December

Now that it's near approaching the holiday season, I feel something inside me want to break out of my fragile eggshell bubble. I'm not sure if it is the lessening of workloads, or the way the congestion of traffic has slowed down. The increased empty seats on the commute to and from. Somehow, now, I kind of feel I can actually breathe. And I feel it has been a very, very long time.

We have all pulled away onto our own respective paths, all the while knowing deep down that we are always connected. I'm not sure if it was the cumulative effect of one being absent, and the other in reaction filling in that space with their own absence; a tumultous tidal motion of moving bodies all forming one wave, but never in the same place.

I feel, however, this has somewhat been a theme I have kept going over, again and again, each time I make an appearance here. Maybe it's just my repeated attempts to justify how far away I have pulled myself, maybe to soothe some unconscious  guilt within for failing to be there for whoever whenever they may have needed me, or maybe it's just something akin to the baby bird's beak tapping, tapping again and tap tap tapping to break free.

I feel the need to say I am sorry. And also to let you know that I miss you. I don't know why, I just feel the need to do it. Maybe we can blame it on my flu, and mixed up sensations and sensibilities churning away within me as my lymphocytes and whatnot are running about hunting and exorcising demons.

Blahhh. Anyways yo, it's holiday season! Happyyyyyyyyyyyy holidays, loveyall.

Questions

What is it about these changing phases that makes them so more loved? The way it blows hot and cold, this way and that, pulling us to and fro; variations making us...feel.

I have not had time to let myself think. Or rather, I have had the time, but less of the inclination. Or, well, to be honest, I am not even sure about what really has happened. I simply got lost in the pull and sway of routine, and while I longed for something to save me from it, I don't think I really made an effort. I let myself get lost.

But something has snagged inside me, and once again, I don't really know what it is. I let a whole summer go by unaccounted for, and that only heightens the irony since it is that heat and respective sense of relaxation that is supposed to go along with that season that should have let me fly loose. But it didn't happen. I cannot really tell you now what happened these months past; just trying to remember makes me feel like I had lost my memory and it's all been blocked.

It could be frustrating, but somehow I'm not letting it be that big a deal. So much more has happened, inside and out, that really sets perspective in its place. Rippling tides that have increasingly tugged me underneath and made me feel like I was drowning and only thing left was to survive, all other luxuries - writing - be damned.

It hasn't been anyone's fault but mine. I realize that I have become a different person; or rather I have let myself become a person that has always been me, only that it was not previously provided the circumstances and environment that would have allowed it to exist in its own right. Yesterday I was thinking how I used to be this buoyant bubble of hyperactivity and mirth, always giddy, always jokey, always 'that crazy, happy girl', and the inside scoop was all the while I was that girl, I was actually someone deeper inside, sad and lonely and craving for something more, and therefore all that buoyancy was somehow my defensive mechanism. It still is. But now, somehow, I have let my guard down and become this quieter and much more soulful person. And as I was thinking all this, I realized I also didn't like this much more honest person, because even while it was honest, it felt wrong.

At an intersection of myself, where the hyper met the depressed, I remember this was where the appreciation of who I was at a height. Meaning, somehow when I let it slip that, when people had figured me for this lighthearted ball of joy, I had hidden depths, somehow they appreciated who I was even more. One one hand, this was gratifying, but then again it also grated and was annoying because they had made assumptions. But then again, we all make assumptions, and I believe we make more assumptions about ourselves than anyone else, which is why we end up lost.

Sometimes the hardest thing is to figure out who we are. And either we face it heads on and try out mightiest to solve this universal problem before we kick the bucket and it's no longer a problem, or we just don't care. But to truly not care means we don't give a damn what anyone thinks, that we perhaps lose out in developing who we are, perhaps become hostile and anti-social, or amoral. It is the act of caring who we are with respect to who we are in the presence of others that keeps us who we are.  And to understand this underlying concept, we really actually need to take a moment to really think it through; just as we sometimes need to take a breath, or a step back, and consider who it is we wish to be.

So the next question is this: is the act of filtering ourselves for how we act, for what we say, somehow dishonest to the idea of just being yourself? That is where, if we are not careful, we may fall over the edge and get lost, especially if you spend too much time trying to answer this.

I have pulled away from 'interacting' in these past months. Like I have said, I don't really know why. I think it was so that I could find myself. I had things to deal with and the top of the list was nurturing the relationship that was most important. Time was in limited supply, so I figured that I would devote the time available toward this one thing, but then it was the very act of constantly keeping watch over how little time there was that somehow corroded the time itself.  Because you are ever more aware to how little there is, and if you are not careful, you find yourself wanting more, and more, and more when there is no more forthcoming. And the reaction to not receiving, and continuously wanting is not healthy. It eats you from the inside out.

Things which remain constant somehow lose their appeal. Perhaps this is why we allow ourselves to slip a little bit, and sometimes a lot, allowing ourselves to become splattered by mud as we trod onward on our journey, allowing ourselves to dip into a pool of misery or turmoil, because it adds some spice or flavour to an otherwise bland pool of sunshine.

So why is it that we internalize these changes, why the dynamic of movement from hot to cold, from up to down, from left to right, from dark to light, make us feel so much more alive? It's a question I have answered so many times and I am always still left asking it.

Seven

Within the past several months I realize that I've been telling myself 'I wish the weather stays exactly like this; it's perfect.'  The weather has changed in a million ways, and each time I've said it, it's been entirely different. And yet, somehow, as I slowly come to this realization, each utterance was truly heartfelt. It's strange.

Yesterday, the weather was grey. Cloudy and dull. And yet, as I walked outside, I felt my insides swoon. It was gorgeous out. Balmy and that heady mix where you just could not tell what kind of weather it really was. It was all four seasons with all its sub-climates all intermingling and turning about. Spring and autumn doing the waltz, summer and winter debating over our heads. I sat at the window, enjoying my lunch and felt myself ease into a cocoon of contentment.

It was romantic weather, I told myself. How I came to this conclusion, I could not explain. It simply was romantic.

And though I reluctantly pulled myself away from that cocoon to get back to the daily grind, that tiny bubble of serendipitous contentment stayed with me throughout the day. I had not expected it in the least. But somehow I found it, or rather, it came to me.

Somehow it has awoken that sleeping spectre within me. Enough so much that I am here to write.  I have not been able to do so for the longest time, and in fact, I have retreated further and further into my self-containment so that I did not feel the least bit inclined to interact with anyone at all, not to the fault or lacking within anyone who was - is - someone to me. It wasn't you, it was me, totally me.

I am not entirely certain how this foray back onto long vacant places will last. Again as with the way the wind blows this way and that, perhaps it will come and go just as quickly. Perhaps the way I've tilted my head trying to decipher if this breeze was warm or cold, unable to truly distinguish such closely aligned threads of gold, silver, rust, or copper, filaments of grass and crystals of ice, maybe just maybe, it will flourish in as many different ways, unexpectedly.

Qotd

There is something in me maybe someday
to be written; now it is folded, and folded,
and folded, like a note in school.

-- Sharon Olds

Flamenco

 In the middle of fall,
 as the autumnal winds caressed the edges of leaves barely holding on to their parent trees tinging n tinting them a multitude of oranges, hazels, burgundies, bronzes, saffrons and mere browns, in the middle of the doom that had instilled itself upon the leftover green, in the middle of fall, spring came back. The sky suddenly paused and a parallel universe descended on reality, empowered by the multitude of nostalgia, wist and reminiscence  that arose in blankets, layers, a dark unplague swarming itself upon the ethers of consciousness and nature. It ascended in resemblance to a thundershower in rewind. And it happened in a millisecond, not even in an eyeblink or heartbeat. Before we knew it, we had awoken, expecting gloom, and found ourselves stepping into hope. Off went the scarves. Off went the jackets. On went the melody of life. Out we stepped,
but did we dance?

Fractured

There were those days, there was a time, when we spent hours laughing amidst trivialities. Friends, like no other. The silliest jokes, the randomest conversations, about the absolutely most mundane of words, yet amidst friends.

The lukewarm sun upon our heads. The waxing and waning of the moon through our days and nights, together.

We felt a peace, of belonging, and yet to each this was something to be a passing phase, because within we craved. We longed and waited. Our hearts were beating for something else, something more. Someone else, perhaps.

