Useless, Lazy Days

I sometimes wonder if moving on is really that easy, or if I had it easy or if I had only been fooling myself. Regardless, the fact still remains that I may not have moved on as quickly as I like. But that’s okay, it is still happening, I can feel it and while it is a slow process, I know that it shall yield its results soon enough. I have withdrawn because distance helps me move on and I guess, I can only hope that it gets to work faster. It is too slow for my liking, at least the pace at which it has been happening lately. The only thing that gives me any semblance of hope is the fact that I can visibly see that the moving on is happening and so I know it will come to fruition soon enough. 

Today was an extremely lazy and unproductive day and I probably should not be quite so cavalier about it. But I also think that a whole week of poor sleep led me into this—I was so sleepy and tired and exhausted and I fell asleep just about everywhere. I could not concentrate on my work for a sustained amount of time, could not come to write my paper and get my work done. In retrospect, that was an extremely dumb move because that means I will have work piled up for a long period of time. But in my defence, I really needed the sleep. That’s all the defence I have, which is comical, almost. 

What is the deal with life, really? You breathe in breathe out and suddenly you’re expected to pay for that oxygen you consume in the form of living a life. You have a body you’re supposed to feed and protect (assuming this ‘you’ is separate from your body), you have a role in the world that you’re supposed to fulfil, there are others whose role is to ensure you fulfil yours, we are all censoring and self-censoring and we all take joy in making each other pay for their share of oxygen. It is quite ironical that people say “live your life” like it is this freeing thing when actually living your life is as restricted as you can get. There, I have officially become the old hag on top of Oracle mountain now.

Coming back to my ponderations and considerations on the topic of my own uselessness in getting my work done, the wifi is not working on my laptop. I have legitimately tried everything, from restarting to disconnecting to everything and it still refuses to work. This means that this post shall go up only later, whenever my wifi connects. But because I have written it earlier, I shall use that as an excuse to pre-time my post, this seems almost like time travel and maybe it is, I don’t know. But I don’t want it to go unnoticed, I think that the fact that I am writing this despite not being able to post it shows my own dedication to this cause. That should show me that if I set my heart to it, I can get my work done. It may seem like I can’t and I agree, sometimes I fail miserably. But I have the capability to get it done, the capability to move on, and so I shall, come whatever (where is this fighting spirit the times I really need it, I wonder). Positivity is one thing, but blind hope is another. This isn’t blind hope, right? 

And that’s my memory for the day. 

Friendship Fears

I am extremely tired to write this post but I have to. I actually ended up sleeping through the whole night and it is 7:45am now and I cannot believe that I did this. I would have normally woken up in the middle of the night, remembering that I had to write. But this time, it seems like I completely collapsed and slept, out of control. But I only have myself to blame, I have put off some very clear warning signs by my body in favour of getting some work done. It is only expected that my body would pull a rebellion and shut down. But this sleep felt quite great, I was plagued by dreams (which I don’t remember much of), but it was a long, sustained sleep. My only horror was I had left my laptop open here and I hadn’t finished the post. But I guess I will just post this at a different time than right now. But I just wanted to mention that I screwed up, a bit.

The day was pretty great and there were many moments when I was filled with a deep appreciation for my friends. Especially one of my closest friends, because of the amount of nice things he did for me that day. It is quite funny, he is as ruthless as a sibling, never holds back from the snark and sarcasm, is genuinely excited by gossip and knowing about my crush and what’s happening, is extremely annoyed and makes it known when I skip meals or behave as a general bad child. He reminds me of my mother sometimes, especially today, because my mother has this way of scolding me but still saving my pathetic derriere, because that is of prime importance. Anyway, he got me breakfast (because I nearly skipped it), cleared my desk space up because he thought it was too cluttered (and it is actually so neat right now!), came to see if I was having dinner because I had messaged him about feeling slightly sick and he gave me such a look when I said I probably might not go for dinner and he actually managed to convince me to have dinner and dragged me along. How will I survive university without him now, that is the question.

And it is not just him who is this wholesome, it is about all of my friends. I cannot believe that I have created for myself this circle of friends who are all lovely creatures, who seem to care for me and help me at multiple points in life. I have people to hug, to cherish, to love, and it is a wonderful feeling, I love them all from all of my heart. It is times like these that the pain of an unread snap or an ignored message does not pinch as much. There will be more people in the future, hopefully. It doesn’t do for me to forget what I have already in the pursuit of something that may never be. And it hurts to come to terms with this, this idea of finality, almost. Maybe there was a small corner of my heart which had hoped its wish will come true (read, quite a big corner of my heart, actually). I think the hardest part to deal with was the fact that communication still kinda happens between us and I invest myself in it a lot more than he seems to do. But once again, it is friends to the rescue, they keep me away from my maudlin moods, most of the time at least. Head pats, hugs, calm, soothing and kind words, and sometimes, just the pleasure of company that exists for its own sake, that’s what I have come to get from these friendships. Is that true friendship? Why should I/Why do I even want to qualify something that I find absolutely beautiful?

