BaeBae-ism

I slept at 4:30 am last night.

Needless to say sleep was like snorkelling on the surface of rest and not the dive it ought to be. Woke up at 11 am to grey light, it had been raining, backed up by grumbling thunder since morning. Winter rain isn’t like Monsoon rain, it doesn’t bring me joy. Plus having stayed next to the sea for a while, temperate, pleasant chill was what I was used to, not this brooding, intense cold. The temperature also seemed to have an impact on my recovering ankle that seemed to squeak up more pain on taking weight. Plus the second day of my period. And the nagging worry of where am I going in life, my joyless job, inability to actually do the things that make me happy, wasted time on social media. All in all, things were looking not chipper. So I decided to numb my brain by watching ‘Bridgerton’ which is basically Pride & Prejudice meets Downton Abbey meets Gossip Girl. Easy watch.

But by afternoon I had a piercing, hot-iron-through-the-skull kind of headache. Unable to find medicine in my room, I went to Mama who not only furnished me with it, but insisted I sleep in her room as it was cosier. Although I am a light sleeper and did not want to be disturbed, she insisted and promised absolute quiet. It did help, even though she eventually left the room to let me sleep undisturbed. However, each time I fell into that dark, soothing zone of rest, and the fall was like a slow gradual sinking, something jerked me back up and out of that state. It happened once, twice, I don’t know how many times. Even so, I woke up feeling marginally better, but still gloomy.

The weather outside was the weather within. The day felt like the future, the past and the present. A whole thick mass of a cloud into which anything that holds definition or meaning was disappearing. Its weight was on my heart and my head and my shoulders. My sister, BaeBae, found me thus, sitting against the backrest in the warm blankets, sadly staring into the cloud.

“What’s wrong?” her voice was full of love and concern.

I rattled off the list of things bothering me as she came to cuddle next to me.

“You must have low serotonin in your body today,” she said, “Wish I had a way of injecting it into you. Imagine that, you’d feel fine then.”

“Hell nah,” I said, “I don’t want external help like that.” A little disclaimer, while I am slowly opening up to the idea of taking medications if needed, it is still a barrier for me.

My sister shook her head but then furnished me with the earring she had bought for herself and me from Mt. Abu. Pretty silver danglers with a little mirror in them. I marvelled at them for a bit.

“Did you get some sleep?” BaeBae asked.

“I did but something kept jerking me out of it every time I tried to sink into sleep. It was so weird,” I pouted and in a flash of nutty inspiration said, “You think it was a ghost?”

“You know there are four levels of rest: sleep, dream, meditation and dying,” BaeBae said seriously, “Maybe something was preventing –“

“Yeah, a ghost,” I said nodding sagely.

“Maybe, something kept preventing you from dying?” my sister said sombrely.

“I was DYING?!”

She looked at me and said, “Don’t listen to BaeBae.”

We dissolved into giggles then. The rest of the conversation was pure nonsense figuring out who resides in a country called BaeBaeStan, what are the six major tenets of BaeBae-ism and apparently everyone in BaeBaeStan is called BaeBae. If you, dear reader want, I can tell you the tenets as well in another post. Can’t believe I’m putting all this up here but I felt much better after the dose of silliness and nonsense we conjured out of thin air.

Tomorrow is the first day of work in 2021. Enough to get me feeling blue and grey I suppose. By the way, that reminds me I do love this track called Blue and Grey by BTS from their new album, composed and written by one of their singers Taehyung (stage name V). Another song I really like in their new album is Stay written by another singer JK (Jungkook). And with those random music recommendations, I say bye! Hope you all have a decent Monday, if not a happy one. I’m sure the prospect of returning to work isn’t joyous to everybody, and for those who are in love with their jobs, don’t talk to me, you lucky bastards!