Because, after all wasn't this the ultimate destiny? Love. We were bereft and waiting. Waiting and waiting for that absolute that would finally complete us.

 And so we gave ourselves to our temporary moments of friendship-filled fun, without ever completely giving ourselves. We were adamantly alone amidst the crowd. Our eyes were steadfastly held to the edge, a horizon, where we were certain our destiny lay. We condemned ourselves to a permanent state of solitude because we wanted to remain whole for that which would make us whole.

Where did we go wrong?





Thanks to song: Sab Bhulake - 3am, Raethe

For you, Miss.IQ, I made it :D Mrowwuuuu!!

Grapefruit

As soon as I bite into it, all I can think of is the powerful essence of LIFE that just oozes its weight over my tastebuds, and into my system. I automatically think, yes, this most definitely is my favourite fruit.

But then again, I get that reaction with quite a few other fruits.

But the grapefruit will and continue to be right there at the top of the list. Until you experience the mastery and magic of a grapefruit, you will not know what it is that I speak of -- the juiciness, the tang, the sweetness, the energy...

And some people just don't get it. I tell you. Some people just think it's a yucky fruit, and I tell them they just have not tried a proper one. It's like saying you don't like tofu (!) when you're just tasting the thing uncooked. Well duh, would you enjoy a bite of raw uncooked unmarinated unflavoured unsalted chicken? If you said, yes, just...please...just...no...sorry just...go...go..away....x out of here.

The grapefruit is a beautiful thing. In my opinion, it is better than oranges and even (gasp gasp) perhaps tangerines. But as with mostly everything, you have to have the ones that are just right. The gorgeous ruby red, or the pamplemoussey pink. Sluuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrp.

Farhan

This guy is just so dashing! I can't say 'cute' because that's not exactly it, nor exactly is 'hot', because it's not just that either. But it's everything, along with whatever makes him HIM.

Oh yes she is, yes IQ has done it again - she is gushing about a celebrity. Cue eye-rolls and sighs.

Well hey, it has been pretty damn long since I actually did ever blog about a celebrity crush.....In fact, I can't even remember an occasion in recent history where I really did this. All that comes to my mind as a poignant example is my "Love Triangle" post about ahem ImRanbir. Way back in...........well way back. I'd probably have to dig back in my archives on Lucid to reference that for y'all.

Anyways - Farhan! Yes, sir! Don't get me wrong, I don't really have serious pangs of passion or even crushistic pangs...but I can't help but think to myself, in a sort of abstracted way, that duuuuuuude, this guy is ........something.

I always have, in fact, about Farhan. He just stands out, you know? In a different, non-typical-Bollywood-celebrity way. And yes, for the record I am talking about Farhan Akhtar.

I don't know. I ask myself, does his background contribute to my curious interest in him? Son of Javed the Great Lyricist, step son of Shabana...well certainly that's intriguing, and err ok, Honey Irani was before my time anyways...so meh.  He's an artist and HELLO of course that is going to hook my interest, the same way my interest in Sallu was when I learnt that he paints (painter alert hubba hubba). I liked him in Luck by Chance. And I really really liked him in Karthik Calling Karthik.  I'm not even going to mention the box office blasters.

 Ah I don't know. His smile. His crinkles when he does. His muted personality - like, it's not that boisterous "Oh, I'm all that" type. It's that sort of zen type, the same personality vibe that always (always) attracts me. It's part of the reason I even liked both Ranbir and Imran. That laidback, reeeeeeeeeeelaxed, zen thing.

Anyways, yeah, so I just spent a post or so going off on a tangent about this fellow. Why?

I watched Shaadi Ke Side Effects, of course. It's been such a long time since I even watched a Hindi movie. Or rather, any movie, really. I don't even know if I am able to put into words what I think about the movie, but I liked it -- and yet, I sort of didn't. I liked some moments in it, and some moments which obviously call upon the viewer to relate, and yeahhhhhhhhhhh. I don't know. Just..........

Farhan.

Endorphins

Ah those good ol' hormones. Can't live with em, can't live without them. Well, certainly - and literally- the latter, anyways.

We often associate hormones with two phenomenons, generally. First, that of our time of puberty, when we're suddenly awakening to an enhanced realization of our physicality, and moreover, the physicality of the other gender, and its effect upon us. Secondly, and unfortunately, hormones are often generalized and associated with the unforgiving period of err, ..yes pun intended. PMS.

But then again, that's not just it right? Obviously not the case, because our every moment is a flux of hormones running about our body, up and down and around and around. Every single stimulation that occurs, each reaction, that's it right there, hormones at work.

Having been a medical biology student, this was stuff of immense interest to me. Not purely in the studious way either, but the magical way these organic compounds within us seemed to make meaning of how we function and more importantly...why. Once I mastered the basics it was easier to come to terms with those spells of moods and feelings by knowing what was behind it.

Along the way came the relief in realizing that my strange inclination to become teary quite easily was also perfectly explained. Crying was not a weakness, but in fact a normal biological reaction wherein external stimuli which threatened our emotional well-being, or tipped that balance one way or the other (because, afterall, we can cry in happiness too), incited the production of emotional tears, and in so doing, stimulating the release of endorphins into our bloodstreams.

Endorphins? Yep, those feel-good hormones. You may be familiar with that rush of exhiliration that comes with a good dose of exercise, or emotional connectivity with another special person (i.e. love) or...physical connectivity. The chemical composition of endorphins are very similar to opiates...so forget having a joint of heroin or popping them codeine pills...whenever you need a mood boost, all you gotta do is exercise, or fall in love, or err make love. Or cry.

Dance

At a very young age, I was finally enrolled in dance classes. I say finally, because it seemed like that was what was just waiting to happen, I slid so seamlessly into the role of the dancer.

These were the standard classical Kathak dance form, and my father having also been totally raised in the world where classical art forms were a requisite, it was only natural that he'd finally get his own children into the same thing. Classical music was something we already had started since he himself was a music teacher, but the actual art form of Kathak was something best left to a real dance teacher.

And boy did I love it. The arrangements, the ability to simply let go and feel your body just sway to those internal and external rhythms...I couldn't ever explain the sensation it created within. To me, it felt like life itself was already a rhythm, and this was the best way to exercise an excuse to move to it, moreover it just seemed to make so much sense of life itself. It felt so amazing to find oneself amidst a moving body all synchronized and contributing to a bigger sense of togetherness intertwined with music.

Slowly but surely, I mastered the movements and was promoted from class to class, until one day I was the smallest child amidst all these huge women. I was -as I am still now - the quiet and somewhat reticent one, and I wasn't fully formed into the grace that usually underlines femininity, and as a result I likely projected a somewhat self-conscious aura...but inside, that's where it all bloomed in the thrall of it all. I relished those moments, even as I in my self-conscious self dreaded it.

It was often the attention that made me dread the experience. I have never really been the kind of person who wants to be totally in the limelight - I guess I've always preferred being in the background, the support...although, there was also this ambiguous sensation of loving the ability to shine. It's something that sort of pulls me this way and that even till now, because I suppose there is that fluctuation balance of introvert and extrovert that constant moves the way tides do, a sway and comfort left to whichever influences are around me.

A vivid memory serves as the perfect example of this quandary. My teacher had the habit of picking on me to show off the proper way to perform a certain dance step or technique, and on this particular day, she had already asked two other bigger girls (women?) to do this for the others, and they both didn't do it the way it should have been done. She turns her glance finally toward me, gives me that haughty and knowing smirkful look of hers - I was fearful of that look, but now that I'm older and have met her since that young age, I realize this was simply her way of showing her quiet approval and pride and certainty that I was accomplished -  she asked me to do it. I looked around and felt the dread of the attention, and not only that, but more strongly the sensation that once I "showed-off" the technique and did it easily and perfectly, the other girls would hate me for it. So midway, I purposely screwed it up. And felt immediate relief in doing so...although she gave me a searching look as if she knew exactly what I did. But for me at that moment, screwing up despite knowing that I was more than capable was a better option than proving this for all to see and being singled out for it.

