Half-full.

Today I will myself into happiness and action. BECAUSE - the past few days and weeks have been nothing short of beautiful and perfect. And if staying sad is a disease, then I've had enough of it for a lifetime. I had reason to, but no more. Now life is pretty fucking perfect. Well, as close to it as it gets anyway. Minor speed bumps aside, of course. 

Hasna nahi yaad rehta

So let's remind you my love. Let's relive the perfection that the birthday week at phu quoc was. You lost your father and your bags, quite literally on the same time and managed both so differently. You know what that speaks to? Your ability to learn, adapt, and grow. You went to an amusement, theme, and water park -- all in the span of a week. You made new friends out of nowhere, shopped but in limits, walked your ass off every single day without giving up, ate (a lot!) but remembered to be healthy too somehow, swam, oh boy did you swim in pools, seas, and oceans! 

Kismat mein meri chain se jeena likh de

Amen to that! Here's to embracing calm over chaos. Thriving in it. Building a life that knows nothing but it and settles for nothing less. That understands the difference between fun, adrenaline, and danger. That doesn't crave self-sabotage just to win a made-up battle of worthiness and lovability. 

Hum gareebon ke din bhi sawar jayenge 

If we just make it out of our heads. If we give in to the beauty, the music, the magic that surrounds us. If we don't absorb the pain of the world quite as intensely. If we continue to decompress from time to time and remember what's ours and what's not ours to hold. We can empathise without making it our own. We can be happy even if others are struggling. We have permission. You have my permission to be happy, Shiromi.

Kabhi sun bhi toh lo humaari battiyyan 

It's time the inner guide gets more airtime than the inner critic. You can stop evaluating everything. You can rest. You can sleep my love. And more than anything, you can smile. The managers have been at work very hard, very long. We have got to create some balance for them. Achievement is NOT everything. It has been a trauma response. But you were always worthy, lovable, and ENOUGH. Let's be enough ok?

Jitne khaali the jaam, sab bhar jayenge

It's been a long ride, we can let the cape and armour down now okay? We too can lie on the beach or float on the water, carefree, without a worry in the world. It is now our life. Let that sink in. No more fight/flight/freeze/fawn. Now we can lie back, read the book he wrote for us, allow happiness to take root. It's time to bloom. 

Thank you, universe. 

Thank you Shiromi, for making it far enough for us to see this. 

Kaise hum hue tanha?

What a ride, what a damn ride this year has been. if last year was loss and grief, this has definitely got to be rebuilding and destroying. I'm really truly good at the latter. What? A self-destructive therapist? I'm full of ironies like that. An adult trapped with a child's heart and a teenager's soul (and an elderly person's body)! I started reading poetry again, just today and realised just how much I miss writing. Writing to me, to you, to nobody, and everybody all at once. I think there are so many letters left in me and I'm so afraid to write them (no, to send them). Because what does it mean if I still want to write to my high-school bully or the boy who broke my heart or the one who let his mom diss me? What does it say if all my stories and poems involve people but none of them make for great cinema, theatre, music, or art? What if its just blood on paper? Chamakti jo roshni aisay majboori se thak gayi  

I digress. As I often do here. i started reading poetry. I was on a 566 day reading streak which Diwali came and broke. It broke my 69 day movement streak, my 50 day meditation streak and my beautifully astonishing and close to my heart anchor streak of reading. Getting up from that has been hard -- already slipping again in my movement (had a day 1,2,3.. only to be at day 0 again). I truly hate Diwali. I don't know why the hell I have allowed myself to get bullied into celebrating this bloody festival for countless years now. I had almost decided last year that i would never do it again. Only to do it again and realise much later just HOW much it fucks with my head (and heart, and body). I want this festival cancelled. Erased. Sheher mein giray hue sitaaray

I think I'm going to find a way to restart all over again. I do that pretty well too. Dig myself out of deep holes of despair. When you've lived the life I have, you get a lifetime of practice at it. I am just trying to find the right words, anchors, music to make it happen. I am craving everything bad and I just need to remind myself (somehow) that i am still worth all the good I do currently have and all that i aspire to build. Karte ummeedon ki baatein, toote hai dil ye bechaaray

Do I have what it takes? We'll find out. Will I sustain? Definitely not. Will I be here again to bleed it out with ink because that's healthier? Depends. Will you be waiting on me silently shaking your head in disappointment or cheering for me from the background? I wonder. I honestly am unsure why I come here after all these years, mark of respect or just plain habit maybe, or just another place to make me feel/register some emotions/thoughts. But honestly, why do you? Kab tak sunenge dilaase?

