write this, I am reminded of a line from one of the most unlikely book I should be thinking about right now. It’s “My Dark Vanessa” by Kate Elizabeth Russell. The line goes:
“People will destroy everything for a little bit of something beautiful”
And while I don’t want to experience a little bit of this beautiful story, I believe it somehow perfectly portrays what goes on in someone’s mind right before they confess. And you know what? I believe if there’s a chance for you to find love in your best friend, I say go for it. Risk it all. You know what Taylor Swift said about this right?
“My advice is always ruin the friendship Better that than regret it for all time”
Wow I have blabbered on about friends-to-lovers for an ungodly amount. Anyway, ignoring the voices in my head, I want to say this one last thing: sometimes the “risking it all” is better than the “what could have been”.
To all my readers gushing over all the characters I named here, I love you and I hope you get your love story.
Midnight rain piercing through your flesh armour. Armour? The armour hasn’t existed in months. It rusted quietly in the corners of sleepless nights, in the pauses between your sentences when you pretended you were fine. The rain knows this. It doesn’t knock anymore. It walks straight through you— cold, familiar, merciless. Once, you would have called it pain. Now it feels more like recognition. Like the sky finally touching the wound you kept insisting was only a scar. The rain lingers there, as if it has been waiting for the armour to disappear. Drop by drop it maps every fragile place you tried to bury under bravery and silence. And you stand there, not fighting it, not running— just letting the storm remember you. Because somewhere along the way you realised something strange: the armour never really protected you. It only kept the world from reaching your pulse. And tonight, under a sky that refuses to be gentle, you feel everything again— the ache, the warmth, the unbearable honesty of being open. The rain keeps falling. But for the first time in months, you are not trying to build the armour back. You are simply standing there, bare as truth, letting the storm pass through you like a long overdue confession.
They say men do everything for the woman they love. I never believed that— thought dislike was fixed, unchanging as the sky above.
I thought when you said no, you meant never, that taste and time could not conspire, that people stayed the same forever, unchanged by want, untouched by fire.
But that isn’t true, is it?
It’s been four years of knowing you, three and a half of loving you through. I say was—yet still it’s true, some part of me still leans toward you.
But you aren’t the man I loved back then, or maybe you are—just rearranged. Same bones, same voice, same quiet grin, only the wanting has been changed.
You watch the theatre now. You stay. You like. You call it beautiful, call it right. Do you remember Swan Lake at night— when you told me, find someone else, and I swallowed the slight?
You watch it now with someone new, turn moments into something rare. Experiences you once outgrew now bloom because she’s sitting there.
You sit in cafés you once called tacky, order hazelnut lattes without shame. You don’t flinch, you don’t mock me, don’t call me South Kolkata like a name.
You go on dates. You trace new starts. You wear a tattoo on your skin. Ink where once I held your heart— proof of the man you grew within.
I wish you were this version then. I wish the timing had been kind. I wish I met the now of you instead of loving the almost kind.
But wishes don’t bend time’s decree. They ache, they hope, they learn to wait. So we exist in memory— a lesson dressed as fate.
A man who learned what love could be. A woman who showed how to begin. You carried the knowledge forward with you. I stayed behind where we’d been.
It’s been a year of letting go, of finding hands I thought would heal. Of telling myself I no longer know the way your absence makes me feel.
I said I was done with tears and you, that grief had finally run dry. But here I stand—proven untrue, still breaking when your world goes by.
You watch the theatre. You watch rom-coms, too. You became what I prayed you’d be. Just never, not once, with me and you.
I hope she is everything I was not. Every softness, every ease. And if you remember me at all, let it be kindly. Let it be at peace.
In faded gold. In quiet blue. In gentle light, in borrowed hue. The way I still— the way I always— think of you.
I beg the Universe— quietly, on nights it pretends not to hear me. I look at you and swallow the words, I will wait. No matter how long. No matter how foolish it makes me look , standing still while the world moves on.
I would hold your hand when the seas grow violent, when hope slips through your fingers and you forget how to breathe. I would teach you how to live again— not because you don’t know how, but because I only ever wanted to do life with you.
I would advise you, if you asked, on how to soften the sharp edges of your days. I would be the solace you kept searching for in places that were never kind to you.
I say all of this, don’t I? I say I am ready. I say I have love— more than I know what to do with. I say I love you.
And you never say it back. Not once. Not when it mattered.
So here we are, losing— not loudly, not dramatically— but quietly, the way people do when one heart is open and the other is locked from the inside.
You weren’t willing to receive the love I held out to you, even when it came without conditions.
Who knew love could suffocate instead of save? Did you know? Is that why you stood in the doorway, telling me you loved me— your body already halfway gone, your words never intending to stay?