My dance teacher also decided that while we learnt the classical techniques, we should also be performing the usual 'bollywood' type dances, and this is something my father wasn't too happy with. He wanted the rigor of conservative and original classical dance forms, not for his money to be put into performances of little girls shaking their bootys and yet-non-existant bosoms around the stage. Soon, my having stayed at the top class without the teacher able to teach me more, and the increase of Bollywood-inspired dances, my many years as a dance student was put to an end.

Often I think back to those days and feel a longing to have been able to continue dancing in the learning environment. It was structured and such that I didn't feel the self-consciousness I did in other environments to move around and dance, because that was what was expected.

And that brings me to the other side of the coin. I am always the most reluctant of persons to join friends and whoever on the casual dance floor. I'd rather sit quietly or stay in conversation with a really good friend, or eat (ha), rather than get up and make a monkey exhibition of myself. I can't explain this reticence, I'm not really comfortable in doing the party type dancing thing...despite dance being there in my blood. I guess it's that sway again, of introvert and extrovert. It isn't really so much what other people will think of me, either, it's just a matter of my own personal comfort level.

Despite that, I still catch myself moving about unconsciously when I'm listening to music, privately and even publicly - and of course, when I'm all alone I have no qualms, dancing about early in the morning with my hairbrush while I'm getting ready to go to work is usually the norm, and the best of all is coming home down the pathways in the twilight dark or thundering rains and just letting go and dancing like no one's watching!

Cheese & Crackers

Have you ever noticed how a lot of the best foods start with C? I've just finished baking a cake, and yesterday I made some cupcakes (the best I've ever made, just to have it said. Woohoo).

I had intended to talk about my love for crackers and cheese, the combination that beats the most luxurious of meals hands down on a good day. Then I thought, well while I am on a roll, I may as well talk about this observation I had made since I was a kiddo - how most of the more delicious foods start with C.

I'm not really the kind of person who has a sweet tooth, if anything, my weakness is geared toward the more 'snacky' items. Chips and crackers top that list. I don't know why, but I tend to have more cravings for the salty and greasy things over the sweet and buttery. That isn't to say I don't enjoy sweet things, I would be lying if I said so - but I feel more repulsed with the idea of injected so much refined sugar (and its companions in most dessert items) into my body. Don't ask me how that says it's okay to indulge is greasy and salty carbs, but then again, I also don't really indulge in either, I simply get cravings for the one over the other more often.

But back to the original thought. Crackers and cheese. Mmm. One of my 'small happinesses' I thought to myself the other day, when after dinner I strangely got some hunger pangs, and returned after a foray in the kitchen with 5 crackers and two chunks of marble cheese. Indulging in this small impromptu snack, I fell into a trance of pleasure caused by the ecstasy of texture, taste and, well, perhaps the internal reaction of having those hunger pangs sated.

For me, I thought with a mouth filled with soda cracker and cheese, the most simplest of foods are the best. And it's sort of true, I feel more 'fulfilled' I guess you could say, with eating the more natural and simple things: a slice of fresh bread with a swipe of butter, a handful of sweet peas, a bowl of corn, not to mention my absolute love of fresh and raw fruits and vegetables.

Maybe that's why the craving for those C-foods becomes all the more pronounced when they do pop up. A packet of chips and a can of Coke...what's your favourite C-food?

Baby Talk

Being the eldest child in the family had its advantages and disadvantages. With our rationed 'TV time', we often had the same hour slotted when we three would sit in front the telly, and however older I grew, my genre was still restricted to minimal growth because the younger ones could not watch what would have been deemed 'tween' appropriate, while still toddlerish themselves. So while my own cohorts were watching Saved by the Bell and all the other cool shows with real kids I was relagated to sticking to watching, what we called, 'baby shows'.

When I think about it, I couldn't even put a finger on how they were called this -- it just seemed the natural nomenclature that we just always called children shows. And in calling them 'baby shows' we didn't even really distinguish the two words; to our minds, it was one word, the label itself, that was the descriptor; we didn't pause to think it was really two independent words, 'baby' and 'shows' and moreoever, the first meaning we were...babies. It was just 'babyshows' and that meant the cartoons and puppety-type children programs we grew up watching.

Likewise, as the original leader - by default of age (advantage)- of us siblings, I had cultivated a whole sibling vocabulary that was totally exclusive to only us. And remembering and ruminating on their origins also totally amuses and mystifies me. For example, high heels were only known to us as 'cracking shoes'. And bras, to our innocuous minds yet to be filled with universal labels and names, were declared to be called 'booby patches'!

I have to admit, I look back at my younger self with great amusement, but lots of pride. I am constantly amazed at my capacity for random creativity and ingenuity at such a young age. When I think of that younger me, I almost can't recognize her as the same me who is I right now, it's almost like this little bundle of imagination who is another child altogether, and a child I feel total love and protectiveness and a sort of internal craving to have a child of my own just like her.

Animal

It is sort of odd to think about now, but when I was a kid, I was scared of animals. I couldn’t rightly tell you why, exactly, but then that seemed to be a perfectly normal fear for kids to be having, so perhaps an explanation isn’t required. But indeed, the most vivid recollection of this fear to this day stands out clear:

We had gone to the TVO headquarters. TVO being the local province’s channel - not that I knew that at the time, and actually, I was never actually sure what it was until writing this and realizing I may have to sound as if I knew something about it, which I don’t really, not that this is a government funded educational network, all I knew in my time with the channel was that it was where we found most of our favourite kids shows. The Polkadot Door, The Elephant Show…etc. Anyways, at this exhibition at the TVO headquarters, we had the chance to see and touch a live beaver. And for the life of me, I wasn’t able to make myself do it. I was freaked out. My younger siblings were fine, they stretched out their tiny tiny hands and gave it a pat or two. Me on the other hand, hysterics. NO WAY was I touching that thing.

The thing is, I loved animals…in theory. But we just never had the experience of dealing with them hands on. My cousin in New York had a cat, Queenie, and I did like her, except…well, she was one of those poncy type cats, who had airs and believed she was rightly named. Moreover, while I used to try to entice her (at a safe distance, always) with scraps of processed cheese left in a trail experimentally to see if she would actually follow it (but no her fatness and laziness greatly overcame her greed, I came to conclude), she actually came within very close proximity – a new thing for both of us – and I found myself gazing at her green eyes and persuading myself that this was the time for me to overcome my hesitation of touching an animal.

She left me with four claw marks, each so perfectly placed along the side of each four fingers of the hand that had reached out to pet her.

So much for my animal love.

To try and trace the fear, I could also share the few cloudy memories of having visited my grandparents out in the countryside, where they had a number of dogs. Whiskey and Brandy were two hugely ferocious and scary dogs – the type that were large, menacing, didn’t shut up with their barking, and perpetually drooled while baring their fangs at you. For some reason an uncle found it immensely amusing to taunt me by pushing me closer and closer toward the dog’s reach, for the dog was leashed on a chain that could only go so far. I recall that memory being graced with my tears.

On the other hand, I still for some reason, loved animals…in theory. I can’t explain it, I just always feel this secret bond with them. I see them – bird, squirrel, dog, cat, whatever - and something within me kind of awakens, I feel as if I am continuing an ongoing conversation.

Aside from Whiskey and Brandy (and yes, my grandfather liked his drink), there was this whitish, husky-type dog (and for the record, this has always been my favourite type of dog). It was leashed apart from the other dogs, I don’t know why, but it was to the other side of the house, and under a great tree that stretched upward along the side of the second-story balcony. That is where I spent many hours, looking down at the dog whom I decided to call “Princess” – and I persuaded myself that we, Princess and I, were great friends, and that with special whistles and other noises, we were communicating. In fact, I also wrote special notes with drawings on tiny scraps of paper, and floated them down to Princess.

It was many years before I ever thought to ask what happened to Princess, but for some reason noone could recall a dog named Princess, and I tried to describe the childhood memory, about that dog that was tied to the tree on that side of the house – only to be told, OH THAT DOG, that dog was a male.

It was a number of years later that we visited our relatives in New York to discover that my favourite cousin had gotten himself a pair of ferrets. This isn’t your usual pet, and indeed most people – you included I would not be surprised to say – would react with disbelief or even disgust at the idea of harbouring a rodent-like animal such as this as a pet.

And yeeaah, the first couple of visits I was all askance too. Then I fell in love with Booboo.

