Promises

For the longest time, I've been afraid of promises. And I don't want this to become a sob story, so I'll keep this part short; My Nana passed away when I was 15 years old, and he was truly my person - a bundle of joy and love (somehow even in his most challenging times). If anyone has ever made me feel like anything is possible, it was him! Almost a month before that dreadful day came was my birthday, and he'd been quite sick for a while by then, having had about 5 surgeries recently. He used to love singing and dancing, and on my birthday, as we turned on his favourite songs, we asked him to have a little dance with us, but he said, "Not this time, but next year, I promise!" and now, as we know it, next year never came. So, for years, all I could think whenever someone promised me something was that Nana had also promised, and this too would never happen. This made life a little weird since I started being scared of promises in general (yeah, even I didn't know that it's possible).

But one day, in the midst of a breakdown, someone said to me, "But promises are meant to be broken!" and even though I never understood that, I carried it with me from one place to another, and from one relationship to the next. Now, after all this time, I feel like I finally understand what she meant. Promises were never meant to be some sort of guarantee for us. They were always just meant to be a tiny token of trust. We were never meant to hold on to a promise, but the loving promiser who wanted to make us feel safe with that cute little word. The more that I think about it, the more I want to go back in time and tell every person who promised me something, "Thank you for trusting me and giving me a piece of your heart to make me feel loved in that moment!"

Now go on, promise your college friends that the Goa trip (come on, it's the thought that counts), and promise to keep your New Year's resolution of breaking up with junk food XP.