Hard-to-Swallow Pills

I am finally done with my last submission for this midterm. I was actually done by 11:50pm and I had submitted my paper on time. But I realised much later (nearly an hour later) that I had botched up by not including my Works Cited page in my essay. I panicked because if I resubmitted my assignment, it would show as a late submission and that is something I cannot deal with, especially when I had submitted my essay on time and had only committed one stupid mistake (a pricey one nonetheless). So I resubmitted my paper while writing a comment for my professor to note that it wasn’t intentional but by a rather unfortunate turn of circumstance that I had messed up and was submitting again. I am hoping it won’t have much of a consequence because that would make me really sad, but I don’t have a big say in this, I believe. My only defence can be that I had my paper done and in-text citations in place. The Works Cited page could be an excused mistake (provided I don’t do it again, of course).

One of the things that had been really bothering me these last few days is my own sleep schedule and how I have been leaving it to go to hell. I have not been getting enough sleep and right now I am bogged by concerns about packing for tomorrow. I generally abhor packing because it means that I am forced to make choices and decisions that I do not want to make. It is quite simple, really, because I am one of the most indecisive people I know. Coupled with my own crippling fears and insecurities, indecisiveness is the perfect accompaniment to make me the hopeless choir that dreams are made of. In a sense, that is not a very nice thing to say about myself but I also believe that because midterm break has officially started, I need to give myself (read, force feed) some really hard-to-swallow pills. The pills shall cure my diseases, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Maniacal, Scared Traveller

The thing about travelling is that I am a very bad traveller in general. I am constantly under the impression that I would have forgotten something, misplaced something, done something wrong, something or the other. Packing ruins me, I am constantly anxious about it, constantly anxious if I have forgotten something on the way. I am checking my pockets (or whatever pockets women’s pants generally have, which are sad excuses for pockets) if I have everything I brought, or if my phone is properly inside and not just hanging outside for anyone passing by to just pluck out. It is a nightmare for myself and this generally keeps me off travelling unless I am going by a mode of transport like our own car (I would love for a time to come when I can say “my own car”), where even if `i forget something, chances would be that it would be inside the car and I can easily retrieve it.

This all started especially after one extremely saddening event when I was pretty young, around 4 or 5 years old. I have always generally been very protective and careful with my belongings, I get attached to these things very easily and I find it very difficult to part with my belongings. Ths meant that all my toys, every single item I had (including my clothes, caps, rubber bands, etc) were kept in as neat a condition as four-year-old me could manage. This strong attachment also made me find it very difficult to cope with the loss of any of my possessions. If it was stolen, it would be painful. But what would be more painful was losing a possession out of my own carelessness or forgetfulness. That would make me beat myself up over for days, I would sometimes dream about it also. This happened when I lost my earphones back in March, this year.

But yes, back to this story. We had been travelling by train, during the night, in the AC 3 tier coach. The AC 3 tier coach is a wonderfully comfortable coach to travel during a nighttime journey. You get warmed pillows, sheets and a heavy comforter, the berths are wider and you have these nice pockets to the side of the berth where you can keep your stuff in. Those pockets, those were the cause for my distress that time. The AC 3 tier coach was always in quite a precarious position, the AC would sometimes be too cold and sometimes it would be non-existent. This was after all not a very major inconvenience for me because I was quite comfortable in my carefully laid out sheets and the temperature was maintained quite nicely.

That day I had on a beautiful white and red cap, a sweater cap that came as a pair with a sweater I wore. That night I removed my cap and carefully stowed it away on that pocket by the side of my berth. I had gotten a top side berth, which generally has wider berths than usual and moreover, it was fun to climb up on it. And one could sit on it comfortably without their head banging against the roof or the bottom of the berth on top. It was all in all quite a wonderful experience and as per usual, my father meticulously laid out the sheets, the comforter, the pillow and when I got settled in, made sure I was nicely covered and my cap was nicely in place. Because it was an AC coach, there was no fear of thieves and the AC was also working quite wonderfully that night.

All was fine, morning came, I woke up, finished my morning ablutions, the train arrived at our station and we all got down and made our merry way home. When we reached home and started unpacking our bags, to get laundry done and to put away all the food we had brought, my mother asked me about the cap. I felt like someone dropped a huge sack on top of me, the realisation that I had missed my cap on the train hit me hard. I could not get off that feeling, my beautiful cap, the one I had so carefully stowed away in that pocket, I had merrily forgotten it. I was guilt-ridden for a few days, I even would dream of finding that cap on a side bag, or that my mother would just look at me, smile and tell me that she had found it and had fooled me. But no, the cap was well and truly lost as well as my casual attitude about travelling. I have always been quite maniacal about travelling ever since. Now, since we are travelling once again tomorrow, I am much more worried. Hopefully, the trip will be a good one, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.

Anxieties and Heat

It is quite funny that I almost forgot that I had to write in my blog today. Sometimes it feels like I have made this blog up in my head and that I actually have not written every day. I open my blog when I feel like that, almost like I am trying to reassure and convince myself that I actually have written in this blog all these days. I think the fear also stems from the fact that I will be going to this camp for the whole of next week, which could mean that I would have to type my posts on my phone, on data, after exhausting days. I am terrified about the prospect of not being able to post here every day. I am anxious about it, more than I care to admit.

I had to pack for the camp, but I have not even properly started yet. My mother is going to have a fit when she finds out, but I think I can handle it and manage to pack everything tomorrow. The problem is, I need to convince my mother of that. All this packing reminds me of last year, when I had to pack and move into my college. It had been a terrifying experience, as well as an exciting one. I was alone, my mother wasn’t there in India when I was leaving for college, so most of my packing was done with help from my grandparents and by myself. My father had been as useful as the label my grandfather stuck on my suitcase, to identify it. But I still had managed to transport myself to college and set up my room, all by myself, my brother and father simply coming to help me carry the suitcases and for the baggage allowance they got.

I remember my feelings on the day of moving in with astonishing clarity, so much so that I wonder if I am making up some of my memories of the day. I won’t be surprised, especially after I learnt about the concept of memories not being completely trustworthy. It is a very fascinating thing because it destroys one of the key aspects of this blog itself, the idea of memories recollected and stories told. But if there’s anything my one year at college has taught me, it is to be at peace with conflict, to accept it, allow it to mould and change your life as you please, to simply live with it. It is quite a wonderful thing, once you stop attaching so much value to your beliefs, you start to be more at peace with potential ideas and thoughts that could topple them. But then, even that is a belief of mine, and if something topples that, if I am peace with that, did it even get toppled in the first place. Is this getting too meta?

I was editing and rewriting my story today, I have removed a huge part of the story as a whole and added a completely new part to it. It stands at a proud 3150 words–the word limit was 3000, but surely 150 words is not that big a transgression. The day had been unbearably hot, my whole body felt claustrophobic inside the house, but there was nothing I could do. It was only in the evening when some slight respite came in the form of rain. But even then, the heat has gone down only a little bit, the humidity is making my whole scalp itchy and I feel like sitting in a bucket of ice. But that is a drastic step best reserved for some time in the far future (read, never). But nonetheless, the heat reminds me of home, even though we are better prepared for the heat back there than we are here. The temperature predictions for the next two days is cooler, hopefully the weather shall follow the rules. It will, right?

And that’s my memory for the day.