A Provincial Life

“There must be more than this provincial life!”

Sings Belle in the iconic Disney movie Beauty and the Beast. I have always loved and enjoyed Disney movies because they painted dream worlds that I could escape into. Oh dreamy frogs who turn into princes, an umbrella-wielding woman who magically solves my problems and sings beautifully, a cross-dressing woman who saves China, a princess whose pet is a tiger, yada yada yada, you know what I mean. There is a whole unexplored world out there, one filled with magic and wonder and Disney brought it alive. It allowed a girl with an overactive imagination and many many dreams to live those through the eyes of others. And problematic concepts aside (think, damsel in distress needs saving from prince charming), Disney gave many of my childhood (and current) desires a legitimacy and form that still evades them.

Desires always seek some kind of legitimacy, don’t they? At least they always did for me, and I think that’s why I found resonance with Belle’s “there must be more than this provincial life.” I know the limitations of my own life, know the restrictions that I consciously and unconsciously subscribe to and I sometimes want an out. Want a place where they don’t exist, these restrictions and limitations that undoubtedly govern my life. It starts from something as simple as my own hair and extends all the way to my wishes for my own future. For example, let me think of something that would be simple like getting into a relationship, my life restricts me. I want one, but I am simultaneously held back because of fear of my own family and what their reaction would be. It governs me, makes me afraid and I fear it shall stop me from pursuing anything in the future too.  I fear to realise my desires in a world where they won’t be accepted as legitimate. And that makes me wish for a life that’s more than “this provincial life.”

But don’t let me get away too much with that because I also realise the insane privilege and liberty that my life does have. I have been lucky to have been born into a family that has done a lot for me and far be it that I am ungrateful. I think that’s where the inevitable dilemma arises right? I am grateful for my privilege, but I want more because I know I should get more. I know I get more than many other women do, but the problem is, why is it a question of it being “given” to me, why shouldn’t I “have” it already? And that is a fundamental question I have seen so many others struggling with, the drawing of this funky line where everything suddenly makes sense, where a perfect balance can be drawn.

Sometimes I also catch myself wondering why I want more than a provincial life, I am protected here, fed well, nurtured, everything, I technically have everything I need to live here. The sways of a mind trying to console itself, I realise, after all, we all do try to make the best of a situation and end up finding ourselves make even hell feel comfortable. It is true, beyond the initial burning, I doubt it is that bad as it is made out to be. That actually reminds me of someone who thrust a Jehovah’s Witness magazine at me, said a few words hopefully with the aim that I will look up the website and join them soon. Too bad I don’t actually live here, not like I was swayed otherwise. But I did look up the website, read up on these people and their beliefs, and I genuinely think I will pass. Now, people are free to make their own religious choices, but proselytising religions do get on my nerves sometimes, especially zealously proselytising ones (read, some crazy factions of Christianity). It is like they find people who they think are not living the provincial life of dreams and offer it to them: here you go, a smattering of narrow-minded thinking with a dash of blind faith and lots of enthusiastic preaching and trying to convince people to come to the light.

Anyway, about provincial lives, I have fallen into the trap of thinking (and this has happened too often for my liking, for who likes to confront that they have some horrid biases?) that my mother tongue is quickly becoming what makes me provincial. Let me explain, with the ideological backdrop that English is for the enlightened souls while these other languages are still living in the cave, this bias makes complete sense. Also, looking at literature (as I have done quite a lot these last few days over my paranoia over a translation workshop I am doing next semester) in both languages, it becomes abundantly clear that some works of literature are still living in the times when problematic statements were served with tea and coffee (by the wife, always, mind you). And the proportion of these absolute marvellous works is more in these languages compared to English. The politics of knowledge production have ensured that, I would say. So, increasingly, to say “I want more than this provincial life” is becoming a call to move to and be in an English world. Ideology, much? And well, don’t I fall prey to it myself. Some aspects of my personality find no expression in Tamil, and so, for all facts and purposes, they are illegitimate/irrelevant to my family. On the contrary, English seems to provide an expression for both things I can express in Tamil and things I can’t express in Tamil. Really fishy, really really fishy. But even that idea has been challenged recently, I have started struggling with English because suddenly my expression seems to find its meaning better in Tamil. Arghhh, I am all over the place lately (and this includes both the provincial and the non-provincial places, of course). Here’s to hoping that there is more than this provincial life and that I can find my happy place.