Booboo was the bigger of the two. All he did was sleep, eat and lay about. That’s it. A gentle bundle of fur that totally totally won my heart over. Booboo was essentially mine. The other one, Nippy, lived up to her name: she nipped everyone she could with her tiny little incisors, and was a skinny, ratty, feisty and fast little thing. Booboo was my love. I could relate with Booboo because – not that I was fat or whatever – but simply that gentle, quiet, laidback easygoing nature that totally reflected mine. When I think of Booboo, I remember laying back on the sofa with Booboo on my chest, watching Balto. Some of my best memories were those summers spent with Booboo. I even created a soapstone sculture for an art exhibit of Booboo – years after the sad news that both ferrets were gone.

After Booboo, I was totally cured of my fear of animals. I was cured of loving animals only in theory. I would visit the pet shop that was in the same building as my workplace every chance I could.

Then came Milly. My 1-year old baby kitten. I can’t even begin to describe the magic that comes with having her in my life. So I won’t even try. Instead I’m going to end this and have a good cuddle with her.

Incongruity

Suddenly these days, I have detached myself from the hanger labelled with my name. I'm not sure if I remain who I am...or rather, who I was. This incongruity remains the common denominator amidst every other filament intertwining to become this semblance of being that is myself.

'You are so unhappy' having markedly resounded the past weeks, maybe months, a proclamation that broke the hearts of two most definitely, and perhaps even more than two for the fluttering effects of the butterfly upon those whose lives are so interconnected. But two, it certainly did.

I am not sure what this state of being happy is, not quite so well as I once believed I did. What, I ask, as the snow furiously falls and gusts in the middle of April, when the month was supposed to bring us rainshowers to usher in the warmth of blooms and blossoms anew, what is happiness?

For I had in my hands the shattered remains of what I had believed was happiness - and I was not entirely unhappy. When we break our happy, is it ever truly broken? When our happiness has joined the shadows of darkness, is it ever truly and completely gone? Can this phantom really be something ever entire devoid and separate from us?

I am in another process of metamorphosis. At times, I feel a throbbing heaving sensation to sob, and sob, and cry - and yet, I do not know entirely why. And at times, I feel the most incredible sense of peace. Of oneness. And contentment. And for this too, I could not fathom a cause or reason.

In one moment, I felt, I could have lost it all. And yet, I am still here. And to merely exist - what could I say I had really lost? A momentary release of overclutched desires - a stubborn refusal or a longstanding habit, it made no difference. My dreams I felt had burst in billions of pieces and I could not tell whether it was a celebration of confetti, or piercing shards of glass.

And I felt nothing.

To consider the magnitude of the process. The actual thing itself - it was in effect the thing I felt that would kill me. And to this moment I remain. To consider that these numbers, so many of them, so much that they have enumerated a sum that could cause a prolonged state of disillusionment simply by itself - are the many years that I have led myself along a leash in belief that my happiness was such.

My happiness, I believed, or had started building in belief from a very young age, was firmly and thoroughly founded in love. All else in life I felt were mere trivialities for without love, I could not be complete, nor fulfilled, nor happy.

And then I found love. And I died every death I had died in those many long years - the pains, the hardships, the aches, the wounds, the tears, the sorrows, the anguish, the torment- they surged upward again and again in the throes of my fallen state, and they healed. 

They healed because the simple cauterizing effect of love merged all pains into one huge ball of fire of what defined the 'before' and submerged itself in the cooling waterfalls of cascading love to reemerge no longer inflamed but defining the 'after' by the mere juxtaposition of proven endurance.

This is a story that will be understood those who have truly loved.  Or have loved, somewhat untruly. For what is or is not true?  That we only decipher, somewhat haphazardly, in the whispers between the heart and mind.

Now I feel our moments are slipping out of grasp. Like an infinite cascade of sand particles falling, and falling, and falling, I feel that they are all slipping away, and that I had been the only one trying to catch them all before they were lost. And it took me awhile, but then I realized that it was just me, only my two little hands that were trying to keep this from totally slipping beyond our grasp. And it was not both of us.

And now I have let go. Let the cascade go wherever the hell it wants to go; because  I should not be the one to hold on so tight to what is meant to be held on by two.

It is falling. But it is still there. I do not know where they go, or if they run out, or if it ever stops.

We don't need to try, your voice says, because whatever is meant to happen, will happen.

And for some reason, I am learning, even as the tears fall, that happiness is still there. Even despite the tiny ways the pain shoots through in spontaneous and unpredictable ways, I am curiously free. I have given up on holding on, and yet holding on has not given up on itself. Giving up has not tendered itself for attendance.

Happiness does not really need to mean the absence of sorrow.

From Us All - With Love

Fulfillment

I've always been pretty health-conscious. From the little girl waiting for the rest of the family to finish getting ready so we could gooooo in the car already, I'd be climbing over fences and trees, overdressed in the frilly lacy white dress; always play-fighting with the guys during school recesses; tournament-ing as the undefeated handball queen of school, with a mile long line up of guys who wanted a chance to face-off against me; relishing those gut-burning laps each morning in highschool; working out 3 hours a day, every day in university - the list goes on.

The physical aspect aside, I've always taken eating healthy seriously too. It just always made sense. I was born and raised a vegetarian, so the questions surrounding that eating lifestyle were only second to nature. Plus, I was far far far away from being the sort of child who had money of any kind to spend on anything, nevermind outside foods. I learnt to be healthy and thrifty - partly of choice, party of upbringing, partly of necessity.

I'd never been the kind who'd drop five dollars for a slice of cake, just because the opportunity was there. Nor did I relish the idea of even wasting that money on something so frivolous and unhealthy. It was simply how I was programmed.

Then, my circumstances and lifestyle altered. I had emerged from the cocoon of a student and was now working. I was making my own money - and despite the fact that I had a plan in place to save what I earned in order to pay off my student loans, as well as finance other important medical and home-oriented expenses - I started becoming a spender.

Ah - the feel-good thrill of being able to just take out your card and use it to pay for anything. My first passion was books, and soon I was a regular browser among the bins of books in the department store across where I worked. Then, there were the many clothes sales that one just could not help noticing. And, it was time! I was grown up and I needed to buy my own girly clothes, especially for work! Gone were the days of wearing hand-me-downs, or over-sized clothes bought by my clueless father.

Then came the food. With longer hours spent working, with the exhaustion of working, suddenly those sandwiches brought to work from home didn't seem so appealing. I'd end up taking a walk to the food-court, and one random purchase led to another, and another. I explored all the possibilities of every take-out joint and their menus. Taco Bell, Oriental Express, McDonalds, Tim Hortons, Second Cup, New York Fries, Pizza Hut, Pizza Pizza...the list went on, ...... and on.

Somehow the process of ordering and indulging in such foods seemed to fulfill a lack of something within me. There was my triumph in being able to do this independently, all resentfulness toward the lack of ever being able to fueling the process. There was the therapy in just indulging itself. I couldn't even explain what was going on in my mind - but as I write this now, I can tell you that it was a symptom of something not too healthy in me psychologically.

No; I'm not saying that I was a total psycho-case. But, I was depressed.

This habit wasn't really a total symptom of my depression, I will grant you that. It was just where a whole bunch of circles happened to overlap in the many Venn diagrams of my life. And no, you wouldn't have been able to tell that I was in any state of depression because I still laughed and smiled and conversed normally and was just as hyper and funny as I seemed to be.

I indulged, because it made me feel better, and I felt better because I indulged. The thing is, I was exhausted and while I was really active at work, I rationalized with myself subconsciously, and had stopped attending to my body health-wise. I had stopped working out, and I had started eating out more; on the premise that it made me feel better, and out of some sort of spitefulness within that I really couldn't care less about how healthy I was and I really couldnt care less about whatever was going in my body, because I was lonely and would remain lonely and I didn't give a damn.

The problem was, the sort of food that I was putting into my body was really deranging my mind; more than it already was. More lethargic, more sluggish. Less inclined to feel healthy and therefore to think healthy and feel healthy.

It was a sort of catch-22 of sorts; because I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't. I resented my loneliness, but wanted more. And I wouldn't get that more because I refused to change and get myself out of the bubble. So I ignored all voice of reason, and took pride in my unhealthy ways.

Then my bank balance hit 0.

Yes, you read that right. 0. ZERO. Nada, zit, nilch. $0.000000000000000000000000000000.

