Low beats

I was in a car yesterday. How normal is that? It is quite normal, isn’t it? I was hanging out with some of my old college mates. How normal is that? It’s quite normal, isn’t it? I went to a couple of pubs, last night. How normal is that? For me, it isn’t. I am not quite an all partying, all dancing kind of a person. An amazing girl amongst us said yesterday we’ve all gotten old, now. I guess I got old the day I was born. A week less than 26 years ago.

An old soul, full of regrets, in a young ultra energetic body. I loved the ambience of the second pub cum discotheque. It had a small dance floor. First pub, not quite. But the second one was one of the dimmest, most soothingly lit places I’ve ever been to. Also, it was a place full of energy. People venting out their hidden frustrations onto their surroundings. Enjoying, drinking, and forgetting, and trying, really hard, to find phone numbers, or being forgetful, or having a blast simply. Spirits do that. Both free and bottled. I guess a pub is a really effective social network than all these online portals. You bump into somebody, get a phone number. Talk, impress, date, and…whatever.

I loved the place I’ll never, probably, go back to. I loved the place, and the people happily enjoying their time and getting something out of it. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t drink, I didn’t dance, I didn’t get the phone number of the awesomest girl with us*, let alone hopping on to the dance floor and bumping into somebody to get things more exciting. Meet somebody new, talk something new, do something new about my otherwise truly mundane life. I can’t do that.

My heart beats low, I guess. Unlike their music system. That beat so hard I had my ears aching. I don’t blame them. That’s the place people want to be. That’s the place people drop their cover and show who they are. In the happiest, and in the saddest of the moments, if you are with them you see their soul, the spirit. I saw, of a girl. She was mind-blowing. No, really, she was awesome. Confident, funny, zany, good looking, gutsy, and, seemingly, a fighter. Everything I am not.

I now know why I don’t drink, though I got no problem with those who drink well (do not equate those who drink well with those who get sloshed.) You see, it’s a combination of spirits. Yours and bottled. If you can get the combination right, you can enjoy the party. I can’t. I am not really a spirited person. I’m a low spirited person. I see sadness, inside me, and around me, and I feel it, I can empathize, and I can be fine about it. But I can’t enjoy per se. I don’t have it in me. I can’t press the fast forward button on time, share a peg or two, hit the dance floor, and remember the two great hours I spent after, whatever, twenty years. I need time to run slowly. I need to imagine, and dream, and drift. I can’t let music block my thoughts. I want music to add to my thoughts.

I can’t let my body drift with music, but I can let my body drift with the excitement of thoughts I get in the morning. That’s true. Everytime I imagine (not necessarily professional) success coming to me, a plan in my mind getting executed, I jump at its thought, even in shower. Every morning, almost. Also, because I live alone, so dance-as-no-one’s-watching holds good to me, in reality. I don’t dance, I jump, simply. I can’t do that in a pub or a discotheque. Loud music blocks my dreams. And so does a scotch, maybe. That’s why I don’t drink, or dance, or party, I guess. My heartbeat’s low. I was born with that.

~

*Another very good friend of mine who was here, in this town for an exam, and stayed with me for the last week, who led us to the two pubs, got the number and fed it into my phone. I am not going to do anything with that. Not at all.