Slacking Breaks

I think one of the elements of allowing myself to relax is the realisation of exactly how exhausted and tired I am. I don’t think I ever properly realise my own exhaustion during my time at university. I don’t have time for such frivolities, I have more pressing concerns to attend to, namely studying and doing important things for my own education that cannot be put off for longer than absolutely necessary. And I justify it to myself by saying that I am at university to study and study I must do without slacking. Everything I do is in a bid to not slack and call to question the use and legitimacy of being at university. I am there with a purpose to learn and I shall work myself and apply myself to that process, and when I fail in that purpose, like I have done a lot this semester, it takes a toll on me because I cannot bear the thought of being like that.

But I have been really sleepy the whole day today, my head is aching right now as I type and I want nothing more than to collapse on my bed and sleep until the end of eternity. I am also worried because half the semester has gone by so fast and in another half, I shall have my finals and I am absolutely not confident about it at all. Part of it is probably my own insecurities coming into play about my own estimate of my intelligence (which is not very high, to be honest, because I have allowed myself no reason to believe otherwise). But that being said, I think this break has allowed me a time when I could properly take time out for myself, to be with people who love me and who I love back. Of course, I also miss university and the people there with a strong passion, but I am going back there and I also most definitely needed and wanted this. This breath of home and grandparents, of one of the very few things that have been quite stable so far in my life. Surely the quest for this was worth the general slacking I have been doing this break?

And that’s my memory for the day.

To be Privy to Myself

Differences get more pronounced when you put them against a backdrop of seeming homogeneity. Changes seem more alien when you keep them next to what had once been familiar. I went out with a friend today and when I spoke to her, I realised just how much I had changed from the person I had been. From the smallest things, from the way I held myself to my hairstyle to my way of speaking, everything has changed quite a bit. I view them all as positive changes, I am quite happy with the changes, they are changes I have wanted for a long time and they are finally happening. But I had not been privy to my own change–it sounds extremely dumb, how can I not be privy to things that happen to me? But that’s what it is, I have been quite spectacularly clueless about myself (I still am, but growth curves, they are quite real).

Another uncomfortable thing I realised today was that till date, the biggest compliment that anyone can give me is to say that I have lost weight. I seem to have quite an unhealthy obsession with weight, with wanting to lose it and feeling inordinately pleased when someone says that I have lost weight. It is an extremely insidious thing, I feel, to feel that way about myself, because I end up fat-shaming myself if I don’t lose weight. Possible serious issues that could raise because of this includes eating disorders, and I don’t want that on my plate (okay, that was an unintended pun, but a good one nonetheless). So I am going to actively try to stop myself from this obsession, it is difficult, especially in a family where weight is given a lot of ‘weight,’ where judgments are passed freely for weight, where being shamed for weight is normalised and is actually considered to be a motivator. I am probably at my healthiest right now and my weight should not be dictating my ideas and thoughts like this.

I do concede that just a year back, I had been a lot heavier and a lot less healthy. My weight was adding to my period complications and it was only after I came to Ashoka that I started losing weight. I was also losing weight fast, and a lot of it was also due to unhealthy eating habits. I have lost nearly 10/11 kgs in this one year I have been in college and in numbers, that is quite a mind-boggling thing. But I think this is where I shall draw myself a line, I don’t think I want to be heavier than this but I also am apprehensive of getting lower than this. I am probably still in the overweight BMI scale, but it is pretty skewed and not quite accurate and so I am just trusting what I feel about my own general health and I feel quite positive about (and I pray I am not jinxing that) that.

I also felt weirdly pretty today and just when I was feeling quite happy about myself and my life, I was whistled to on the road and I felt a rage I could not explain. I had been cycling to meet my friend and this man on a motorcycle was travelling the other direction and he just whistled to me in the cinematic hoohoo way. And before I could respond, he was gone and I had to go on my way. At the beach, as I was trying to find a place to park my cycle, I was once again stared and pointed at by a group of men. It all made me extremely angry, I was finally feeling in control of my own body and finally learning to feel confident in my own body and skin and this just pulled me down. And I felt helpless too because it felt like I could not do anything against them. They knew it too, they thrived in the knowledge that nothing would affect them. Well, that was a ruined mood, but I refuse to let it boil for longer than this in my head. I had sambar vadai, I am going to a movie probably tomorrow, and I am excited to do it all. So, I am going to sleep after a tiring day and because of tired hands that cannot type. My break will be good, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Breakdown and Heal

I lost too many things today, too many that I cannot count. Too much has happened, that I am overwhelmed, despondent and a thousand other things all at once and I can do absolutely nothing about it. Everything seems to be going wrong, I do not know how to handle anything, I have skipped too many meals, I have completely and undeniably lost myself. And it is not the good kind of losing myself, it is the kind which makes me panic, makes my chest hurt, my head hurt, my throat to close up and make me unable to breathe. I can already feel the physical effects of everything that has been happening around me. Even during my hardest times, I have never felt like there was nothing at all that happened in a day that made me the slightest bit happy. And that is scary because I have never been that hopeless before.