How, you might ask, could I let this ever happen? And you have to consider that this was an independent me. I never had relied on being given money from any parental forces. In fact, had never relied on support from any parental forces, or anyone at all. Which was, of course, of considerable significance in regards to why I was depressed at all.

So there I was: Kodak moment. A chubby-cheeked, tubby me. Nice new clothes. Awesomely done (new) makeup. Great bag. Great shoes. Pile of books. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks: all from outside. Bank balance: 0. Oh yeah, and to add insult to injury, don't forget the very unhealthy hair (loss) due to my awesome junk food diet.

Wait, what? I was saving for ..for.. those expenses....wasn't I?

Well perhaps I should have been more honest with myself. In my splurge of 'damned with it all' I didn't even intend to have any sort of future. I didn't care that much.

Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have stepped outside of this self-contained bubble of mine and took a good look at my lifestyle. I thought I had it bad - I didn't even know how much more worse it was going to get.

I'm going to gloss over the really depressing years of depression and homelessness here because yeah, it was bad.

But I learnt the hard way. I sat down, and did a tally of everything I had purchased over the years. And to this day it still shames me. I had always been the kind of person who said that I shouldn't sit in self-pity or self-indulgence because there were so so so many people out there who had it worse. Even at my worse, I acknowledged that I was living in a world of luxury. And there are those who believe that it is simply the way of the world and it isn't our problem that others are in poverty and it isn't our job to try to fix it. Oh, the little (or not so little) things we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better about our own lifestyle. And sometimes, we only start to care when it happens to ourselves.

Now, I'm as beautiful as ever - not that I wasn't in the midst of my bad phase, but I didn't believe in it. Now I'm almost vain with how I see myself in the mirror, or check out my healthy body. Now I'm beautiful, now I am sexy. I don't need makeup or clothes to make me feel good. And it isn't just the physical aspect: I inside I feel more grounded and fulfilled. And once I started taking the steps toward a healthier me, I started appreciating life more, I started appreciating myself more. And somehow, in taking the step toward loving myself, things just started happening for the good. I embraced my lonleliness, but was proactive about the things I could make better, and then I wasn't alone anymore, I was loved.

Now, I sleep a full 8 hours a day, regularly. Sure there are those nights when I'll stay up longer, but those nights of staying up until the sun comes up are long gone. They weren't healthy. Now, I eat only what I cook or prepare myself. It's healthier, and more tasty, and definitely much less costlier. Why would I want to spend 5 bucks on one meal, when that's 5 bucks that would feed a whole family somewhere else in the world. Nevermind the 5 bucks a meal, but then there are those who spend that much on just a drink; which is why I am not a fan of Starbucks. If you can get a coffee elsewhere cheaper, say, for a dollar, why needlessly spend the extra 4 dollars for refined sugar and corn syrup? To have it then clog up your body and have you spend another fortune on gym equipment or membership, or on medication or surgery or pain relief as you grow older?

Yeah yeah, I know how judgemental and idealistic all this sounds. It's like good grief girl, lighten up! The sun is shining and life goes on. Sure it is, sure it does. But how much you appreciate that sunlight is a direct consequence of how you live your life. Enjoy the little things in life, but consider how much you really need something. We've long time ago recognized what a materialistic world we've become, and this also is another toxic cycle: we rely on materials and less on others; we turn inward and into our new technologies and devices and isolate ourselves; we become lonely, depressed; we turn to our short-term pleasure fulfillers even more. And so on.

Take the step yourself to break free. Do something healthy for yourself. Turn offline. Go for a walk. Grab a fruit. Drink some water. Breathe in, deeply, and remind yourself that you don't need to live today as if a tomorrow is or isn't promised; live today simply for today. Live.

Forgotten

It's like, once I had you in my life, all the other things faded away. All those 'small pleasures' of life which kept me company, from moment to moment, just paled considerably in comparison to the great happiness of your love.

It shouldn't have been that way, it should have been the other way around. And it was for some time: all those little things shone even brighter with the capacity to enjoy and share. Then somehow, the importance of you started to grow and grow, and everything else became negligible, unremarkable, fading to the background, there but unseen.

You were the sun that shone so greatly; all the other, smaller, happinesses were those stars which were there but unseen; their light oushone by the light that was you.

There is a beauty in loneliness; the smallest things are ever more pronounced, more treasured because of the dirt they are mired within. And I am rediscovering them.

Reckoning

The sun was shining bright. Brighter than it has in a long, long time. So bright, it envelopes the entire room with its glare; hot, blinding upon my face.

This is the way I've wished it could have always been. The way I'd been waiting, and waiting. Enduring the coldest, bleakest of days, the torture of frostbite, the days made more tired in waiting, and waiting.

The weather never looked upon my unhappiness and told me to get lost. I had no choice, and I had to endure. I waited and waited and today it shines bright.

This is the day I have waited for, and the sun shines bright. But to enjoy it, I do so alone. More alone than I have been.

Is this my decision, or is this yours? I have been giving, and giving. Waiting, and waiting. You told me I was unhappy; you showed me the door. You never considered for a second, with love, that you could do something to try to take it away; you said take me as I am, and if you are unhappy, you know what to do; go.

Easy for you, to leave the decision to me that way. So today I go. And the sun shines bright. But today you've shown me the door, and the light has left my eyes; the light has left my heart.

Com·promise

On the topic of love, and that saying that says something along the lines of how in love you shouldn't try to change a person; I don't really agree.

I mean, it's like saying two people are going to be TOTALLY in tune with one another that there will be no need to change either, but to my mind that is a love that's more an arranged marriage. Because, in an arranged marriage that's what you are looking for, similiarities, compatibility, same upbringing, background, blah di blah bloo.

I don't deal that way. I ain't arranged marriage material. Never was, never will be. And that is why I would not expect my own love story to have to conform to these measures, moreover to these 'wise old sayings'.

Yes, of course, there is some sense in the saying. I understand that much and I'm not only going to let my innate contentiousness abolish my ability to comprehend that. I know that the saying means you love a person for who they are. Sweet and simple. I appreciate that. But then, as often happens, these philosophies become misinterpreted and exploited by those who feel it would benefit them.

Dear love. I don't want to change you. But I want to be able to maximize the benefits of living in you, and therefore in us. I don`t want to get into your very-personal space; and yes, sometimes it`s a very thin line to consider since in love, one would think there shouldn`t be any such boundary, nevertheless it is there. It is there simply because despite the graciousness of becoming one soul in two bodies, we are still somewhat hindered by the mere fact that we are two bodies, and two minds, and therefore, love and absolute togetherness aside, we are distinct individuals. So I get it, I am not trying to take over that space of yours where you can be you and breathe in your own being. But I am still going to want to help you become a better person - not only inside but outside as well.

The thing is, when you say you can`t change, won`t change, and that I shouldn`t ask you to, what you are doing is in effect asking ME to change. I have to change the things I want and have always wanted, the things I have been comfortable to, to let you be the way you want to be. To let you do the things you want to. Is that selfishness? Or does that indicate that we don't suit one another, or that we are absolutely incompatible? No, it certainly does not, because there are 928340234829 things that already prove that we are compatible, and this thing about love that just happens, and you can't explain it, means that these kind of weird obstacles are going to crop up because we are still in the process of learning and unearthing things about each other and about ourselves and about this one whole entity called us.

Of course we are going to have to change. We were someone totally different before we became us. And we continue to evolve into different people as each moment goes by, with each breath we take, with each word we say, with each thought we think. We change.

Maybe we shouldn't just look at it as strictly 'change'. Love means we learn to become a better person than we have been, as each moment goes by, with each breathe we take, with each step we take...together.

Coincidence

Just this morning, I was in the shower and thinking..you know, how one just thinks random stuff, while still in the process of waking up? So, what I was thinking about was ... a whole bunch of things (another attribute of that kind of half-asleep thinking is the way you zoom from one thought to the next in superhero speed, you end up somewhere completely different from the first thought. Something very much like how I write, come to think of it).

For some reason I was ruminating on the strange way I have of contemplating something in my being, and the entity of that thought somehow manifesting itself in physicality. I say 'contemplating something in my being' as a catch-all way of saying that state is inclusive of thinking, dreaming, and feeling. It's contained there inside my mind in whatever form, and then the next thing I know something happens in real life (as in, outside my head) and I'm thinking, hey waitaminute. I just contemplated this in my being (thought/dreamt/felt/considered etc. this). 

