Friendships and Horrors of Horoscopes

I write this post early because I have my flight to Delhi tomorrow morning, which means that I would have to be up early to get ready for my journey back home (of sorts). Ashoka has become home, I will give it that, and there’s a part of me that wants to run back to its familiar confines, and as a friend put it today, “into her arms” (which I assume means not just her, but my friends in general, but one can never be too sure, I feel). I think there is no better time than now to completely and truly acknowledge my own contradictions, general confusion, and lack of clarity. I have probably never ever in my life been in such a place where everything I know and understand was thrown into jeopardy (or maybe jeopardy is too strong a word, I don’t really know much these days). Also, brownie points for my abysmal grammar in the previous sentence. 

But aside from this general state of confusion, I think this break was much-needed. It gave me a space to relax and have fun, be by myself a lot, catch up with old friends and reminisce about times that have long gone past. Which again makes me wonder if my friends at university right now will also grow to become mere acquaintances in the future. Part of the reason why my school friendships turned out this way is that I cut myself off (not very consciously, of course). They had most definitely not seen me at my absolute worsts like my friends at university have. And well, we never got the opportunity to properly bond like I did with my friends at university. A part of me likes to believe that even after university, I shall do my best to stay in touch (and hell, be really good friends, even best friends maybe) with my friends at university. But again, no guarantees right? What is a person to do during these times? 

I remember when as a child (teenager—14 ish?), I was obsessed with horoscopes. I would spend hours sometimes, looking up horoscopes for all of my friends, to figure out our friendship compatibilities and see if we were destined to be friends forever. Well, that evidently worked out really well because none of the things on those websites actually came true. But the time I read them, I remember feeling elated when I realised that I could relate to a lot of what was being said. For example, it would say, “The x and the y are two opposite signs and hence complement each other very well to form a deep, connected friendship once they look past their differences.” Looking at it now, I realise how absolutely generic that statement is, of course people form deep friendships by looking at the differences and accepting them and continuing to invest their time in that relationship. But anyway, I would think about how my friend and I were actually quite opposite to each other and how we had our issues in the beginning but how now we were past that and were destined to have a deeply fulfilling friendship. We had a fall out around that time and well, it was both of our faults but at the time, I only remember the crippling feeling of being betrayed.

Nevertheless, I think one of the stupid things I did over the break (a guilty pleasure, if you will), was google the sun signs of all my friends at university and check friendship compatibilities. Turns out, they are all absolutely wonderful (even better than the ones from school) and so, I am doubly worried now because I always felt like I jinxed my own friendships because of this completely useless exercise. Guilty pleasures have become guilty banes of my existence and i have no one to blame but myself. Of course, I can always tell myself that it is all nothing but a big basket of horse-poop and call it a day, but I know that it shall continue to haunt my mind for a long time. I don’t want these friendships to end because I could not employ the smallest amount of self-discipline. I already feel like this break and being away from campus has made my friends forget about me and there’s a fear that they will find a life without me in it to be much better than one with me present in it. I will make it through these perilous and dark times, won’t I? 

And that’s my memory for the day.

Homesick anf Freaking Out

I am low-key freaking out, I have quite a lot of work to get done and I am just unable to get a headstart. I am worried, not in a “this is the end of the world” kind of way but in a more self-chastising, scolding way. I want to induce myself to get my work done or at least to get started but honestly, I am struggling to find the motivation. It doesn’t help that I have been plagued with different kinds of thoughts in a thousand different things, some pertinent, troubling questions that I am realising I need to ask myself. I won’t expand on that statement here because I am confused enough as is without trying to put it into words and losing my point completely.

That happens quite a lot I have realised, sometimes writing makes it all even more confusing than it already is. Which is surprising because I have always held the view that writing or speaking about something always helps to make sense of it, at least that had been my experience until now. But recently, I am only left more confused when I try to talk about something that is on my mind. I have come to the conclusion that I am probably better off keeping it to myself until I am sure that I won’t lose track of myself in the question. Losing track of myself is pretty easy to accomplish, to be very honest. It is also annoyingly convenient at times (which is almost oxymoronic, I realise) because it becomes a very convenient excuse.