Cleanliness is Next to Homeliness

Something about home always felt simultaneously sanitised and dirty. Maybe it is the fact that this was where I first bled on my sheets and washed it with Rin detergent, or where I hushed my thoughts but still screamed at the top of my voice. I cannot place my finger on it, again an ambiguity that becomes painfully obvious with the confusion between the sanitised and the dirty. There are times when I can feel the choking of the pressure for cleanliness, other times when the freedom is palpable and makes my spirit want to jump and run around. Oh how pretentiously indulgent of me, spirit and all! But genuinely, I have no other way to express that brilliant splash of freedom that completely engulfs me (quite ironic, my word choice), that moment of realisation that suddenly makes the pressure feel worth it.

I don’t really know how that happens, how something can become so simultaneously freeing and constricting. I think that is just something I grew to expect and deal with (and I maybe I can even say that the years of experience have made me an expert). One can get away with a lot of things under the pretext of it being “home”/”family”. I mean, come on, it is pretty obvious, look at the number of problematic statements that come out at regular intervals. And yes, there are definitely good things too, “wholesome things” as I like to call them. But that does not discount the fact that a lot of prejudice, stereotype, bias, gets perpetuated in the family sphere. And as a student, studying and learning more and more every day, it becomes so very tiring to handle it. Especially when you are suddenly running the risk of being considered a “sensitive snowflake” who rains on everyone’s parade and starts “giving a lecture” whenever an opportunity presents itself. Gone are the times when your speech would be met with a surprised and impressed “my oh my, how have these children grown!” But let me not bemoan that for too long for fear that I am making this blog post unbearably boring to read.

I wrote a poem a few days back, the 4th of January, to be precise. The concept of cleanliness and home had somehow gotten stuck inside my head and it just seemed natural for this poem to come out. I would spend a couple of sentences talking about how this poem isn’t very good, how I haven’t edited it, how I am insecure that it won’t even be considered a poem, but I have increasingly begun to feel that has become quite irrelevant. The thing is, there’s no need for me to broadcast my own insecurities for the whole world to pick at, right? Anyway, the poem traced the route from just outside the door of our house (right, our house, because that’s what it is) until the bedroom and I didn’t even realise it until I was done. Funnily enough, it talks about leaving the house but somehow brings it back to the house with a chore. And like all chores assigned to children in the household, especially children home for the break from college, the chore is about cleaning. In a sense, I felt the poem captured a kind of weird mood I have been in ever since I came back for the winter break. This kind of freakish temporary permanence that has increasingly become the norm for me. I will just let you read it, I guess.

Clean the welcome mat on your
way out, please.
Dust it with that brown brush,
lift and thrash it
against the black, iron grill.
Must know how dust feels,
the dust that settles in your lungs
as you cough and hack
and hack and cough
while thrashing your own chest.

Clean the door on your
way out, please.
Rub it with sandpaper,
press harder and run it
over the uneven edges.
Must know how sand feels,
the sand that cleans and burns
as you move up and down
and down and up
while rubbing hard doors.

Clean the table on your
way out, please.
Wipe it with that rag cloth,
spray that cleaning liquid
on the polished wooden top.
Must know how soap feels,
the soapiness of foam
as you swish and swipe
and swipe and swish
while spraying on blind spots.

Clean the sofa on your
way out, please.
Dig your hand in and
pluck out the lint and potato chips
from the springy seats.
Must know how pluck feels,
the courage to plunge deep
as you pick and flick
and flick and pick
while digging in the dark.

Clean the bed on your
way out, please.
Pull at the edges of the sheets,
jerk softly and drop it
gently, like snowfall, on the bed.
Must know how soft touches feel,
the weight of wool on your shoulder
as you breathe in and out
and out and in
While dropping into sleep.