It's happened SO many times that I am at a loss to even be able to provide you with a clear example. That seems kind of like it's working the wrong way around, because if it has happened so many times, I ought to have so many examples in hand. But yeah. 

The reason I bring this topic up now though is because it JUST happened. Yesterday, for some reason, I was browsing through Google Images, looking for - don't ask me why - book spines. Through my searching process, I altered my search phrases to 'vintage book spines' 'old book spines' etc. I professedly spent about half to three-quarters of an hour in this endeavour.

Today, for some weird reason, PenguinBooks decides to tweet a picture of a bunch of their classic book spines all lined up together.

Saaay wut.

This is just one example of 98408340983402374283472937598 that similar "coincidences" have happened. This is on the low-end of the freak-scale, there have been serious jaw-dropping and eye-popping instances. 

Speaking of weird incidents, I had a very strange dream last night. There were more details to the gist of it which I am about to share with you, but yeah. Trying to remember the details never works. 

So I was basically running a marathon with a bunch of people and one of them was Hrithik Roshan, and I beat him in the marathon (I came first). Yep.

Rejoice

I almost let the day slip by without attempting to put it down in record; almost. But today being the most beautiful day so far in 2014, I can't do that, now can I?

It never ceases to amaze me how attuned I am with nature. The day seems to take me under my arms and throw up upward and I rise, and rise and rise, with the gorgeousness around me. Yes, this is definitely Spring.

And it's March! Well, the end of March technically. I realize I had psychologically locked my mind toward experiencing this rapture of springtime in May - my favourite month.  When the warmth is really and truly in place, when the unpredictability of the weather has been tamed down, so much that it can be said to be tamed.

And I don't know. I have felt unhinged. Just as unpredictable the weather has been these days - sun, rain, snow, high winds, no wind - it seems that's also been reflective of who and how I have been. Some days I am down in the murky depressing world, and the very next, I seem to suck it all in, and give the optimistic route another try. I seem to portray the typical girl with mood-swings, but it isn't that. Is it ever?

 So it's hard to understand women, I hear. Hell, it is hard to understand anyone or anything really, if you try hard enough. Can you understand the weather? Blows hot, blows cold. We observe patterns in wind movement, we recognize hormonal patterns.

But hey, I'm not saying it's all about PMSing. This certainly isn't. I mean, not all this hectic candidness about how I'm fluctuating my moods - don't get me wrong. I'm just saying it's the season of change, and somehow it seems to internalize also.

Does this mean that if I lived in a climate that was more stable and constant, I would be so also? I don't know. Maybe I should experiment and try it out. But I can't help but admit something. Despite the months of cold blustery winters, or the weeks of musty, dreary rain, or the reddened noses, or the sweltering heat waves and humidity - I love it all. I love where I live because of the vastness of it's climate canvas. It goes all over the place, and is so vibrantly, emphatically, colourful. There is just so much that we get to experience, and yes, I love it.

Similarly, even when I get down in the dumps and break up with hope, when I torment myself with negativity, and then get over it, feeling really stupid about it all, even when I get really excited about the smallest things and go hyper-bananas-crazy and then come back down to earth wondering what the hell's wrong with me - despite it all, I love it. I love the million trillion gazillion shades of me.

Almost April

It's 2 degrees Celsius, which is a HUGE improvement over the blistering minus 20 degree Celsius weather we'd been facing the past winter. So it should be pretty warm, relatively speaking. And yet, in the slow, gradual and prolonged climb of the temperature, my body's decided to do what it does best and regulate itself.

So I'm still cold. But just not very cold. Oh sure, I should not be complaining, and please don't get me wrong, this isn't really a complaint as such. It's just the curious observation it is. So yes, I've moved on toward wearing t-shirts around the house, and going barefooted, which is a HUGE difference, once again.

But what wouldn't I give for the feeling of toes actually cozy in it's bareness.

March

This morning when I awoke, I somehow got this beautiful sense of inhaling spring. I know most of you won't be able to comprehend the exact sensation the way I assimilated it since you will have your own climates that make the foundation of what you know weather-wise.

For me, it was that feeling of smelling freshness, in the way the snow melts and the sun bounces off it, the way the breeze seems that much more balmy, and looser. The way it intoxicates the mind with the promise of something yet to come, because right now it's not there yet, but the promise itself is what is intoxicating.

Then I stood for a few moments at the glass door to the backyard, as my kitten did the same, and just soaked up the quiet ambience of pure undiluted sunshine. The 5 feet or so of snow that once filled the yard was diminished, diminishing, now a little section here and there, the scattered remnants of sunflower seeds consumed by our wildlife friends left hulled and empty.

I half closed my eyes, and let myself soak in the sunshine, thinking to myself that yes, it's almost here. But right now it is what is beautiful, and right now is what I shall enjoy.

Temporal

I have realized another change in myself. Not something that is deeply embedded or having to do with emotions and personality, exactly.

It is interesting to remember that there was a time when it was necessary for me to always have my earphones on, music on, plugged into the computer I was using simultaneously. For hours, days, months, years, this was my status quo. While studying, reading, essaying, writing, researching, designing, coding, forum-ing, chatting, I had the earphones in, music on. Without fail.

In the last few days though, I suddenly realize that I have almost no tolerance for doing this anymore -- I feel irritated, and disoriented, plus there is this sensation of cognitive dissonance. I, the once notable multitasking queen, am losing my touch.

Or am I? I feel that it isn't just the physicality of the context. There are so many other variables contributing to this difference in me; now I feel that I am much more busy - mentally, emotionally and physically. I have more on my mind, and more emotional responsibility...I guess you could say.

And it's just another symptom of the same thing, when you correlate it to why my writing has changed as well - something I already discussed a few times. Writing....music...they were my constant companions and go-to's for my loneliness. Ah, those times back then, sure I had friends and was filling my days with that constant chatter of comraderie...but that too was also another sort of balm for my loneliness.

Now that's all changed, somehow. My days of filling lines in a notebook have diminished in being able to share it all to someone else instead. My hours of filling silence with music have also floated away with time...

But then lately, in the past few weeks, there has been a quaint revisitation to old songs and themes long past. Thanks to a co-blogger who has been steamrolling ahead with sharing songs, I've been finding myself navigating old alleyways searching out certain tunes and it's sort of a lovely feeling to refind old tracks and blow the dust away from them (figuratively) and remember the.. memories.

And finding old memories has also happened in terms of my writing. I first started blogging on Xanga.com way back in 2004. Before that, I used notebooks to write any thoughts (and also had this 'thing' about writing actual letters back and forth with friends). Last week, it occurred to me to go revisit those old blog posts on that domain, only to discover that the site was undergoing some changed that entailed anyone who wanted to use their services having to pay. Basically, all my blogs were gone.

For a memory-hoarder like myself, this sort of thing was simply disastrous. Heartbreaking! I immediately emailed the website admin. Paced about a few days. Then they replied back with a link to download my archived posts. Phew.

So then I downloaded the xml code. Figured I could import it to Blogger, but nope - for some reason it wouldn't allow the parsing. So...well anyways, this is the point: my old blog posts are now posted on Lucid Iridescence (my 'prose' blog) and going through them again was sort of like another revelation of remniscence. I had quite a few of the posts that I had kept as 'private' when they were on Xanga. I didn't want the public to read those emotions and thoughts. I thought about this briefly when posting to Blogger, but felt that since those emotions and contexts were detached from the person I am now, I do not feel so uncomfortable with having them see the light of day. Or rather, have other people see them. So they are all there in all their glory. If you are interested in this, I have done some simple organizing: the posts from my first blog on xanga are labelled 'Sapne' (that is what my first blog was called). The posts transferred from my second blog on another domain are labelled 'Read My Lips' (again what that blog was called). All my posts that had been posted since, directly during my time here on Blogger remain unlabelled.

The interesting thing to note is that going from each different blog phase, the difference in me itself is startlingly stark. Or, maybe it is for me. I don't know. Again it's quite amazing to remark on how the state of a person's lonesomeness can correlate to their state of mind.