Bolo ke kaise hum hue tanha?

Bolo ke kaise hum hue tanha?

Looking back at 2023

This is where we bleed --

It has definitely been a year of bleeding... loss, death, grief... losing my ability to even convey strength in words to all those that I watched struggle... helplessly... paralysed almost... willing but unknowing... this year has taught me the importance of silent presence... reaching out when it is hardest... and being there for your people when you absolutely have no idea how... 

Maintaining adult friendships took on a new meaning this year with more hits than this space has had in a while... but all necessary... as we grow up, it's neither good nor bad that some people don't grow with us... it's normal to have disagreements, to not have the same commitment, to fall apart, to not be okay with certain toxic traits in your life, to want something different, and to limit the people you want to build it with/for...

Building a marriage/partnership was a big one this year and by far the easiest (though it wasn't all roses and good times) compared to all the rest. Navigating family has always been tricky for me but figuring out this new family of two came almost naturally to him. I have had to struggle and realise that you have to know how to self-soothe for your partner to be able to soothe you... you need to be responsible for your own happiness to appreciate the joy that your partner adds to your life... you need to be invested in growth and learning to truly carve a middle path which works for both of you...

Rediscovering... travel (hills, beaches, snow-clad mountains, river sides), reading (my god! rediscovering the thrill of turning pages), writing, dancing, (and myself)... has been the definite highlight of this year.  This meant a lot of building, dissolving, rebuilding habits -- sticking to things that I haven't stuck to in ages -- skincare, books, reduced screen time, journalling, gratitude -- I think I have done the most amount of gratitude, meditation, movement, writing (albeit unstructured) this year than the many years before this... dare I say I owe it in part to my "better" half... (feminist cringe)

Professional growth and setbacks have also been on my mind a lot this year.. (not big enough as a brand, not strong enough as a supervisor, not effective enough as a therapist)... I wanted to do SO much and while I did a LOT, it still has come up short in my mind... 2023 was more maintenance than growth and I struggle to call that a victory... There have been some big wins but the goodbyes have hit harder... the questions have lingered longer... and the sheer frustration that accompanies a doctoral degree has been overwhelming... 

I set many intentions for this year and frankly built a lot of them... so my percentage of success has gone up... in that regard and that regard alone, this year should count as a win... but it somehow just doesn't... I don't even want to write about 2024 in the same space, I want to bring different intentions for the next year... from a place of hope, courage, and resilience... as of now, I'm just glad to have built, re-built, maintained, consolidated, failed, burnt, broken, whatever I did this year... it was a tough one... I'm glad it's over...

Three words to sum up my 2023: loss, learning, love

i decline

 Remember when I could just come here and bleed?

When did this place stop being my safe sanctuary? When did I stop returning?

Was it when I tired of writing about him? 

Was it when she told me that it worried her when she read about my difficulties?

Was it when they didn't show any appreciation or validation?

I don't know when it was but these words, they stopped flowing here. I stopped feeling like I could put them out there for the whole world (and at the same time paradoxically, no one) to see. 

I still write -- perhaps this year i have written much more than ever before. I write because that's all I know. I don't know how else to let it all out. How to process without expressing. How to make sense of it all. I don't know if there is any meaning at all. But these words, the sound of my keys clicking and clanking away is the one way I create any. I find it within me this need to put it all out. Put it to paper. Record it. 

Perhaps this is the only way i will be remembered

The only way i will be known and distinguished from the unknown. The only way I'll get through this journey is with these words. Nothing in the heavens can explain why we are all just slowly burning away into nothingness. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In the end it's all about the love we send out, isn't it? 

No. It's also about the pain and the suffering. The pain we shoulder together. The suffering that we persevere through. This life can't be lived with only the love. To love is to know pain. And as I type it, a sense of terror seems to take over, i don't think i have it in me to love anymore. i just can't do any more pain. 

none. 

Would you love me for the hell of it?