And yet, even after all of this, I bow my head to the Universe, stubborn in my faith, reckless in my hope.
I ask it to rewrite the prophecy, to be merciful where you were not, and to still—somehow— name my destiny after you.
Two people who were intertwined and tangled with each other a fortnight ago- now distant.
Parallel lines.
The eyes that felt like peace once? Now they don’t even look at each other to steal a glance.
The voice that called your name like worship? Now can’t formulate a simple “Hi” when they see you.
How ironical it is right? All you ever wanted for “us” was goodbye but you cannot bring yourself to form the word to say to me when I leave the once known?
All I wanted, on the contrary, was to keep you. Hold you close. Hoped that you would forever be in my orbit as the planet that gravitates only to my pull.
Then how is it that I form the word “bye” when I leave the once known?
The place that once was all about love and light and laughter and all things good- is now ice cold and dark. Maybe just for me though.
The one place I ran to every chance I got because it sparkled like love? The lights now out. Now my footsteps stop at the entrance. Contemplates. Traces the path back to the exit. And the love dwindles.
You are unknown to me now. Or maybe you’re just dressed in colours not meant for me.
Your voice- a faint echo of someone I loved deeply and completely. I love you still. But my love’s all fading into black. I’m fading into the black in your reality.
The end of our story is near. The end of our story is here. So to my once known before you’re forever unknown to me- light up the dark before it consumes you.
Learn to love before love learns to leave you.
Keep my space safe for if ever the wounded soldier returns home after fighting her war.
Keep my memories locked somewhere so that I always have a blip of known in the now unknown.
I didn’t plan to write a year-end reflection, but when has life ever gone according to a well carefully crafted plan anyway? 2025 changed me in ways I can’t ignore. It pushed me, tested me, and quietly taught me things I didn’t even know I needed to learn. Somewhere along the way — through late-night breakdowns, unexpected kindness, friendships that held me, and love that didn’t last — I grew. Not in the dramatic, life-altering way I once imagined, but in small, quiet ways that built me into someone new. So here are the lessons I’m carrying into the next year, written with honesty, a little tenderness, and the hope that 2026 will be gentler with me.
· Life’s never linear. Most of the times the dips hit more than the rise: The December of 2021–2023 was a different era — a younger, softer version of me who still believed life followed a neat, predictable rhythm. Back then, December meant running around the streets of London, riding the high of Winter Wonderland, and feeling like love and direction were permanent fixtures. But life changed — brutally, abruptly, and without warning. I remember the chaos when immigration policies shifted, and suddenly my future felt suspended in a limbo I never asked for. I remember envying people who seemed to live the life I wanted with half the effort. Does it still bother me? Absolutely. Some nights I still wish things unfolded differently. But January-me and December-me are not the same. I’m steadier now, grounded in ways I wasn’t four years ago. Life didn’t go as planned — but maybe that’s where I learned the most.
· They were ready for love, just not for you: As someone who has never known nonchalance in love or lied about something this tender, 2025 bruised me in ways I didn’t anticipate. Early in the year, someone warned me: “Beware of the love that starts suddenly — it will disappoint suddenly too.” I dismissed it with the arrogance of someone who believes she can love deeply enough to change the ending. But nine months later, there I was — watching the same person who once stumbled over the idea of commitment suddenly become soft and certain… just not with me. It’s a strange kind of heartbreak, witnessing someone become the version you always wished they’d be, but for someone else. I watched the mushy nicknames appear, the carefully planned dates, the inside jokes, the way they slipped this new person’s name into conversations as effortlessly as breathing. I watched them become attentive, thoughtful, romantic — the very things I waited for, the very things I had poured my patience into hoping to receive. And it taught me something painfully liberating: some people are ready for love, but only when they meet the person their heart finally decides on. And no amount of goodness, loyalty, or honesty can make them choose you if you aren’t that person.It hurt — deeply, silently, and in ways I won’t pretend away. But it also freed me. Because I finally understood that I wasn’t unlovable — just not their choice. And there’s a quiet strength in accepting that without resentment.
