Conversations That Didn’t Drain Me
- ANUSHA KARNATI
- Jan 4
- 3 min read
Dated : 03/01/2026 11.30pm
Sometimes the Best Intentions Are in Need of Redemption
On a random Sunday evening, while I was home, I began reorganising my wardrobe.That’s when I came across my apron from my undergraduation days.
I opened it—and there they were.Words written by people during the final days of UG.Friends, classmates, juniors. Pieces of a time I had once lived fully.
As I read through them, memories flooded back.Laughter. Chaos. Innocence.It wasn’t nostalgia alone—it was recognition.
Among all of them, one person stood out—unmistakably memorable.Crazy enough to keep life exciting.Interesting enough to feel depth.
She wrote beautifully. Even today, rereading her words brought a smile to my face.She had drawn a kolam(muthyala muggu)… and a snake(nagamma)(Yes, crazy. Didn’t I say that already?)
Life moved on.I returned to my place. College routines continued.But somewhere between daily chores, that freshly revisited memory of her kept rewinding—again and again.
One day, I texted her.“Hey bro!!”
To my surprise, the reply came with equal warmth.It didn’t feel like seven years had passed.Time had flown—but this conversation didn’t acknowledge it.
We spoke. And one day, we decided to meet.(got lucky that she is in India)
We booked a clay phone-charms workshop and tried our hands at air-dry clay.As our hands worked with clay, something else softened too.We spoke—about life, about silence, about growth.
I spoke about what my silence had been holding.What happened. How I tried to handle it.The books I read. The perspectives I learnt.
Negotiables and non-negotiables.Mental stability. Physical ability. The nervous system.Food. Toxicity. Bad days. Small achievements and bigger accomplisments.
Back then, we spoke in laughter.Making weird jokes. Sharing food. Talking about books.We danced. We laughed.We lived moments that we still carry today.
Today, we spoke in understanding.
Looking back at our meeting now, I felt I knew her better—not from the past,but from who we’ve both become.
We spoke about many things.She filled voids I was struggling to understand.I spoke about what I had learnt over the past few years.
She has grown a lot.Maybe I have too.That’s why our frequencies matched at this phase of life.
She listened patiently.Tried to understand.Held space with quiet steadiness.
Talking to someone at this depth is a blessing.It brought a quiet sense of ease.I felt better about myself.
It felt like two women—trying to evolve online, offline, emotionally—uplifting each other.
I understood the importance of clarity.Decluttering.Protecting mental energy.
Communication is everything.Through her experiences and learnings, I found answers to my own questions.I genuinely don’t remember the last time I spoke this much—from the heart.
It was a heartfelt conversation.A blessing.
It felt like this meeting was meant to happen.That it carried significance.Destined.
Watering each other—so we can grow.
I’ve always believed women carry immense potential.I’ve had beautiful women in my life—each teaching me something,each making life a little easier.
She is definitely one of them.
I didn’t learn the theory of relativity from her.I learnt something far more delicate.Something far more powerful.
Respect.
Back in undergrad, the way she respected others—I noticed it silently, from a distance.Today, she spoke about it.And it felt like… maybe I learnt it from the right person.
Not all lessons come through instructions.Some are absorbed silently, over years.
Life isn’t about big moments.It’s about the accumulation of many small ones—the joy of little things.
Today was beautiful.Memorable.A day I’ll carry quietly with me.
A day I shed a few layers.Relived.Realigned.Became 0.1% better.
After all these years, she felt more like family than family.
It’s been more than a decade, and we still haven’t spoken a single sentence about our profession.Maybe we were never meant to connect through marksheets or rat races.
Today I understood something simple:Time flies only with people you truly like.
Holding on to this, I’ve realised this—I stay where my nervous system feels safe.
This time, we spoke about life—and never missed cracking jokes (I officially called a rhino a bull, because that’s what I felt).
I’ve crossed that place many times before.I’d seen the café and wondered who would ever sit there, surrounded by tall buildings and traffic.Yet I sat there for hours—without complaints, happily, talking.
Maybe it’s not the place.Maybe it’s the people.The right ones make all the difference.
For someone who was afraid of people,who struggled to trust,who lived in a constant mode of internal panic—saying this today feels like change.
Did I change?
She said one thing:“Bro, you healed mentally and emotionally.”
After speaking to her, I felt I had taken the right decisions.No regrets.
Only after sitting there calmly, comfortably,did I realise certain things.
As I always say—it wasn’t the tea,it was who I had tea with.
Something in me moved today—today marked a quiet shift I want to remember.
P.S.
Sometimes, growth doesn’t announce itself.It arrives quietly—as calm, as clarity,as conversations that don’t drain you.And that’s how you know
something real just happened.
@arki
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