I like to think I'm just a call away from anyone who matters to me, or ever did. I don't particularly know what this says about me - the fact that even during a pandemic I have thought about her and him and you and everyone in between; wondered if you're all safe; ruminated about how I could support you. I obviously know better now so I don't actually reach out. I have make-believe conversations in my head instead.

Because it's only in songs and movies and sitcoms (damn you, FRIENDS for setting such unrealistically high standards of human behaviour) that people take the higher ground or the path less travelled by. In actuality, it's just so much easier to do the easier, more self-serving thing. To go on pretending that nobody else's feelings need to be important. I still always thought if the world was ending, you'd come over (albeit metaphorically). Right? 

So all this has really got me thinking - am I also on somebody's mind? Do you grapple with whether or not you should reach out? Do you lie awake at night thinking about my safety? Do you wish for my happiness like I wish for yours? Do you curse at the wind because it doesn't seem to carry messages from you to me? Does every change of weather do something weird to your insides? But it's been years now, and as much as I didn't want to I've figured out how to - how to let you go and let communication die out. 

Because the alternative was to drive myself insane waiting - for a text, for a call, for a sign - like I have time and time before. I've screamed and wailed and wept because I wouldn't get my way; not often, not rarely, not ever. I've raged, bruised and bargained with fate to just change this - to make conversations possible. Eventually, I've even learned to make my peace with never having any semblance of normalcy or of a shared past but just wished for an ability to look back at it without fear or doubt creeping in. I think, I think I've figured out now - how to think about you without it ripping my heart out.

It's slightly easier when the inevitable seeps into your conscious. When you judge patterns and discern what works for you in the longer run. When you (finally) understand that giving in to your need to reach out and be empathetic to everyone, all the time doesn't leave much room to protect you. I'm not one for destiny or fate but sometimes enough good happens for you to start believing that even the bad had a purpose//reason. I know, you know, we know, you weren't down for forever and it's fine. It's finally fine. Because with you, or him, or her - neither was I honestly. I just didn't want to admit it.

However does that have to mean we pretend the other doesn't exist? This one's for all of you. 
You were my childhood bestie, my crush, my first sacrifice, my best friend, my favourite brother, my whirlwind romance, my perfection, and I'm still carrying you all. 
I remember you all and find myself hoping you've found safety and comfort in these trying times.
But I'm pretty darn sure I haven't once crossed your mind. 

Because the world is ending and you haven't come over.
Right?

Exhausted.

1. I wish he wasn't leaving.
2. People need to be happy. Happiness needs to be fought for.
3. Inculcating empathy is hard. Developing research skills is harder.
4. I constantly miss things and people that were once a part of my life.
5. Fat. Extremely fat.
6. Ugly. Lazy. Incompetent. 
7. Does unconditional love exist?
8. Winter takes the life out of me.
9. People disappoint. Life disappoints. Prepare yourself.
10. Staying sane is exceptionally hard.

Newness.

I used to come here, when nothing else made sense.
I would come here when everything began to make too much sense.

I have a problem, I breathe in every movie, every song, every novel and make it about me. I can't function without the arts and I inhale them to the point that the boundaries get really blurred. A TV show doesn't just stay that - it takes on a life of its own, inside of me. I am therefore constantly living so many lives, I am so many people, all in one. I don't know who exactly I am because I find parts of me in everything I read, watch or listen to. They inspire me and I feel like I inspired them in some warped way. I know not every story is about me but I sure know how to find me in every single one. Every story that means anything to me, becomes me.

I stopped coming here because it gets too much. It gets too much to live and breathe and be inside my head all at once. It gets too much to write about you, or him or him. But it gets too much to not. It never makes sense like it does in this fleeting moment, and before I know it, in the blink of an eye, it's gone.

I can pick up the phone and try to explain it to you but you wouldn't get it. Because I don't get it. How could I? How could you? How could anyone ever understand the tiny self-destruct button that I have inside of me and that only I have access to, and that only I know the triggers to. And yet, with this knowledge, I trigger it because that's what keeps me alive.

I'm a complex person, really complex and yet sometimes my needs are simple. I guess it's the simplicity of these needs that I'm trying to outrun. I can't be just ordinary, I want the different, the spectacular. But maybe the ordinary is the spectacular.

It's funny because sometimes I know I'm over-complicating it all. At others, I'm not so sure. I'm just stuck in a limbo with no escape because the limbo is my own head. I think pain is so very important to my existence that I don't know how to live without it. It's a part of me.

