Few things you can't undo

I don’t know why I was reminded of this today. Maybe it was a forwarded mail I read this morning. Maybe it was some – one’s/thing’s way of reminding that I should behave in a way that would never make me regret my actions. I am reminded of this incident many times – sometimes, something triggers it, and the other times it just pops up in my mind - and EVERY single time I get choked up and loathe myself.

I was seventeen. Every year there is a huge industrial fair that takes place in the city, and, it is every citizen of this town’s tradition to visit the fair and buy loads of worthless objects that may never see the light of the day after it finds it’s way home. It had become a sort of a tradition between us (me and him – while we were dating) that he would buy a HUGE balloon for me when he visited the fair. I would hold on to the string of the massive multi colored ball and lie on my bed thinking of him and our next meeting. I used to save the balloon every time - after it would slowly lose all the air and become shapeless. And after a month or so, it would totally become flat and I would add this to my existing “treasure” of the “first candy” he gifted me (I still have it at my mom’s – bottled in a tiny jar – 14 years old), chocolate wrappers, roses that he gifted that had lost moisture and dried up but still clung on to the fragrance…

So, I came back home hurriedly from my college, excited, just to have a look at the balloon he had gifted me the previous night - that I have saved out of reach of anyone’s hands, on top of my dusty cupboard. I rushed in and found it missing! I looked for it all over the house and asked everyone if they had seen it. No one had. I locked myself into my room and sulked for a long time. Late that evening, when I came out of my room, I saw my six-year-old cousin walking into the house with that balloon. I stormed across the room and slapped her hard!! I STILL remember the look on her face. She was ONLY six years old and balloons ARE meant for six year olds! She didn’t even know why I had slapped her. The minute I did that I realized how nastily I had behaved. She is older now – she loves me a lot – just as much as I love her. She does not even remember the incident. But it hurts me as bad as it did eleven years ago. The pain does not go away. My crying now is not going to make things okay for that six year old. I wish I could go back to the six year old and hand out the balloon to her myself and say “sorry” to her. But I can’t…and it will continue to hurt this way - forever.