And like a lot of my older poems, this one too ends with a seeming resolution being arrived at. A lot of my poetry as a teenager (who am I kidding, I still am a teenager) would somehow, magically end on a happy/peaceful note. Some kind of resolution would be reached, the conflict would be managed in a sometimes cringe-worthy optimistic last stanza and last line. But reading it now, I do not recall that ever being forced. It just was the natural way of things, the natural way in which that poem fell. And after a long time writing sad poetry with no happy endings (or endings at all, for that matter) in sight, this was refreshing for me to read. And hey, this may not be that good or refined or well-written, but it harks back to a time when all the dirt could be swept and managed, when optimism wasn’t a conscious tool to be applied but rather a way of life. As I read my poem again, I can come up with a lot more interpretation, but hey, we are not in a class on poetry here (that reminds me, I have a class on Romantic poetry next semester that I am looking forward to purely because it’s a cliche).

The family really is a clean dirty place, the home is an extension of the same. In Tamil, I have heard people say “avan avan veetukku ponaa dhaan anga evlo naarudhu nu theriyum” (only if you go to their houses, do you know how much they stink.” It is true, we are all so used to putting up an image for the entire world to see and comment on. There’s a life inside the house that only the house members end up being privy to. And well, no matter how much you pretend it’s all wonderful and smelling of top-quality, citrus-y disinfectant, there’s only so much that can go. And that’s what really bothers me sometimes, that people are willing to look past glaring issues by simply spraying bathroom freshener. It is not enough, maybe it is time we opened our eyes and realised that there’s an entire dirty world under that outside persona of cleanliness. And those stains aren’t going to magically vanish. And maybe it is about time we scrapped that little act of cleanliness and start acknowledging that there’s dirt and we have the tools to tackle it and clean it up. But you see, not many people are willing to clean up their messes after all, right?

PS: Ending there felt weird, so let me add this postscript.

 

Confidence and Friendships

It is the new year, finally. When I was thinking about what I wanted to write about in my first post for the year, I was confused. I had two thoughts in mind—confidence and friendship. It is quite fitting, really, because those were the two of the most important things that moulded my year and two things that I wish will extend their warm arms into the new year. Maybe more than friendship, I mean camaraderie? I don’t really know at this point, but then, I am going to let myself sit in that unpredictability, revel in it, even (after all, I could justify it on the basis of confidence in myself, right?). But quite honestly, I am afraid that this post would become a disappointment (and a nasty voice in my head whispered almost immediately: “like my life”). But I am not going to entertain that anymore, and actually, as I write this post, I am recognising how much I might have changed.

What do I mean by confidence, I wonder, because there are too many dictionary definitions and they all seem more and more relevant as I think of them. But confidence with respect to people and my relationships to them is probably what I am most interested in at the moment. It becomes important to put the “at the moment” because people change, desires change, interests change and no one is to blame. I repeat, NO ONE is to blame, because it becomes quite convenient to place blame on something or someone. It gives one the space to allow themselves to completely feel whatever they’re feeling. And of course, that should not be policed, but it should also be monitored to stop it from becoming self-indulgent. A very thin line, I must say, and a line I constantly struggle with. I went from being tyrannically vigilant to criminally lax, it took me the entire semester and a few more days to mistakenly hit the good mark. And like all fluke hits, I could not reach it again the next time. But it is slightly better now, I am more precise with my lines now and it is completely underwhelming but I could genuinely do with some less drama in my life.

When I look up the word confidence, it gives me two meanings (on my Apple Dictionary #AcademicHonesty). In all honesty (wink, wink) though, plagiarism is not cool by any measure and this is just a lighthearted joke not meant to take away from the importance of academic honesty (sigh, I have become so paranoid-careful, it is quite funny). Coming back, confidence apparently means 2 broad things: 1) the feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something, and 2) the telling of private matters or secrets with mutual trust. Both of them are pertinent with respect to interpersonal relationships and friendships in particular. Friendship is, after all, meant to be a safe space that you can trust. And there are varying degrees to this confidence, of course, different places work as safe spaces for different kinds of issues. And not all places are available spaces, 24/7, and for all kinds of problems. The only place that is REQUIRED to be so is the internal space, but well, let’s come to that some day some time, not now. 