· Healing is rarely loud — most days it looks like boring consistency. 2025 taught me that healing isn’t cinematic. It’s not the big breakdown or the dramatic epiphany. It’s the small, mundane acts — replying to emails on time, cleaning your room when you don’t feel like it, choosing sleep over spiralling, showing up to the gym even when grief sits heavy. Healing is discipline disguised as routine. And some days, discipline is the only love you can give yourself. But this year wasn’t gentle with me. It was chaotic in ways I didn’t expect. My body rebelled — violently, confusingly — in ways I had never experienced before. I have woken up in the middle of the night with a sharp ache in my chest, breathless, overwhelmed, tears spilling before I even understood why. Disbelief reigned supreme. How could something that didn’t even last that long break me this deeply? I’ve dragged myself out of the rabbit hole of shame and self-hate more times than I can count, only to fall right back into it two days later. Healing hasn’t been linear or graceful. It’s been messy, repetitive, exhausting — a cycle I’m still learning to navigate with patience instead of punishment. It’s a work in progress. I’m a work in progress. And hopefully — gently, quietly — the next year will look up.
· Friendships save you in ways you don’t expect. This year, I learnt that sometimes it’s not the grand gestures but the quiet “Did you eat?”, the random meme, the 11 PM phone call, the friend who remembers your exam date, the one who shows up even when you didn’t ask. Love from friends is softer, steadier, and more healing than any romantic crescendo I chased. The right people don’t just stay — they anchor you. Because apart from the family I was born into, this chosen family of mine has saved me more times than I can count. They’ve stolen me away from the pit of my own darkness and taken me on early morning rides to places they call their “little slices of heaven,” just so I could remember what peace feels like. They’ve spent three-hours on a phone call with me simply because something in the way I texted sounded off. They’ve reminded me of my worth on days when heartbreak convinced me otherwise, and they’ve stood guard at the gates of my heart, helping me fight off the half-hearted connections I stumbled into earlier this year.They’ve hated the guts of the guy who made me miserable — loudly, shamelessly, and with a level of loyalty that only true friendship can carry. And they’ve loved me enough to tell me they will let me go, if and when I decide to leave this city behind again… hopefully for one last time.This year proved that friendships aren’t just constant — they’re lifelines.
· You can outgrow people you still love.Not every goodbye is a failure. Sometimes you outgrow someone simply because you grew in a direction they didn’t. You evolve, and they remain who they were. And suddenly the conversations don’t flow, the comfort doesn’t feel the same, and your heart knows long before your mind catches up. Letting go isn’t cruelty — it’s clarity. They say you let go of people for the same reasons you fell in love with them. And oh, how deeply and loudly I have loved these two souls. But as the years — and more painfully, the months — passed, I noticed the shift. While love allowed me to grow, while I chiselled parts of myself to make us work, they stood their ground. The very traits that once made my heart soften — their decisiveness, their stubbornness, their consistency — eventually became the reason I felt stuck. It was in the littlest of things, the small refusals to bend, the reluctance to meet me halfway. Things that once felt charming began to feel heavy. And little by little, I realised I was outgrowing a situation I had once prayed for. After months of choosing them over myself, I chose myself. Not out of anger, not out of exhaustion — but out of recognition that I deserved reciprocity, not just affection. Does that make them evil? No. Like I said earlier — they were ready for love, for softer versions of themselves, for love songs dedicated to them… just not from me. The flowers they received from me always looked like carnations, even when I had plucked roses and lilies and orchids with the utmost care. Sometimes the love you give simply blooms in the wrong garden.
· Beginning again is not failure — it’s proof that you’re still thriving. If 2025 taught me anything, it’s that life will make you start over when you least expect it. I’ve started again in love, in friendships, in career paths, in the way I understand myself. Some endings blindsided me, some beginnings felt forced, and some transitions felt like the ground disappearing beneath my feet. But I’ve come to realise that beginning again is not a step backward — it’s bravery in motion. It’s choosing to rewrite your story after it’s been torn apart. It’s finding the strength to gather your pieces, even when your hands are shaking. It’s accepting that sometimes the universe says “not this,” so it can gently guide you toward something better, even if the in-between feels like freefall. Every time I stood up after a heartbreak, every time I opened a new document to rewrite another CV, every time I walked away from someone who couldn’t love me fully — I wasn’t failing. I was continuing. And that counts for something even if I don’t know what it is!
If there’s one thing this year has taught me, it’s that life will never look the way I thought it would at twenty-one, or twenty-three, or even at the start of 2025. I’ve learnt that grief comes in waves, love leaves without warning, healing takes longer than we think, and friendships often arrive like lifeboats in the middle of a storm.But I’ve also learnt that I am resilient in ways I rarely give myself credit for. That even when my heart was splintered, even when my chest ached at 3 AM, even when I was convinced I had nothing left to give — some quiet part of me kept going. Kept hoping. Kept believing that the next chapter could still be kinder. Maybe that’s what growth really is: not sudden transformation, but the slow, stubborn refusal to give up on yourself. 2025 didn’t give me the life I wanted. But it gave me the lessons I needed — grounding, humbling, painful, and ultimately shaping me into someone stronger, softer, more self-aware. And as the year ends, I hope 2026 brings gentler love, clearer paths, warmer beginnings, and the courage to choose myself again and again. Here’s to healing, to outgrowing, to beginning again.