When I am stressed, I generally use the help of music to get me back on track, to ensure my sanity, in a sense. Music generally calms me down and makes me visit my issues with a fresher eye but right now music seems like an indulgence and an indulgence only makes me feel even more stressed out because I feel that I don’t have time for that and need to be concentrating on things of consequence instead. I am no authority to know what is appropriate or time-worthy, to be honest. In fact, my sense of time and temporality is one of the worst I have ever seen, my mother always complains that I have the worst time sense possible. Well, in retrospect, my mother has a complaint about literally everything that I do, it is her way of showing love, she says. I would agree, generally, she is just slightly annoying at times but I could do with her presence right now. But I don’t have it, which makes the homesickness worse, but sometimes you just have to deal with things, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Writing Worth

I think one of the biggest challenges of writing a blog post every day is finding the motivation to write it as well as examining what happened during the day that could be used for the post. Of course, this is if quite a bit of thought goes into writing a blog post rather than being a plain stream of conscious writing. I tend more towards the latter, I have noticed, especially during times when I have university work to deal with. When I was home during the break, I had a lot of time to allow my thoughts to marinate in my head. Sometimes, I actually felt like what I was writing could be of potential worth and value in the world I was putting it out in. But of course, that is quite a crisis-inducing question to ask.

I ask myself a lot of these questions these days, I cannot help myself sometimes. It is like my brain decided that there are some hard truths I need to be forced to face and that it should be the ones that come to me at the hardest times. The worst part is, I am fully conscious of my brain trying to start the question and it is like I am so depraved that I want that pain, that crisis that will push me to completely lose it. There you go, I have said it. I have started fancying pain and crisis, I have romanticised it enough. This is my brain once again making me realise the hard truths. Who wants to admit that they like to see themselves in pain, to put themselves in pain? Not me for sure, I doubt there are many others who want that.

What does it mean to put something of value out into the world? What does it mean to write anything at all? How am I supposed to know that whatever I am writing, why, take for example, this blog post itself, how am I supposed to know that this post was meant to be written at all? That there is something worthy of being written and read in these words? I am pretty sure that there is going to be at least one person who could read what I am writing and wonder what made me write it in the first place. I wonder that enough about myself that it is not completely foreign for me to put myself in some unknown imaginary reader’s shoes. Well, I guess it is quite moot point right now to wonder, especially when I have already written 430 words. So there I go, wondering again, life has never been this confusing has it?

And that’s my memory for the day.

An Assignment Completed and A Storm Weathered

I am done with my first mid-term assignment and I am feeling pretty proud of myself for having pulled this off. I managed to write a four-page long poem, following a pentameter (I tried Iambic but I screwed up in places), with an ‘abab’ rhyme scheme, a one-page preface and a two-page critical accompaniment, all in the span of three days. In retrospect, it may seem like it’s not much but it did certainly take its time to get done.

Moreover, my musical venture is going well. Our piece is coming together quite prettily and we are currently in the process of trying to find a name for ourselves. Struggling with that and our group on WhatsApp is named ‘The Noodleheads’ (don’t ask me why). We have almost finished our mashup and it sounds pretty great, if I do say so myself. And I am yet to start on my readings for this week but I will get there eventually. I know it in my heart.

This post is going to end here because I have other work to do. But I want to register it here that I was able to submit my assignment on time (one minute before deadline, but let’s not go into details). I am writing this as a note to my future self who will undoubtedly come back and read this. And I know that she will be scolding herself for how badly she has written this post. But all that is immaterial. For now, she needs to know that she was able to get work done. She had some pretty trying times but she fought through it. And that I am proud of her. Oh wait, I am proud of myself. Arghh, this is confusing. But then, if I don’t confuse myself and encourage myself, I fear no one else will. And to not be confused, what kind of life is that?

And that’s my memory for the day.