So I keep creating more. There's been so much pain that a life without it seems incomplete. I know how ridiculous this seems but pain is more familiar than happiness. And so I go on finding new ways to ensure there's always room for more.

So good luck to you if you're reading this. You're stuck with this me - and I'm a true masochist. 

I'm going to smile.

I'm documenting that I smiled today. Today was good because I found smiles where none existed. I got a good night's sleep and found comfort in the arms of my friend. I teased someone till he was red and I listened to Lazarus after years. I fell more in love with my professor, I sang to myself, I checked up on the people I care about. I survived. I lived. I flourished. 

This is to document a day of normal, routine happiness. In the drudgery of life, I think I forgot to notice the tinier details that make me happy. I'm happy. And for today, that's all that matters.

My David don't you worry, this cold world is not for you... So rest your head upon me, I have strength to carry you... 

The Scientist.

We take breathing for granted and yet it is the one thing that sustains life.
I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

You blocked my lungs with your smell, my head with your eccentricity and my heart with well, you. You were all encompassing and omnipresent. I couldn't run away, I couldn't hide - I had no choice in the matter. It was the opposite of coming to life - it was like losing all my senses, one sensory neuron at a time.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

You clogged my arteries with uncontrolled blood flow in and out the aorta, damaged my liver with unknown levels of intoxication and broke my indestructible walls. My bubble was penetrated and suddenly, I was bare - exposed - vulnerable, in a matter of minutes.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

You drowned me in music, waltzed me into a dream and ensured that I spend this lifetime reliving that one night, over and over in my head just because of its indescribable serendipity. I couldn't ever forget what I felt through every second of the night that changed my life forever.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

For once, I fell in love almost instantly. There was no pre-contemplation, no afterthought, nothing at all. I just fell in all the way before realization could hit me or reality could pull me back from your strong hold. Your grip on my present never did loosen.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

But then again what good is breathing in a prison? And that's what you were building for me isn't it? A prison of every moment spent with you because you knew that night that this feeling that I was committing to, was temporary - you knew that soulmates aren't meant to be.

I think when I met you, I forgot to breathe.

But now that I've met him, breathing, like living, comes easy.
However I wouldn't know its importance if it weren't for you.

Thank you for being the love that got away, because it wasn't the love I needed.
Thank you for suffocating me to the point that there was no option but to let the air inside my lungs.

And boy, is it good to breathe... 

Caged, by love.

Dear Lover,

I've moved away and lately I feel I shouldn't have. Though this is a dream come true, this is breaking us and I suddenly don't know what matters more... My dreams, or us. It shouldn't have to be a battle between the two but the circumstances will it and here we are. Stronger than ever, we say. Then why does it feel nothing like it?

Why do I feel like I know lesser and lesser about what happened in your life, with every passing day? Why am I certain that you hold off certain words and cut off you sentences midway because you know I'll be hurt? Why do I not voice my irritation anymore because I'm too afraid and tired for a fight?

Everyone is priming me for it - the schedule, the seniors, the teachers. They are all much wiser and they have all been here much longer. But they have never seen us, have they? I want to tell them that! That they need to see Rain & Thunder to understand how we function differently; how we're destined to make it.

Except we're not.

We're just pretending these days, aren't we? Pretending to be happy? Pretending to hold on? Pretending that this works? And who am I to say anything really when I am too afraid to even try, when I'm so eager to let go. The ambiguity of us doesn't sit well with me and you know I am all for plans and lists and execution. However you live day-to-day. Planning ahead, laying down a map for our future (while exciting for me) is too much of a task for you. And hence the wild spirit becomes the eternal chain.

She stops you from pursuing your life's dreams. She puts restrictions on your time line. She demands and demands and demands. Never fully accepting that this will never be the life that you really want. She's made you so afraid to want even. You're afraid to want because the eventuality in which you don't get it is catastrophic. So you keep wanting the easy... You keep wanting her.

Relationships are addictive for this very reason. They make life easy. It's easy to want her, need her, love her even. It's the unpredictable that's more difficult. It's the possibility of a future with everything you ever dreamed of that's bloody terrifying. 