And here’s to the version of me who survived it all.
Imagine asking someone “Would you love me in December the way you love me in May?” and the answer keeps coming back as yes.
You feel the fear of losing in that question?
I knew you wouldn’t love me. Or maybe even the fact that you never did.
The illusion of us was beautiful though. And I spent a lifetime during my 90 days in heaven before you tore it all up. And left that version of us to rot. With me. Left me to live with memories of us “in love”. Only to come back in newer colours. And you have no idea how you’re breaking me now because you’re oblivious to my grays still.
I see you try in love with someone new. You say you are getting your karma back now? And I see you happy in love. Oh I don’t mind that. At all. I want you to be happy. And in love. Even if it’s not with me. But no karma isn’t getting you right now. At least not in the way you treated me. Because you have no idea what I’m living with and how I’m breathing in bits.
I wish you tried. For me. Oh! I would have given you the world. I would have fought the world for you. I would have been a shield, like I already was, in your absence too. I would have held your hand through the storm to brighter days. Oh the way I would have loved you. But instead I heard you say “you deserve a lot better than me. Someone who will love you the way you should be loved.” And that broke me. Into a million pieces. Because I thought I finally found it. My missing puzzle piece.
You are someone else’s now and I’m still trying to find ways to not live my life in half breaths.
You ask me how you can make things better for me and I want to say “you can never because you’re the one who’s hurting me” but all I say is “it’s not for you to heal”
And you know. You know that you’re hurting me. You know that holding me back with you now is tearing me apart. But you still don’t let go. And I resent you for that. I regret you, for that. While it’s not for you to heal- it’s for you to make sure it stops hurting. And I know. Oh God, I know you don’t love me. Not in the way I do. But you don’t let me go either.
You hold on a little longer. And then a little more. And now your hands are like a rope cutting into my skin. The friction is making me bleed more and more. Profusely now. And you still don’t see the red.
When will you see me bleed out? From the bullets you shot? From the injuries you inflicted? One by one. With the utmost care. When I’m on the ground? Gasping for breath? Will you see me then? Will you come running and sit at my feet as I am on my last breath? Will you say that you’re sorry then? Sorry for breaking me? For killing the lover I had in me?Will you look at me and know that you are the reason behind my demise? Or will you still be ignorant?
Will you try and love me then? Will you love me next May, the way you don’t love me this December?
Someone asked me to write about hope yesterday. And you gotta give what your readers want right? Also, what a word this is.
Imagine the magnanimity of it — five letters carrying the unbearable weight of survival. The beauty of hope is that no matter who we are, no matter how bruised or broken we become, we return to it instinctively. We hope for better days, better careers, better pay, better love, better friends. We hope for a better life. Even when life has given us every reason not to.
This year, especially, has tested my relationship with hope. It has not been kind. It has not been gentle. It arrived with lessons I did not ask for and endings I did not consent to. It took people, certainty, comfort — and replaced them with silence, questions, and an aching kind of clarity. There were moments when hope felt foolish, almost offensive. Like a naïve friend who refused to understand how tired I was of believing.
And yet, here I am.
What this year has taught me is that hope is not loud. It doesn’t announce itself with optimism or blind positivity. Hope is quiet. It sits beside you on days when getting out of bed feels like a victory. It looks like showing up even when your heart is still in pieces. It looks like choosing to believe that the version of life you are walking away from is not the only one you will ever know.
Hope, this year, was staying when everything in me wanted to shut down. It was trusting that rejection was not redirection’s cruel cousin, but its necessary beginning. It was learning that endings do not erase the meaning of what once was — they simply make space for what has yet to arrive. It was allowing myself to grieve without deciding that grief would be my permanent address.
I didn’t always hope gracefully. Some days hope showed up as stubbornness. Some days it looked like tears and clenched jaws and whispered please into the dark. But even then, hope persisted — not because I was strong, but because something inside me refused to believe that this was all there was.
Hope did not promise me ease. It promised me continuity. It promised that even after disappointment, even after heartbreak, even after a year that demanded more than I thought I could give, life would still offer me mornings worth waking up for. New conversations. New versions of myself. New joys I cannot yet name.
So yes, hope is a magnificent word. Not because it guarantees happiness, but because it keeps us moving forward despite the absence of it. And if this year has forced anything upon me, it is this quiet, defiant kind of hope — the kind that survives not because life is good, but because I am still here, still trying, still believing that better days are not behind me.
Penny's World 