I have a presentation tomorrow that I am terrified about, the thing that has been bothering me the last few days reared its head once again and this time, reared its head and promptly jumped off a cliff and took my heart with it. And well, the pain is not just mental but also very physical and even though I may not have broken bones to prove it, the pain I felt was very much real. The worst part for me though was the fact that I allowed myself to be vulnerable to such pain, to indirectly cause myself that pain. That I had shamelessly cheered myself on undertaking this journey. So now, it is back to bite me in my derriere, that I allowed myself to be carried away by the foolish fancies of my whimsical mind. If there’s anything I have known until now, foolish fancies are just that, foolish. They don’t deserve the importance or hope that I harboured for them, they took that hope and used it to suck the remaining hope from out of me. The dream of the orphanage and the loner life seem much more plausible right now. Maybe I am underestimating myself, maybe I am not. But of all the things I know, I know I at least deserve that dream of an orphanage.

I wrote myself this note today in the morning when I woke up. I told myself that these were going to be my basic postulates, that I was going to follow them, ingrain them into my psyche and keep as true to them as possible. Well, I do feel nauseous now because I have too many things that I am worried about and also because I have not had proper food since morning. I also broke down and while having a breakdown is scary and preferably avoided, I think I needed the breakdown for release. I feel much better after the break down because it helped me get some of the bad thoughts out, some of the negative emotions out. And while I am not exactly proud of having a breakdown so early on in the semester, it was not something I could have avoided. And for me, I think I need to understand that this does not pose a judgement on my resilience and strength. I am strong, I am brave and I am going to get better. Starting with now, so I am going to get some work done and get to bed. Sleep is important after all, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Withdrawal

Well, today was a day of many disappointments and frustrations. The last couple of days have been bad for me, mental headspace wise. I want to take a break, withdraw from what I can (internet, people, the likes), all so that I find the space and tools to heal myself, properly this time. I think it is quite long overdue, I have been cutting corners with myself for too long now and at that rate, I would have crashed sooner or later and made a huge spectacle of myself. In a way, I am making myself believe that this disaster right now, can be slapped on with a ‘crisis averted’ sticker.

My need to withdraw also meant, I guess, a break from this blog. But I owe it to myself to write here every day. I initially even had a workaround for this complication. I need not post it on my blog, but I could write my posts for each day, say, on a word document and then at the end of whatever, I could just bulk post them. Or maybe, I could play around tamper with the post timings a bit. But that’s wrong, I don’t want to cheat. I want to face this head-on, tackle the problem and emerge victorious fair and square. So here I am, battling sleepiness to write this post with my inexperienced hands. This post is not long enough, my apologies. But take this as part of my healing, I will be ‘away’ for a while. But I hope to come back, stronger and roaring. I will, won’t I?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Going to Meet the Family

I am on my way back home, or rather where my family is. But then, I have come to realise that more than the location itself, I place more importance on my family. Yes, Chennai will be home, but I don’t miss it that much. There are newer pastures to be grazed on, and I, for one, am terribly excited. This summer break is just starting, and I want these three months to be beautiful. I have a feeling they will be, I am going to try my hardest to make them beautiful for myself. I have a lot of plans for the break, I don’t know if they will all work out, but I am going to try my best.

It was only today, in the afternoon, when I completely lost it and started bawling my eyes out. This whole semester felt like it was a disaster. All my life, I had been given results on a golden platter. I was able to achieve results by putting in minimum effort, or sometimes even less. It was a flattering kind of thing to happen, I felt extremely validated, especially when people would be surprised to know that I was able to do something with so less effort. Yes, I was vain, I still am vain in many aspects. But I have also become extremely self-critical, something I fear might be getting slightly out of hand. It is good to keep oneself in control, and checking oneself from straying but the kind of stupidity I ended up doing is something I hope I don’t repeat next semester.

I lost it today because, for a second, I felt like the tables had completely turned on me. After years of achieving things with little to no effort, to not see results after working hard was a huge disappointment. I did work hard this semester, pushed myself, and kept myself in check, tried my best not to slack and did my work on time (or as close to ‘on time’ as possible). I worked through all my problems, and there were plenty of them. I was also simultaneously handling some tumultuous personal relationships, with friends, with parents, with my brother, everyone in general.

When I was younger, people used to think that I worked hard, which was a total lie because I really did not. I did not spend time studying in my house, I did not spend hours working on anything, I did not put in that much commitment and dedicated effort. In retrospect, I sometimes wonder if I should have done that if only to fuel my own ego that I was passionate about something. But then, being passionate about something is such a hard definition to draw, it gets very tricky. I did not want to be at the receiving end of that, most definitely not.

I am sitting here at the airport, completely alone but I don’t feel that alone. I have made some great friends, who I love from the bottom of my heart. I have always been very invested in every relationship I formed–I like to say that I have a LOT OF LOVE to give and share. I will miss them all terribly and the prospect of not being able to meet them for three months is scary. I don’t know how it will be, to suddenly want someone to speak with at night and finding that they are not around me. It will be difficult to get used to, but thankfully I will have my family. I cannot wait to meet my family–except my mother who I saw recently, my father and brother have both not seen me in person, and I, them.

I find myself wondering how tall my brother might have grown, maybe he’ll be about the height of my forehead? Maybe taller? Maybe shorter? I know I have grown a little taller and lost quite a bit of weight. I know that they will be surprised to see me, and I, them. I am anxious, nervous, and extremely excited. This summer is a world of possibilities, it is up to me to make it the beautiful garden it is capable of being. I can nurture myself well this summer, I will, won’t I?

And that’s my memory for the day.