Now, here’s the fear, the end of these friendships when they realise that I probably may not be a deserving recipient of their love. This fear is legitimate, it is scary, because it runs from a deep insecurity about my own worthlessness in this world. It also affects the way I look at romance, it drives home a narrative that I shall never be worthy of love, no one is obviously going to like me. So, when someone seems to show no interest, I am not surprised, I was expecting it. Maybe this colours my perception in other places, where someone might actually show an interest in me, I would very well just brush it off (as of now, no one, but maybe in the future?) Anyway, it is a fear I have held for the longest time, that there is nothing great about me that will hold my friends to me. So I have to prove my worth at every junction, so that all will be fine and dandy. Also, now that I have proudly proclaimed my friends and how nice they are, I am also afraid I shall jinx it. Why are there so many issues that I build up around everything?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Trip Day 3

I hate the inevitable exhaustion and pain and suffering that travel entails, my feet are aching and no amount of pressing or massaging does anything for it. My head is aching, in fact, my whole body aches from the exhaustion and I am so close to completely collapsing and falling asleep. Of course, this is where my blog comes into the picture and I am sitting here, in Paris, at 1:50am at night, having just come to our accommodation from an exhausting day trip, ready to sleep. In fact, I am going to stop this blog post right here and update it later. I will, won’t I?

I did, I have come back to edit this post today, it is 12 am and I am as exhausted as can be. But today’s experiences are for another blog post altogether. I need to finish this post first. But before that, I feel the need to share a beautiful picture of the Eiffel Tower. Well, it is by no means a great picture probably, but the beauty of the tower should hopefully make up for my non-existent photography skills. The tower is marvellous, it completely had me under its spell, I could not take my eyes off it, or off the view that it provided me. I got the opportunity to go to the summit and even though I froze because of the cold, fast wind that blew up there, and there were too many people and too little space, I still would consider it the highlight of my trip. After all, it is not very often that people get to visit the Eiffel Tower (except maybe if you lived in Paris, but then, why would you want to go there every day? The cost would be insane)

The day started when we left the house in the morning to drive to Paris. I had course registration that morning, but I could not do it. Instead, I had asked a senior to do it for me and he did it, even though I did not exactly get my first preference in one course. But that doesn’t matter because I got a place with another professor offering the same course, and well, my friends also moved here because of a multitude of reasons (one of them could have been yours truly), so I have my fingers crossed for a good semester. The course I am most excited for though is this course on Language politics and linguistic anthropology in South Asia, with a professor I adored last semester. Now I get to have another class with her, in a very small capacity (only 16 people in the course). She is brilliant and well, I cannot wait for the class. She is a visiting professor and her return this semester had been quite a question mark until recently, but I am glad (super happy) that she is back. This time, my week is slightly better distributed, with a little more breathing time than usual. All my courses are intensive though, more intensive than the last semester, so I only hope this semester goes well.

Back to the trip, we went to Paris and my uncle dropped us off at the Louvre Museum. And what a museum it was! Humongous, filled with artistic treasures from as early as 4000 BC, it was the one museum that I shall not forget for a very long time. Of course, the Mona Lisa is there but I actually did not spend much time near it, nor did I take any photos. It was quite weird for my parents who didn’t really see the point of the museum, “it’s all only pictures and statues,” they said. But I did not know how to explain it to them, in a way they could comprehend, that I found meaning and joy in looking at those pictures and sculptures. I tried though, I made sure to tell them stories from the Roman and Greek mythology that were being depicted in some sculptures, the Biblical stories (even though I myself know VERY LITTLE) that inspired some paintings, etc. I think, compared to the last time they had been here (alone, for an exam my mother had to give in France), this time they were able to better appreciate the artistic genius they were witnessing. And well, even if they don’t really get why I was so excited about the museum, at least they were able to enjoy parts of it because I was there.

Tired, after nearly 5.5 hours walking around the museum (my feet had died and been resurrected so many times, they deserved a few paintings of their own), we made our way to the metro station to get tickets to go to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a station called Charles de Gaulle (I simply don’t know how to pronounce these things) that we had to get down at, from the station near the museum (I forgot its name and don’t really want to google it at the middle of the night, I have another post to write). After a brief struggle trying to explain to the ticket guy what we wanted tickets for, we finally got our tickets (even the ones to get to our accommodation) and boarded the metro. For someone who had really seen quite a lot of the London Underground, this metro was way different. From the seats, to the setting, to the languages spoken, to the announcements (or their non-existence), everything was a brand new experience. I think I prefer the London Underground though. When we did get to the Arc de Triomphe, we did not climb up because the queue was too long and we also wanted to get to the Eiffel Tower. Moreover, there was a parade at the foot of the arch, so we turned tail (after a few photographs, of course) and made our way to the station to get to Bir Hakeim, the station for the Eiffel Tower.

There were some issues with the train tickets, I might have experienced a mild form of racism at the enquiry counter, and a few other things happened. But I don’t really see the point of letting those minor things get in the way of the ultimate beauty and brilliance of the tower and my experience of it. I got the opportunity to eat a pain au chocolat (it was super nice, fluffy and soft and flaky all together) and that was a good experience too (though I wish I could have had the opportunity and the culinary tolerance to try different other things from French cuisine). The line at the tower was too long though, my already dead legs put up a very brave fight until the very end, but they died as soon as I could get back to where we were staying. We went to the summit, taking two lifts to get there, but on the way down, we got down to the second floor and climbed down on foot. This was a very interesting experience and I am sure I would have enjoyed it better had my legs not been that close to giving way. In fact, the last few steps, I nearly collapsed because my legs did give way. When I finally got to the place we were staying (the train back to the accommodation place was beautiful!), I collapsed. That was the end and that’s when I started this post. Now I have another post to write for today, I shall be able to do that, won’t I?

And that’s my memory for the day.