When it comes to friendship, there’s another confidence that not many people seem to talk about. Yes, you are confident that the other side shall be there for you, but there’s a worry that maybe you are not enough. There is a lack of confidence in your own place in that space—are you just a parasitic plant using that space to dump your garbage in? Are you a good friend yourself, who can also act as a space for the other side. And here’s a beautiful complication, do you operate in that same degree or are you allowed to be different? In the sense, if you go to a person A for some B thing, is A welcome to come to you only with something like B? Are you a good person to listen to a B? What happens if you don’t want to deal with a B, or even if you do, you don’t want to listen to it from A? Are you in an equal partnership, are you doing enough for the other person? First of all, do we even want to quantify this? What purpose does it even serve, and who does it serve that purpose for?

I think this break has allowed me the space to think and rethink a lot of these things. One of the problems I faced the last semester had a lot to do with these questions. It was something that plagued my mind for the longest time and I had no way to deal with it. Even conversations with people directly did not help and sometimes, I lost the words even before I could say them. A lot of these insecurities lacked rationality—the more I tried to explain them to someone else, the more my words ran into each other and became a muddled mess. I could not explain my own reasoning for a conclusion or decision I had made, unconsciously egged on by my insecurities. And friendships and confidence become so tied into this mess, that at a point of time, I could not distinguish between what was happening and what I was thinking was happening and it ruined my mental health. Mind you, this was only ONE thing out of many things and if each made such an impact, I was paving my path to destruction with top quality concrete.

One of the realisations I have come to accept is that there can be varying degrees (in fact, it is completely expected), even between the same two parties. Varying degrees, based on time, based on place, based on people, based on a thousand different things and there’s no foolproof method to know what is the degree at what point of time. But unfamiliarity is cool and well, communication is cool too. The two parties need to be comfortable enough to admit when the degree is not working for them and be ready to solve it. It doesn’t mean that the preference is set in stone, because like I said, people change, desires change, interests change and NO ONE is to blame. All that matters is that communication channels are up and ready and they don’t collapse. And well, allow me a moment of self-indulgent pride, it is quite heartening for me to realise that I am actually helping myself instead of ruining everything for myself. That’s, after all, all I wanted especially during times when I could not help myself despite being desperately in need of it. And a small part of me is wary and doubts if I will be so confident when I am pushed back into a bad space. Part of me wants to say I won’t go back into a bad place, but that is quite unrealistic given the amount of stress that is going to inevitably fall on me. So all I can do is quite counter-intuitively pretend I am confident, in myself and my relationships, and hope that my pretence doesn’t get to be proved to be false (and a strong part of me believes that it won’t be). I have grown and I am ready for the new year to make me grow more and at this point of time, that’s all I want.

Happy New Year!

PS: As you can see, I have scrapped some of my traditions like ending with “that’s my memory for the day,” ending with a question. Also, this post is hopefully not the only kind of post I will be writing. I intend to write different kinds of things, even though I am not entirely sure what those different things are. But I want to break away from some mental restrictions of mine, starting with this blog. Keep that as my new year resolution number 1.

Wrapping Up for the New Year

It has been one and a half months since I bid goodbye to my everyday posts and as promised, I am back. This time, I intend to keep my posts as weekly ventures, where I choose a theme and work with it. Well, what would it do to my normal style of stream of conscious? I am yet to figure that out. But part of the beauty is in how absolutely unfamiliar it would be for me, at least as far as the blog is concerned. And part of my own growth is my increased receptivity to things that are foreign to my experience. It is a very recent development, I would say. The semester threatened me and the break is bringing me back to some form of reality, sanity even. And I am finally ready for the next semester. Yes, I am not magically cured of my thousand insecurities, but I am more open to living and dealing with them.

Today, when I opened this blog, I was afraid. Afraid of what I would see, afraid of how I had ended it. Hell, I was afraid that I would have forgotten the name of the blog itself. But my laptop hadn’t, seemingly in a symbolic gesture to tell me that this a very living, breathing part of me that had been on hiatus but shall be revived soon nonetheless. It feels quite marvellous and I am hesitant once again, because suddenly words seem to get stuck before they can be typed out. I don’t have an agenda for today, except to say hi and then, get ready for my post for the New Year. But as I type, it is becoming clearer to me that I might want to clear some things out and talk about the last one month.

