Just Out Of The Frame

I returned from the wedding to a very quiet home.

I heard my footsteps after a long time.

Now the flashbacks come.

Kids running around, women admiring each other’s Chand Balis and hathphools, men and women sipping bourbons, hands pulling me into hugs, music still ringing in my ears and of course eyes searching for me across rooms.

I’m still processing everything. 

I fixed someone’s dress, I checked on folks if they were well fed, I tried to find space to share a laugh with my uncles and aunts. 

I amplified the small bridal party by twisting the ‘extrovert’ knob inside my head where my body looked at me slightly amused, slightly exhausted, surprised at what I can still pull off. I made sure the people around me felt comforted. As an empath I rethink everything I say to others, making sure they don’t carry hurt for long. I absorbed emotions, so others don’t have to. I was the big sister to not just the bride but the whole of the wedding party who kept calling me ‘didi’. I came where I felt my need and quietly got back in the shadows where it was not there. I enjoyed every bit of it. I truly did.

I was everywhere according to some.

And nowhere according to others. 

A part of me wants to hold these memories close and not share them with the world. Not because they are not beautiful, they are. I’m afraid of losing something in translation.What if the photographs, which look editorial by the way, do injustice to what I felt? What if the stillness of the image, flattens the way my body lived those moments. What if the frame cannot carry the weight of my emotions.

The bride looks like Aphrodite herself came down to visit land.

Every frame with her in it, feels like the magazine spread, like time paused to honor her.  And yet, those images do not share the way joy and exhaustion and love all sat together.

They do not share how every time I saw her, I saw the little girl who had to grow up so fast.

They do not share how my chest tightened with pride that MY sister pulled off an event which 100 people cannot put together. 

How every time I saw her, I also imagined our Dad standing next to us, just out of the frame.

I had the best time of my life with friends and family. That is undeniable. 

My heart knows it without needing proof.

For now the memories are warm and unedited. 

For now I’m letting it all settle.

Until the feelings find shape, these small things are keeping me steady:

1. A fresh pair of socks after a 3 day long journey back home.
2. Changing out of travel clothes
3. Getting my diary out
4. Remembering that coffee beans in India and Thailand are amazing but the good old commercial Starbucks hugs me the same.
5. A simple sandwich, cut just right
6. Salads ❤
7. Planning some travel for the coming year
8. Planning events
9. Reading books
10. Picking up work
11. Just looking at my daughter
12. Understanding that I can continue to add to this list

I’ll share the photographs soon, when the moments are ready to leave me.

I don’t know when I became this person. But I recognize her now.

(These are not photographs of the wedding, they are the spaces left behind.)