Bay At Midnight

I liked to have at least the illusion of control over what happened to the people I love. [He] said that’s why I wrote fiction: it gave me total control over every single character and every single thing that happened. He was probably right.

- Diane Chamberlain

Kreativ Blogger Award Part 2

Okay so moving forward, I have to tell you all 11 things about myself. Usually I relish the chance to prattle about my 2nd favourite person (yes, moi), but the thing is, whenever I come to this segment of these award processes I always baulk at what I'm supposed to tell. Anyways here let's try again.


1. I am a very very emotional person, and I cry easily.
2. In person I am very jokey; I say dumb things, make goofy remarks, faces, grin here and there and do the silliest things.
3. I love reaching out to people, making them feel better. This is one of my good points but also detrimental to myself in many cases.
4. I can be a really cold ice-queen bitch if I choose to. When someone loses out in my respect or good terms, it becomes amazingly easy to pull the shutter down on that relationship, black or white.
5. I hold onto emotions, and memories too much. I am attached to attachments too easily.
6. I am extremely idealistic, and will argue an argument to death.
7. 'Not-giving-a-damn' comes very easy to me, it was for the most part who I became for a very long phase. I won an award for most likely to not give a damn.
8.  I care too much too often.
9. I don't swear. Ever. The most I say shit, crap, damn or 'what the hell'.
10. I have been in love with the love of my life for a decade more or less.
11. I have issues with people having habits of extravagance and waste and unhealthfulness.


Ok, that's 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.10.11 things, okay done done doneeeeeeeee. Have a great weekend!

Kreativ Blogger Award

Oh god, I am the unlucky recipient of an award again! Haha, well okay, of course being considered for awards are great things, and being considered worthy of one is an awesome thing, but the irony is that good things come with a catch! And in this case it's the regular 92480248029840238 questions that come along with these blogger awards.

But before the person who awarded me sincerely thinks I hate him for it, I would like to clear that up and thank you Mr. IHeardYou, for the award and your....interesting (-_-) questions that I must answer.

So although I have to additionally tell you all 11 things about me, I'm going to first address Mr. IHY's questions... ahem.


1. Do you think it's unusual that we're the products of horniness of two people? You didn't answer this last time :P

No actually, I don't think it is unusual at all. It's simple biology, and as we're all hormone machines it's only logical that these hormones are those which induce us to be inclined towards such attraction and procreative activities in furthering our gene pool.


2. Forget about all your crushes and all, I wanted to know have you ever slept with anyone really or you just give free love advice? Actually the people I am nominating are wonderful people who don't advise at all ! :P No actually they're real sweethearts and advise only when asked to :D  So for them, I want to ask, what is your definition of love?

Love! You're asking me this?! Holy pakora, I can write books about this if I was capable of putting this into words. And boy have I tried! That's the whole point of me even having a blog really, because it's the recording of my feelings and thoughts and emotions and I pretty much LIVE for love (no exaggeration). So I can't define it, sorry...

3. If you become filthy rich what would you do with all that money? If you ask me I would try and help bring down suffering in this world. Honestly. What would you do?

I know, right? They say that this 'relieving suffering' answer is such a cliche. BUT IT'S NOT.  I already give part of each paycheque toward charity and so if I actually became filthy rich, I could only lessen the filthiness by sharing the burden of wealth to those who could do with some of that kind of filthiness...like actual water and soap, yknow.

4. What do you weigh more- Self respect or relationship? Why?

It's totally impossible for me to say either weighs more. They belong together and why? Because the fulfillment of my relationship is based on love and results in the fulfillment of my self-respect by being loved and considered worthy of loving and my self-respect is giving toward that relationship in such a way that it remains full of mutual respect and balance, to be constant and successful.

That said - if a relationship (not strictly that of the love kind) starts eroding on personal self-worth and becomes something less healthy, then it goes without saying such a relationship should not be worth its while if no other solution works, and of course then self-respect comes first.

5. You're feeling down from a very long time. Noting good has come your way from quite a long time. Would your faith in religion be still intact?

I don't think I have a faith in "religion" as such. I have a faith in spirituality, in the goodness of the self. I believe that what I put "out" into the world is what comes back around; consequently I try to be the best person I can be. At times I fall down pretty hard and become very depressed, but that only serves to come back around to kick me in my backside really hard. Nothing good will come out of just moping about. The smallest positivity in thinking is a small step, but then it gets better and better when you keep believing that it will. So I think I could say that THAT (circumstance as outlined in the question) should be the proof of my faith; if I doubt my faith, why should my faith believe in me?

6. Why do you think we love our family the most? Is it because of that special bond or just because we have become habitual of spending our lives with them for so many years?

Um, wait. Who says I love my family the most?

OK seriously. Family is that which we know first in our developing years. The idiosyncrasies, the habits, the bond established through continuous interaction is that which we are most familiar with. Like a teddy bear when a baby, or our comfort blanket, we have this psychological instinct to feel comfort with that which we know best. Additionally, we become who we are through those who brought us up - not just taught us, but who were around us when we grew into the adult we have become (or are becoming). So, when you look at family even if you do not realize it, you recognize subliminally that you are looking at yourself. Another point to think about: to say that the 'special bond' and the 'habit of spending our lives for so many years' are mutually exclusive may not really be accurate: both may be one and the same.

7. Do you feel the need to change someone's opinion. On any topic. Just as long as you know their opinion is not right and it's unjustifiable. Why? Is it because you care about them?

Yes, sometimes (maybe often) I do. I have a fascination with the 'truth' and with 'fact' and often when faced with the opinion of another person which is different from mine, I end up arguing for my point because I usually will not entertain an opinion without having just cause (grounded in fact, for example) and will then do my utmost to show the other person where their opinion is flawed. Sometimes, I realize, opinion is just that - a matter of personal opinion - and you can't force a person to change that. Does it have anything to do with if I care about them? Sometimes. Often it's simply a matter of impersonal debate: right vs. wrong, fact vs. fact.
I do agree though, often I will not bother to continue what could be process of argument, simply because I couldn't care less about what the other person thinks; it's not worth my time and effort.

8. What qualities do you look in a person when you're at your weakest, emotionally.

In my significant other? A rock: supportive, loving, caring, and yet logical and practical. (That said - Hallelujah! I am blessed.)

9. Do you think people who have suffered a lot in the past need to be given any extra favours or special status than those who didn't? In general sense as well as in personal sense. And also do you believe in extending those favours to the successive generations as well? (This last line is specifically for communities)

I think the question is ambiguous.

10. Our isolation or mood swings. Are they a result of the circumstances or just your own pre-assumptions and exaggerated situations in your head?

Circumstances, hormones, perception, list goes on. There isn't just any one cause.

11. Final question. It's tricky! You had proposed to some guy/girl in the past and he/she had rejected it. Now you also dislike that person to the core. If you two were the only beings left on this planet, would you have intercourse? Supposedly you do. Would it be for continuation of human species or just out of umm.. lust ? :P

Nah, I wouldn't. I'm not that desperate. I think I'd have more important things to worry about. 

Oh hello,  no more questions? Woohooo. I am freeeeeeee. Rest of the Award stuff to follow..

Symbiosis

While I turn to writing as solace, without expecting anything in return other than the expenditure of those built-up emotions through the act of writing, I was very much overwhelmed with the feedback I got recently. Not just in quantity but the quality of what you guys gave back to me - thank you, thank you, and thank you!

Really and truly, I don't think I have felt such immense gratitude through my blog before. Sure most of you are absolutely amazing with how frequent you praise me and my writing and there are those special ones who go beyond to show this in more ways than one. But this time, it was different. I guess it was different for me because I haven't been used to letting go of my restraints and just showing my vulnerabilities. 

That said, I really did not expect anything at all - maybe the briefest lines of commiseration - but what I got in return just...it simply made my heart smile. But yup, I didn't expect the mini-essays of support in whichever form you chose to express it, and that was because of my 'disclaimer'. 

As one of you noticed, it's there as an addendum to my posts, and I am not sure why it is still there - I guess that only means that I'm going to try to be 'keeping it real' with my expressing myself. It's a bit of a hard thing to do actually, because usually I feel really dumb about having let myself go down into a state of depression, and because they don't last too long, I feel that it's something like making a drama out of things, by doing so. I don't know.