When I made my way to university at the end of the summer, I was an excited, nervous bundle of joy. My journey was ruined and the effects seemed to stretch their grimy arms all the way through to the end of the semester. The feeling of helplessness and anxiety and stress never let go of me completely. I had panic attacks for the first time in my life, and those were some of my loneliest times. I had absolutely no one to turn to and I had to help myself, from controlling my breathing to rushing to the bathroom to puke, I had to handle myself. And a disclaimer goes that this was purely a play of circumstance and my own abysmal luck. I could not get help when I most desperately needed it purely because those were times when people could not have possibly been there to help. There was a time when I freaked everyone around me out, even seriously considering getting medical help from a psychiatrist.

My confidence went to shambles, productivity was hit badly, there were days when I could not get out of bed for long periods of time because I would simply lie there, there were times when I could not sleep at all until early mornings. My appetite was nonexistent, I was puking in the mornings, mood swinging all over the place, body aches—for all facts and purposes, I was a non-pregnant pregnant woman. Well, that is truly not a very nice place to be, as must be evident by how much I hope and pray I never relive that semester ever again. My counsellor helped a lot, my friends did, I survived because of these people (and myself, of course). Like I said, I realised that the only way to survive was to be there for myself especially during times when others couldn’t. And I am probably no expert on it, but the fact that I survived and made it through that horrid time is a talisman I shall hold close for a long time.

But what am I trying to say, really? I don’t really know because these were loose ends that probably needed some tying up. My semester seems to have gone well, at least as far as my transcript goes. My CGPA has been saved from the previous semester’s dump, it would seem all is well with the world. I am back home, lazing and content, and yes, there are also multiple problems with my family and home situation. But I have come to realise that conflict is inevitable and I know that a lot of these conflicts are resolvable and those that aren’t, are irrelevant. That is something I have allowed myself to concede, purely for my own peace of mind. Yes, there is a burning need to rectify all the wrongs that have been committed in one sitting, but sometimes, I believe my peace should be prioritised. And well, does it show my own privilege and how I have it so much better than a lot of people? Maybe. But that doesn’t necessarily delegitimise my need for peace of mind, now, does it?

On that note, I think I am ready to say hi once again. I am excited to be back and I am hoping that the next year shall turn out to be a better year than this one. I think it is horribly unfair though, to have too many expectations from something that hasn’t even begun. So I am keeping them aside in favour of simply telling myself that I can get through the coming year in a less stressful way. It has been a good year, many new experiences, many scary ones and they have all had a deep impact on me. And I think what is most important for me is asking for and receiving acceptance and forgiveness, both from myself and from others. After all, those are the most accessible facets at the moment, right?

And that’s my memory for the year.

Goodbye, I guess

This is a formal goodbye I guess, I think it is time I close this space and move on to other aspects of my life. Aspects that I can control and take care of, that I can deal with in a more productive way than what I am doing right now. This goodbye does not mean that I am giving up on this blog or anything of that kind (do I sound horribly defensive right now or what?). But in all honesty, I think it may be time for me to focus my energies in a much more deliberate way and the way I presume I can do that comfortably is to let go of things that take up a lot of time, sometimes with not much reason. This blog has helped me a lot over this time, but I think it may finally be time to move on and let myself explore new things.

One of the important things I am thinking of doing is coming back to this blog later, in the beginning of 2019 and start a weekly project where I set myself a theme every week and come up with posts for each of those weeks. It should ideally be a mix of different things like prose and poetry as well as a general post. I want it to be an intellectually stimulating exercise that produces work that I can confidently be proud of. This blog so far has given me a wonderful space to air out my thoughts and I know that when I come back to visit it later, I will be hit with memories, some good, some sad, but all of them valuable in their own right. I can only say at this moment that I am alone but I am strong and I will power myself through everything that is getting to me.

