Lina Ji

… I will miss it. So much. See you later, Lina Ji. I smile. It touches my heart. From Mam to Lina Ji, my form of being seen. I’m in the mountains of Parvati valley. Surrounded by the snow peaks. Away from my fairy forest, where Lina Ji started from a place that was home before and has become that even more this time through building friendship, clearing up the past, connecting on a new level. Conversations about what has happened back then with Jay and how he’s done what he’s done to me to others and how he’s been excluded from the community now. This is your home Lina Ji. They make sure of it.

One day trip becoming two days as the beauty is getting to a place deep in my heart, too hard to resist. A place that gives me peace, creates a safe space, for now where times become fragile. Arriving my heart has no questions for this place but to stay.

A day for myself. With myself. All on a sudden everything changes. Walking to this magical place I feel in my heart that this would be special. Through our new encounters and the surrounding energies. I see it in their eyes. Lina, it was so good to meet you. Another hug before they go. Sincerity in their eyes. Just like Thomas Thakur. I smile again. I like him. I tell him I’ll be back. My two friends all packed to go back to the forest, we take a little last hike together. Walking above the majestic river we find a spot so beautiful, so raw and remote we decide to go down the mountain to claim it for ourselves. Sliding down to the shore, the power and grace of the currency is overwhelming. We crawl on the small self built bridge to get to the rock in the middle of the stream, sitting down to meditate. The beauty of the surrounding nature is enough to change my friend's minds to also stay an extra night.

They go to explore further while I return to my peaceful place to sit in the swing, have my coffee and reconnect. To myself. To all that is. To the change. To the change that is so hard to grasp for me. This place that is providing everything to feel comfortable making me feel like I don't wanna leave. Especially that kind, shy smile of Thomas Thakur. It fills me with warmth. Not only through their fire place and their all welcoming attitude. It's like a bubble, the last escape that keeps me from the reality of the last days having broken. Of the fact that soon after my five months I will leave again. Back to Georgia. It shields me from even the reality that when I return to the village I might see A‘s face for one last time. I might. Is what it is. It is once more this nagging nothingness of having no idea. Not where I am, not what I want or what will be. The space in between. As if I am watching myself from the outside like a spectator.

The drizzle on our tent waking me up in the morning, after another night that didn't let me fall asleep. The Twilight in my heart. The weather a mere reflection. I brought no rain jacket. It's dark, it's grey and it is neither bad nor good. It just is. Like my heart. 

Seeing myself again and again returning to Barshaini, May fourth, yes may the force be with me for this... I see us coming back from the hike and walking into him. I replay the same scene in my head over and over again . Not willingly. It’s annoying, yet I cannot unlearn the date he had mentioned on the phone and no matter how much I have learned that his words mean nothing in my world I cannot not remember them, reminiscing in my mind. I wish there was not so much even as a nanometer of space in my heart or mind for this energy but I can also not deny it. Space is even made for the unworthy sometimes. Until…

In the early afternoon, tired and and with a dark cloud covering my heart that I cannot identify where it found its origin, I walk back into town with my new friend. My new friend manifesting the sun with me, bringing more light into my heart, still my attention everywhere but with me. When I walk into my friends who were just a bit back, we decide to take a taxi for the last part. I feel my mind wandering around more and more on a far away expedition from myself. Getting out of the taxi in front of the gate to the village, I get almost run over my foot by one of the taxis as I don't even look. My friend, pulling me to the side. Absent minded is not even enough to describe how far out I am.

My attention throughout our walk scattered all around. Alert around the cafe, his house, up hill to the forest. It's like he could jump out of a bush anywhere any time now. The cafe is crowded, no space for me. No space for all my thoughts and feelings, so far off. 

When we arrive, I feel my emotions tearing me more and more, my nerves shuddering. I can't even put a finger on them. Standing between the stairs, in a conversation between them, up and down, he is sharing his feelings with me about the same topic. Where to go, where to stay, how to know. Between my hysterical laughter finally tears start streaming down my face. He is looking down on me, putting his arm around me. Oh no. You're emotional now. Lina Ji. I feel so seen next to him. Calling me Lina Ji out of nowhere, after our days together it makes me feel even more seen. His acceptance, his reflections, his care and most of all his authenticity, tearing me between laughter and crying when he is chasing down the monkeys.

My tingling nerves, under my tears, between my laughter I tell the others I need to get drunk. Get a bottle of vodka. Debating on a surface level with myself where all this was coming from and if it was the best idea to drink or not at the same time after over two months even becoming very respectful of it, I finally grab my bag and run into the forest. The rest in disbelief, their laughter has ceased. Feelings of my old self, connecting back to the time in Georgia which has become much closer, back to me, returning. The feeling of drinking, of getting away subtly reoccurring. Strange feelings I haven't had in a while for the last months when I was living my perfect ideal little healthy yogi lifestyle where no one could touch me.

My friends reaching me exactly in the right moment, saying the right things, outraged for me by the hurt that others have caused me. Empathically for me, for all the change that's coming with the two worlds, moving together. While I am getting closer to the village, listening to my friends‘ voices, I decide to first get the groceries to buy more time for the decision making of possibly also buying alcohol. Finally standing in the small shop, my bag full of cookies and soy milk, I finally get a small whiskey, still not sure what to do with it.

When I arrive back at our place I hear my phone ringing, my lovely Spanish friend from Georgia was worried. Everyone's curious eyes if I was seriously drinking, getting at me now in the kitchen where dinner was luckily already prepared. I am sitting on the stone as the sky had lightened up again for the last hours of the day, making me feel light again. I get dinner, put the bottle next to me and eat while all the dogs are surrounding me. I still feel scared to even open the bottle. Finally I pour myself a glass and sip on it. M is coming to sit with me, it still doesn't feel like I really want to have a lot of it. It feels like an experiment where I want to see what it is doing for me. And the same fast the experiment has started, the same fast it's finished as the Universe sends me every single one of our group expressing their compassion for me in combination with their open care for my well being. Especially the shape of our kitchen boy whose eyes are filled with concern and love for me when he sees the bottle, move me so deeply that I know it is not the right thing for me to do at the moment.

His sincere concern for my well-being, his kindness and worry, intertwined with a reflection of my own thoughts of only drinking in happy times, the drinking and my exhaustion move me straight into my bed. With a full heart. All these little notes and reminders from the people present here around me. Lina Ji if you want to talk we are here. We can spend a good night together the last one in the bundle says and the Ji in Lina seems to become so natural now to each and every one of them, no matter from our country, others or India itself. The Ji now has become my safe space, my happy place, my love. We missed you here as well I receive the message from Georgia. Just that one I needed together with some last words of courage and trust from my friend who shares her heartbreaking love story of eight years with me. Who is getting upset for me. Who feels me, who holds me, telling me in all her fragility and she knows about my feelings, blowing in the wind that she would highly recommend me to not meet him again as this is only causing pain. And for all I know if it is not for the pain, I know enough that I do not want anyone near me who has no care for me in such an enormous dimension. I don't ever want to provide any space for anyone not choosing me anymore. For anyone who is coming with nothing but pure love and care for me. Like everyone around me here. Now. I choose to let go of the parts of my old self that accepted less than I deserve. I choose to let go of the parts that stayed in situations and with people who were harming me out of old trauma response, staying in comfort, remaining unseen. I refuse to stay in the dark. I want to shine my light. I want to be loved and I deserve to be loved more than anything. I do not have more space for anyone who gives me less than all their sincere benevolence. May a new chapter be opened and the old one left behind in the forests of India.