He stood by the shore all by himself, for he had figured he needed a few moments of solace. There was something magical about the sea. The waves roaring as they battered the shore, the breeze grazing against him –it made him feel alive! This self-imposed reclusion of sorts wasn’t for nothing.

This had bothered him for more than a few months now. It was something he was looking for – or was it someone?

Lost in the depths of his own misery, he struggled to come to terms with who he really was. “It’s unfortunate,” he thought.

“Mirrors can only reflect the body and never the soul. So technically, no one ever sees their true selves.”

The thought of how well the others around him seemingly knew him made him feel exceedingly lucky at one moment, and overtly vulnerable the very next. His face went from a momentary smile to an awkward grin in a matter of seconds.

“Could they really know me that well?”

“Or are they fooling around?”

“Should I trust them at all?”

“Should I trust anybody at all?”

He could recall how fond his friends and family were of him. And he could also recall how they always expected the best out of him.

Were they right to do so? Or was the voice within him that repeatedly told him otherwise unmistakably true?

His mind flip-flopped from one extreme to another. It was all too much to take. His frustration reached new highs with each passing day. Ending his life would have been too cowardly a choice. Patience wasn’t around the corner. He needed an answer, and he needed it fast.

He looked through some of his pictures: old and new, which was followed by the books he read, the notebooks he wrote in, the paintings he so artfully made, his profiles on social media – all in search of traces of himself –but all in vain. His true nature belied him, unfailingly, always!

It all made him realise he had spent days together pretending to be someone he wasn’t. For when one’s own life seems dull, another’s looks attractive.

“Pretension – so easy to pull off, yet so difficult to live with”, he realised. “If only it was easier..”

He was pining to be himself. To be accepted the way he inwardly felt he really was. But he feared the possibility of a world that failed to fathom the person he really was. Rejection, he knew, could sting more than the deepest of wounds.

He had two choices –succumb to the pressures of the world or break the shackles and live wholly.

The choice he made could make his life a livelier affair or break him into pieces, shattering him for life. The uncertainty had his heart pounding. He took a deep breath and looked up to the sky –the stars and the planets gave nothing away. The realization that he was no astrologer hit him like a meteor.

“What was I even thinking?” he laughed.

The walk back home wasn’t the same.