It gets really easy to feel overwhelmed all the time, I guess. There is so much going on, so many things that I am juggling on a day-to-day basis that, as my counsellor pointed it out to me during today’s session, I don’t get enough time with myself. I am not able to engage with myself as much I would need to and that shows in the way I treat myself, the utter negativity and toxicity that I throw at myself. I am extremely bad to myself and that reflects in everything I do, everyone I interact with. There is a deep fear and insecurity about myself that takes the front seat any time I get to do anything at all. And I feel that the only way to combat this would be for me to get my life somewhat in order, and that starts with eating and sleeping properly, cutting myself off from work that I don’t really enjoy doing and a few other things that I hope will help me get back on track with better mental health.

So this is a formal goodbye, and sentimentally, also a goodbye to the “me” that has been writing here all these days. It has been a good person but I (who is this, I wonder) think it can be better and it shall attempt to be better. A better person, a better friend, better daughter, a better student (is it quite funny that I am putting student later, almost like it is not of as much priority as the others? Maybe it is so?). So I am once again saying goodbye (like I haven’t said it a thousand times already), it has been a fascinating journey. Part of me is sad that I am not seeing this through to 366, part of me is also relieved that I am ending it now, part of me still cannot believe that this venture got to 303, it is quite a wonderful achievement and I am glad that I pulled through all this while. All that remains is to pull through the rest of the way. And I will, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Lucky Me

I am sitting in my room, all alone and isolated from the rest of the world and it feels constricting. Completely constricting and I can feel the choking but there’s nothing I can do. I don’t know how to reach out properly, maybe, because I tried but it never works. I am scared, I don’t like this one bit, this blog post already feels much different than any I have ever written before. I don’t really know what I expect, for someone to magically realise that I am not in fact, “alright” and to come to help. What kind of weird utopia is that? I have horrible luck and I have never been able to get help when I needed it most. It has always been the case with me. And screw that, the times when I have most definitely not got help was when I actively sought it. It should tell me a thing or two about myself, but lessons are never learnt, I guess.

The smog has also really affected my physical health and my breathing already feels constricted because of that. But then, what can I do but use my inhaler, I cannot very well stop breathing can I? (as tempting as that seems to sound by the day) I am not exactly in the best of places (what an annoying understatement), I am most definitely not in any desirable place. I would like to be, but horrible luck once again, what I want is never going to be the what I get. I think, by now I have become quite resigned to that, my expectations are pretty low. I don’t really see why I continue having any expectations at all, after all, they are only getting dashed every day. You would think I would have learnt a lesson or two by now, but no, that’s not how the mind works. It is never how the mind works. I even wrote a poem (if I may call it that) today, just some time back. Here it is.

I want to walk, not sit here
alone with my own thoughts
a prison to both my body and mind
a lonely prison cell in the smog

I want to dissolve into the smog
so that it cannot bother me anymore
so that my will to breathe doesn’t
just disintegrate into dust

I want to feel the dust and the smoke
To feel the dark grey particles
as they make their way inside me
and make it stop, everything

I want my life to be everything
it is not now, and not everything
of what it is now, use the eraser
to rub out the chalk residue

I want to drain the residue
of sorrow and loneliness
because it feels like the only way to be
is to cry alone with no one around

I want to see people around me
people who matter, people who care
people who will simply be there
who will make the loneliness go away

I want to just go away,
pretend I did not exist
because after all, in this smog-filled world,
how am I seen and what difference do I make? 

Okay, the deal is this, it is no use lamenting on my own lack of company right now. Part of it is maybe my own fault, I don’t know. I tried to reach out, it is no one’s fault that they couldn’t come or make it. I think I need to get that through this head of mine. It is also my own wonderful luck that at just the time that I need help, I find it difficult to find (or I never find it, as has increasingly become the case recently). I am going to the counsellor tomorrow, I think it is about time I started addressing my own glaring inconsistencies and incompetence when it comes to living with myself and dealing with myself. I know I am not a great person, but surely I am not absolutely horrible to exist with. I don’t see why I cannot exist by myself, I need to try, I need to get back in track. I will also be posting my last post on this blog tomorrow. This is my 302nd post and the next one will be 303rd and well, the digits add up to six which is kind of superstitiously my lucky number. I could use some luck, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

A Little Thinking

I absolutely hate the smog, I have always hated it with a passion that is equivalent to nothing else. The reason is my poor lung status, I have had wheezing and asthma for a major part of my life and I continue to do so and this smog isn’t really helping matters or making me feel happy just to breathe. Honestly, you’d think that the one thing humans can do quite easily and naturally is the one thing this smog is targeting. And people are inconsiderate and dumb enough to make it difficult for themselves and other humans to breathe. I hope the Delhi people choke and die someday, it makes me an asshole maybe but they’d deserve it.