The main reason I put that disclaimer up and have worded the way I did is pretty much rooted in the same reason why I feel hesitant about even writing about my struggles and sadnesses. I'm pretty self-sufficient, and usually my depressions are based on the fact that the few emotional dependencies I allow myself haven't been too stable - either in my mind or for some real reason... so yeah you can imagine the state of chaos going on inside my carefully constructed emotional self. 

(If I am not really making sense right now it would be because I am listening to some really great Buddha Bar and it's really distracting me; it puts me into a total different mood and sometimes I feel like I am in an intoxicated fugue while listening, so yeah...)

Aah what was I even saying? 

(Oh wow, I just checked which track was playing on my extensive Buddha Bar playlist and whatdyaknow, it's Opium. See? There was some subliminal thing going on there..)

*falls into a trance*

Seena Pada

aaj main jism nahin aaj main parchhaayi hoon
har jagah bhir ka sailaab tere chaaron taraf
main apne aap mein simti hui tanhaayi hoon

What's My Point?

For as long as I can remember, 'a sense of humour' was the criteria I checked off in the answer to the question "What do you want most in your significant other".

The question is a bit ludicrous in itself since it requires the dismissal of all other traits in favour of your choice. But a much younger me had no problem - I was always so sure of my requirement - because I was (am) a person who survives on humour.

But then in another phase, when I was much older - and more subdued by life itself - I found myself questioning this choice. I would ask around among friends and colleagues to see what their choices were and why; an open-ended question where they could choose whichever trait it was they most wanted in their significant other. This was a time when I was thoroughly in my 'one day' waiting phase and was very much immersed with thoughtfulness and daydreams about this 'one day' and 'prince charming'.

Somewhere down the line, I started considering 'understanding' over 'sense of humour'. But it was tough to let go of the hope that one day my prince charming would be the one to make me laugh like no other. I'd chosen 'sense of humour' for as long as I could remember most likely because for once I'd have loved to be the one being made to laugh, instead of making others laugh.

But what these questionnaires never teach us is the fact that despite all the wants and requirements we would want in our significant other, it's never so simple when it happens.

Lately, I have been down in the dumps with respect to 'communication'. Or the lack therof. I have been feeling way too depressed with feeling that the things I say aren't important. And it isn't just that. I guess I need communication. I need the bond built with words - however mundane or trivial - the communication, the sharing, is a bond as intimate as any other. And when it's breaking down...I just don't know. I feel lost.

Maybe my seeking these things, sense of humour, understanding, appreciation, communication all stem from a lifetime of never having them.

I have always been made to feel that when I say something no one really listens, or that what I've said just goes unnoticed or unremarked. Or the things I say aren't deemed noteworthy because I was the one who voiced it. Or I feel this cold impatience from the other person. I've spent most of my life feeling like a ghost or a shadow. And I suppose, that is why I've ended up writing to express myself. A symptom of loneliness.


So here I am again: writing.

For Me

Sometimes I'm stuck in a rut, again suddenly confronted with this overwhelming sense of loneliness. And I end up thinking whether there is something lacking in me, that I keep feeling that I'm left behind, or lose the grip on a string that's just slipped out of my hands, or that maybe I just fall short. Sometimes I kind of feel maybe my problem is that I try too hard. I'm a people-pleaser, and of course that doesn't really work out too well when you're too much of one.

Then at the same time, I try to not be one, and I hold back. Or rather, I   hold back from stating things which are confrontational or overly sentimental, or way too personal. That's why I stopped writing the way I wish I could write. 

Today I got a huge, umm, not sure what to really call it - a wake up call? A shock it was certainly, because it hurt me immensely when I came across something that made me feel absolutely ridiculous. Not ridiculous only, because that sort of implies a self-consciousness grounded with ego. But further, a sense of betrayal. A sense of being taken for granted. Or of failure. 

I had a huge cry-out. And yeah I am actually admitting this here. I normally avoid opening up completely on this blog, and one of the things I had a good think about was this also; specifically, why I do this. Avoiding becoming too personal or vulnerable; opening up fully was something I had grown to avoid like the plague. Consequently, I ended up writing extremely vaguely, and furthermore, this resulted in loopy, wordy and vociferous posts that might have sounded profound and poignant, but must have definitely confused my reader.

But the point was that I wasn't supposed to be writing for anyone else, right? For myself? But that is something I lost in trying to balance the forces of expression and art. And I lost myself somewhere also.

So yeah, I had a huge cryfest. FYI: I have these often. I cry easily. I also laugh easily. I'm a softy, and this is something I try to guard like the crown jewels, because well, this was just another consequence of bad experiences. The more I opened up and showed how vulnerable I was, the quicker people were to lose interest and drop you like a hot potato - or, maybe worse: take you for granted.

Being taken for granted is something I have strugged with for...well pretty much my whole life. From being the eldest in a family with huge hardships, and having to take care of everyone - I lost the sense of being able to be me from a very young age. I couldn't be me, because I was busy being a mother/wife/sister/servant for everyone else. So I was molded into being a people-pleaser. This stuck with me in varying ways over the years. Trying to be this, or trying to be that. Working harder to do things to make someone else feel better or pleased. 

Anyways, all this is already making me cringe with how sentimental it all seems. I hate having to express myself or explain myself in the form of describing whatever experiences; as if in some way that's asking for pity. It isn't that I have ego or pride to not want people to pity me, I just don't want to use whatever experiences to gain it, when I feel that so many people out there have it way worse. I just gotta deal with it so I'm okay. 

But there was something else entirely that I had wanted to write about. Being taken for granted - I don't know. I already hesitate to label it as this, because I already know that the reaction of those who I would 'accuse' of doing this would be hurt. And there again, I don't want to hurt someone else, so I hold back from doing so. But isn't that already a symptom of the problem? I don't know.

Sometimes I wish I weren't the person I was really. I wish I wasn't so kid-at-heart ish. Because maybe my thoughts and words would be more meaningful. Or that I was more aloof and restrained with giving myself to others - maybe other people would want to try harder to please me. Maybe there is something afterall that rings true with this concept of playing hard to get. 

Much of this might be eye-opening to some of you - because I don't talk about most of this. My personal life story, the idea that I am a real kid (at heart), or how sensitive a person I am. Which is ironic in comparison to the previous paragraph, isn't it. 

Anyways. So post-cryfest, I decided to go slave in the kitchen (doing something I love, and also keeping me busy and productive) but of course, I had to think through everything. Who says I think too much? 

I had to first gauge if my reaction was overdone. It might have been, nevertheless, even if I cut away the extra-sensitivity, there were things which remained that still hurt. Then I considered, why must I keep trying to mould myself to meet another person's standards? And why was I putting everything of myself and my world centered around this one person? Was it reciprocated, equally? No. 

Then I figured, why was I doing all this, then? Just because love said that I shouldn't expect anything back? (And oh yes, this gets heavier, gee whiz, love.) I don't know. Something I considered long time back was that I put more into the pot so that it felt that there was enough in it to provide for the amount given by two people. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should stop.

Ah, I know - there is someone who's thinking I told you so. That's okay. You told because you cared. And I reciprocate your care by listening to you. So yup. I think I'm pretty much vented out.

 Today is (was?) International Women's Day, and the theme for me is loving myself. And I'm going to stop caring about whoever gives a damn about the things I give a damn about. It hurts but what can you do. Yesterday I was looking at this website for lyrics, looking at the lyrics of "Let It Go" from Disney's Frozen (because 1. I'm totally a Disney child and 2. I love the song, dammit)...and other than the aptness of the lyrics for my own state of mind, when I scrolled down to the meaning of the lyrics as interpreted by the commenters, I stumbled across a flame war by a bunch of 9 year olds. It was hilarious, in a way. In a sad, pathetic way, I grant you, but funny, because you just imagine these little imps tapping away into their keyboards with their tiny faces all scrunched up, and almost half of them can't spell, nevermind grammar, so they're arguing in between asking "wat dose unighted meen". But the gist of their argument was whether the song had anything to do with love at all or not, and one side was declaring that it was love for the self. So yeah. Let it go!

A kingdom of isolation and it looks like I'm the queen.
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside.
Couldn't keep it in, Heaven knows I tried.
Don't let them in, don't let them see.
Be the good girl you always have to be.
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know.
Well, now they know!
Let it go, let it go!