You tweak, twist and turn your life until you find the exact setting you want it to have. The right people, the right job, the right city - your love, your family, your peeps and your work. Life feels full, like it may be going somewhere. And then, there is that emptiness.

Yesterday I was arranging my books in the my new IKEA bookshelf. Emptying torn boxes on the carpet, dismissing the books in three piles: trash, front-row, back-row. Then there was that book. Printed and binded, a copy of my diary entries from 2000 - 2002. And there were more. Fat expensive hard-cover Archies notebooks I had purchased with stolen money from my Mum's purse because I wanted pretty books to write in. Tomes of poetry that documented broken hearts, faded dreams and golden nostalgia. It hurt me to read the lines. And when I did read, I couldn't go on much further because I was afraid to learn what I would find in those pages. I was afraid of remembering again the people I was close to, the people I had loved and the people I had not cared for in my past. I was afraid of throwing myself in that world of forgotten smells, conversations and people's voices. Because if I am being honest right now - I still, still, remember the nature of those days: from the sounds and the colors to the smell of the rains and hoot of the rickshaw. And it only causes me pain.

Not because I miss the past so much, but because my present is so different from my past that nothing links me back to it and I feel like I may have lost it forever.

I am on Orkut and I bump into these people I shared I large chunk of my life with. 10 years of school. And I stare blankly at their profiles and pictures now. I cannot remember being close to them, I cannot recognize them. I am unsure of how to view the little time together I had with them. Is that time enough to rekindle a friendship? Is that time enough to bridge the gap of distance and age?
More often than not -- it is not enough.

I often ask myself, if I left India too soon. If I should have finished undergrad in India. I have no regrets because at that time, it was the best decision and the right one to make. But in hindsight I wonder -- what if? Would I be closer to the people I left behind?

Why can't making friends be as simple as, "Hi, I'm Me. Would you like to be my friend?"

It has been difficult for me to forge the same kind of close friendships here. Partly because I can't seem to trust people, partly because we don't have the time or inclination to build enough history together that will sustain a lifetime of friendship. And also because in my head, I keep looking for the same kind of friends I had in India, knowing-well that it is impossible.

Reading those diaries put me in an uncomfprtable place and I had to shut them. I piled them in the back-row section and hid them behind my books about Wines, roman history and advertising. My past, did not belong to my present.

I miss having a friend. Life is different here. It's not better or worse. Most of my growing up happened here in Philadelphia. Even though I lived in Bombay for 18 years, sometimes I just draw a blank. My memory of those 18 years, feels like old photographs watered down with rust and rain. Hazy, unreal. But my memory of the last 5 years here is vivid. Painful and proud.

I remember visiting Goa before I left for America. I sneaked out alone to the sea late at night. I wanted to stand infront of the pitch dark sea and feel insignificant. I wanted it to frighten me. And it did. In the inky darkness, as I stumbled back to my room, running away from the roaring sea-- I felt as docile and defenseless as a lamb. I knew a strong wave could sweep me away and that would be the end of my dreams, promises and questions.
And somehow, knowing that put me to sleep that night. A silent, dreamless sleep that I craved.

I'm glad I still know that.