I will be back timing this post (if that is even a word) but I actually posted it only on Thursday. So I had stopped writing this post yesterday because I was typing it on my phone and well, Anju aunty’s daughter might have kinda read the first line or two. I say this because she asked me if I wrote a diary and I had to awkwardly nod and say that I wrote different things at different points of time. I had gone to their house yesterday for Diwali and well, it was a very relaxing time. They did not have any celebrations per se, not fancy food or anything, they had a puja in the evening, but everything was really chilled. I had a good time, it was nice to just relax, sleep and laze around without any work to do. I did miss my home though because this is my first diwali away from home. Now I am back on campus and I have to admit, the campus is really lonely and quite isolating. No wonder, I feel extremely alone over here and it is not for lack of trying, but genuinely, I think I am a loner at the end of the day (which is kinda ironical because I really need human company and I thrive with company and not alone).

I have been considering stopping these blog posts this week, they have been adding on to my stress because I am constantly worried that I won’t be able to post for the day. I know that I had a plan that I would get it to 365 but it is at 300 right now, this post is my 301st post and I think, I may have reached the end. I think it might be a better idea to concentrate my efforts to other things going on in my life, one of the most important things being my own dwindling self-esteem and will to exist. I think I need time to therapy myself, and help myself become a better person because there has never been a time where I have hated myself so often. I have come to resent myself and the worst part is, I think, I didn’t change, but my own attitude towards myself has changed dramatically. I need to do quite a bit of soul-searching and that cannot happen unless I actually make an effort. I won’t be bidding goodbye just yet, I will be posting until Saturday and when Sunday hits, it will be a new week and I will formally bid goodbye to this blog. I will come back maybe, next year. I have plans to actually do a meaningful blog rather than what I have done so far. I know that I will come back to read these and look back and think more about myself from time to time. But my next thing will probably be a weekly blog post where I will have a theme, some writing and other kinds of stuff. This is not goodbye yet, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Deal With Things

My patience has been deteriorating slowly these last few days or maybe I am finally growing a backbone and standing up for myself (albeit within the careful confines of my room). But I have definitely been mean in various aspects of my life, confrontational a lot of the time, raring for a fight, not very favourable, desirable attributes but I cannot help it, I don’t really have the patience to take what gets dished out to me or maybe I am getting too sensitive or intolerant or a snowflake as people seem to think I am. I don’t know how to deal with all of this, that is the simple fact of the matter. I am incompetent to deal with stress and the other things and there really is nothing else the matter. But that also points me in the direction to seek some kind of support and help and I think, I might have put that off for longer than necessary.

Are things really bothering me or as a friend asked me, is my mind conjuring up the botheration (if that’s even a word) to seek some form of sadistic comfort from the process of victimising myself? I mean, the friend did not ask me that but I think that’s what he was getting to but he did not really put it out there. Mainly because this could be taken in a bad way and I think he wanted to save me some kind of bad feeling, which I appreciate because sometimes these hard-to-swallow pills taste better coming from myself. But that doesn’t mean that I particularly enjoy taking them but I guess, that’s why they are hard to swallow in the first place. I think I haven’t exactly reached the point of finding sadistic pleasure in feeding myself hard pills too. If I do, I would put that as the loss of sanity from my side and I think, I would prefer to not exist.