So, you've stopped dreaming. But she's still a dreamer. She still wants. She still aches at the absence of your want. Her desires are insatiable, and yours so very minimalist that they make her feel like a phony in her own eyes. She grapples and struggles with the myriad possibilities, building them up for you, hoping against hope that something catches your fancy - she doesn't even mind if it's across the universe, just as long as it's your want. Because frankly she is burdened by being your only desire.

Tu koi aur hai... Jaanta hai tu...
Saamne iss jahan ke... Ik nakaab hai...
Tu aur hai... Koi aur hai...
Kyun nahi woh, jo hai...

She dreams of breaking free, not because she has grown accustomed to a life without you, she never could. But because she's horrified about what comes after... What happens when the music stops playing and we're left out in the cold? 

Tu jahaan ke vaste, khud ko bhul kar...
Apne hi saath na, aise zulm kar...
Khol de woh  girah, jo lagaye tujhpe tu...
Bolde tu koi aur hai...

She dreams of a happily ever after and tragically now that she has seen a glimpse of it, with you, she will never settle for lesser. This compromise of a dream that life seems to be offering her, was never and will never be enough. 'Nice' has never cut it, she likes to be maddened by desire, taken over by passion and drowned by love. And this alter-ego of yours may fool the world but it will never fool her. Your pretense will always be washed away by rain. It's heartbreaking really since you are quite the actor.

Chehre jo, odhe tune woh,
Tere kahan hai?

So let's give up? We're playing a losing hand here. Fate, circumstances, little lion man and now even parts of us are working against us. I would fight to keep the dream alive except I don't think we're dreaming the same dream anymore. We're under the same sky you and I, just miles away from the horizon we planned on conquering when we first set out to write our legend in blood and tears. I guess the tears will still pave way for many a stories though. After all, unfulfilled loves can make great love stories only as long as they are unfulfilled. 

Saamne aa khol de sab...
Jo hai dil mein, bol de ab.

My opinion or yours. It does count.

Someone said to me today, 'Your opinion doesn't matter.' I've got to admit I wanted to punch him. My instant reaction was wtf. I mean who the hell are you to decide whether or not it does or does not ? My consolation was supposed to be that the said person didn't think his opinion mattered either.
To battle this psychology, we need to go really deep. Right down to the point where we feel that our actions, thoughts and voices are inconsequential. What leads to this ? If I were a Freudian fan I'd find a way to link this to some sort of suppressed sexual desires. An Adlerian supporter may feel that one is inferior to others and hence doesn't count. Or I may attribute it to a faulty upbringing in general. For what else can be responsible for such misplaced and incorrigible views ?

The answer is simple. Cognitive malfunction. We all tend to form wrong schemas in our head (thought process - schema) and when these incorrect thoughts receive some sort of reinforcement from the environment, namely the enormous world we live in, they become more and more permanent and rigid.
So it is very easy to feel like someone unimportant is this big, wide, vast world. But it is even more important in such a diverse world to acknowledge the uniqueness and individuality of each idea, thought or desire.

Every opinion matters. Just like every vote counts.
Yes the party we voted for may lose but does that undermine the fact that we actually took part in the decision making process of our country ? Speak out against bullying and ragging. Yes our efforts may seem futile but who knows of the one life we may unknowingly save during the same. Scream and fight against sexual abuse and discrimination. Don't submit. Your screams may be heard, there is always someone out there who might just save you. Stand against corruption. Be defiant to personal profits on the cost of national harm. Charity begins at home and it all starts with one correct thought.
This though will translate into an opinion which will later form your action. You're not forming this opinion for anyone but yourself so how date anyone challenge it's importance. Your action will hopefully help change the world.

People who spoke of the ripple effect must have gotten something right because it makes a lot of sense to me.

It took one sister of Jessica Lal to fight for justice and then the world supported her voice.
It took just one Nirbhaya to make the youth so outraged against rape and come out in outstanding numbers to support her cause.
I can cite countless such examples where a nobody spoke up and made all the difference.

I don't wish for everyone's opinions to collide with mine. Heck, take a complete 180 degree turn. But voice it out, always knowing that it does make a difference. It always has and it always will.
Till the time we live in a democracy at least.

After that ? Who knows. I might be executed for my extremist views. Until then I will speak out and speak loud. For I know someone, somewhere is listening. And for that someone I matter. I may not amount to much in my lifespan but if I can just matter to that one person, I'll have known that I was right. I was right all along.