Gabriel- Burning bridges.

Have you ever heard about Noah's snail? 

'Noah's snail made it to the ark too.' It's a common expression. It means more than what it states. The snail perceived and reached the ark on time, though later than others but he did succeed all right.  He saw others get ahead of him however he did not lose hope. He took his own sweet time and felt contented once he reached the ark. 

   Gabriel's mother always called her a Noah's snail. She always made her believe she was hard working even if she wasn't smart and that felt just right. It felt just enough. Gabriel gave her all when it came to her career, her family and  "relationships". 

   Ah, relationship. The enduring task for a philophobic (one who fears forming an emotional attachment). It's always a sinking ship for them. Well, the idea of opening yourself up to someone else, letting them see the crude pieces of you, the broken bones is just too much of a task. 

   Gabriel was no saint. She had her flaws too. She had her share of resentments, regrets and especially her aspirations that died down with her relationships. She believed in the concept of burning bridges. She craved to be different so she named the basic life choice of cutting ties as burning bridges. She somehow knew she was weird but her optimistic self called it being different.

 

   She believed in hard work, no doubt in that. And she worked hard to end relationships. She put in all her efforts to make sure that they end it with her, that smart Noah's snail. Her phobia got the best of her.

 

   She said, I am burning bridges because I believe in the new me. The new miracle . And sir, you have no business anywhere near me while I discover myself. 

   The lone wolf in the wild lighting up the forest all around it and then struggling to get out. Oh that narcissistic  bitch was trouble and she failed to acknowledge it.

 

   Sometimes, I wonder, we are all like Gabriel in some way or the other. Putting ourselves in a structured mess and then we struggle  to stop the mess in an unstructured way. While struggling to fight struggle, we curse and blame the unknown for doing this to us. To make us suffer. We all reach a point of numbness. The loneliness.  Where you're so deep into the mess, you don't know how to feel or what to do. And no matter how hard we try to burn bridges to free ourselves and form a new life,  we easily forget we were on an island and that, that bridge we just burnt? It was our only way out. 

   No matter. No matter. Gabriel's two favourite words. We'll build a new bridge before the forest fire catches up to us. Sometimes we leave the island peacefully with that new bridge to help us. Or sometimes, just sometimes we burn. 

   Gabriel got burnt. In her own fire. 

   Gabriel's Regret list

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  Regret number 384: Burning bridges.