Existence is such a weird concept and recently, it has been on my mind more than I am willing to admit. There is always the fear and recently, the hatred for existence and existing, or maybe hatred is too strong a word, most definitely a resentment though. I don’t think I know exactly where it started and there is a fear of saying it out loud. I don’t want to go to a counsellor and say that I have recently been wishing that I did not exist. In a way, saying it on the blog also feels extremely vulnerable and scary because it makes it concrete. But this blog feels more isolated than an actual counsellor and talking and isolation sounds extremely tempting. I have recently been filled with the need to isolate myself and I have been trying my best to fight against it by forcefully inserting myself into people’s lives, so I don’t isolate myself like how I want to. It is quite counter-effective but then I am definitely not dealing with things well. Well, I never claimed that I knew how to deal with things, did I?

And that’s my memory for the day.

 

 

 

Crave Comfort

Can someone tell me how I can get sleep, I am physically exhausted completely but nothing seems to be working. I am not even able to collapse sleep like I used to, every time I try to sleep in complete exhaustion, it’s like my brain doesn’t stop working and it leaves me feeling completely unrested. Added to that is the fact that I have been getting very little sleep these last few days and that is completely unhealthy for me. But there has also been a fear, a fear of myself and what I am capable of doing to myself and this fear also keeps me disturbed and restless. It is not a nice feeling at all, to feel like you cannot sleep even though there is nothing else you want more than to just sleep. Well, in my case, I also want human comfort, or more specifically, my mother’s comfort. It is quite childish of me, I will admit, but the heart wants what it wants.

I just want to be hugged and held I guess, in a completely selfish way. Oh wonderful, it all ties back to that one thing, I want to be loved, great job. I have successfully managed to, within the space of this one blog post paragraph, reach the root cause of my problems. Voila, deconstruction project successful. Now, can someone suggest a model that will work to use this and help me become better? Unfortunately, no one is interested in that intellectual exercise, it seems (and this obviously includes myself because what am I if not a hypocrite). Okay, I am actually going to cut this post short right now because I need to get to bed. But before that, I just feel the need to say that the smog has arrived and so has winter and I am not cherishing either of those things. Please give me a reason to continue breathing in this world, please?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Conversations

I went to Delhi with my friend today and it was a much-needed getaway and I enjoyed the day so much that when I got back, I was grinning like a Cheshire cat. I was genuinely really happy because the last week had been the most trying of times and I had absolutely hated every day and myself along with everything else. This was a much-needed trip because it meant that I got to escape the confines of the campus walls and well, that did me a world of good. The real world is a fascinating place, it is quite refreshing to see that life exists beyond these walls because sometimes, it becomes quite convenient to stay within these four walls and pretend that this where it all starts and ends when it actually is not the case.

I have been struggling to sleep these last few days because my mind has been in a really bad place the last few days. It is filled with a kind of deep, burning feeling of dislike for myself and it has only gotten worse as the days progress. I have actually grown to resent these blog posts too because they feel like a lot of work and I don’t want to put in that work. But I also feel that I need to get to this because it helps clear out some things in my head and they don’t always make perfect sense. My brain, whenever I am trying to sleep, is this restless thing that continues to work and jump from one thing to another, even though I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what those things are. It annoys me so much that I cannot help but grow a feeling of extreme resentment towards my own mind, my own existence in extension. Sometimes, it feels like I am just an unnecessary burden on this world and on the people in it.

Today, I had a conversation that towards its end threw some very important, extremely hard to swallow pills at my face. I had to swallow them, obviously, because I really did have no other choice. For my own sake and to save me a lot of self-despising registered on a platform where it will exist forever (or for a long time, whatever), I am not going to get into the details of what the conversation was. It was a very important conversation to have, I believe, but also one that I now fear could have ruined/modified a few things, especially my relationship with my friend. Well, the outcomes of that conversation were not exactly the most consoling for me because there were a lot of uncomfortable realisations in it. For fear of it being said that I misconstrued some things, I shall refrain once again from getting into the details. But all that needs to be told is that it has only instructed me that I probably need to direct my gaze more inward, probably in a less unfavourable light (I am not quite convinced of this part though, I think I really need to criticize myself a bit more because there are a lot of bad things I do). Sleep evades me, tears, unfortunately, don’t. Please tell me my existence shall come to mean something after all, please?

And that’s my memory for the day.