Hi. What’s Up?

It’s been nearly ten days since my last entry. But if anyone was keeping up with the entries, and if they’re familiar with my writing pattern, they’d know I was descending into the metaphorical abyss and that all resources would be allocated to Project: Feel Okay Again. So I stepped away from it all: writing, reading, singing, being. At first, it was like that.

But then some immortal, unbreakable elastic within (who says we don’t have superhero abilities?), stretched to its limit, decided that it was done. So it started the process of coming back from the miles it had travelled. I’m not fully back but Boo Bear said it is time to start writing, and I take Boo Bear seriously. So here I am. She basically asked me why I wasn’t writing. I told her that at first I couldn’t, now though it feels like I’ve ignored a friend for so long that I don’t know what to start the conversation with. I did want to write last night too, but I kept thinking what would I write about? What could I write about?

There’s this song I’m listening to that is just gorgeous, but so exquisitely painful. I don’t want to put anyone in a sad frame of mind so won’t tell you guys which one. But it’s about loss, and so beautifully expressed, written and composed. Makes me well up with a pain not my own each time. Don’t worry, tragic songs are catharsis for me, so they never really bring me down when I’m in a good place.

In more materialistic news, the elastic traveling back did several things along the way: made me meet friends physically at a charming French-South Indian cuisine restaurant where I had delicious red wine and great food. From there we shifted to and slept over at my friend’s place. My throat always hurts after such nights because we are loud and we laugh too much. It was joyful to be out like that again. The other things done were being gifted a MacBook Pro (eee!) by Dad after months of borrowing my mom’s laptop since mine was busted, and shopping. Considering I don’t shop usually, I could afford it for a change. Plus buying one thing Apple means buying ten things Apple so bye-bye money.

Then, another thing that cheered me up exponentially is the fact that I started to workout again after my thigh injury. I still can’t do the original kind of workouts, but the fact that I can do something and sweat it out is enormously empowering. The view on the biggest shit fest in my life – my work – has also shifted. I need to change my situation but while I’m in it, for as long as I can, I’ll do the best I can while looking for an out. I don’t know for how long this will last but right now that’s where the elastic has brought me.

I have so much to write about, how could I think it’d be awkward or that I’d not be able to say a thing? Also, if you’re currently near the abyss or in it, know that your elastic will work too, faster, slower, it will. Just don’t give up.

Being Light Enough To Float

We must be light. Wisp light.

Because we have these threads shooting out from where our hearts are with tiny little grapnels at the end that sink into different things. A job, a relationship, a house, a goal, a purpose. They tether us. Because without these threads, we would float away.

Up and up and up into the sky, into the beyond sky, which isn’t higher than the sky, it’s just adjacent to it. We’d float and scatter like dandelion wisps. White and fast at the start, taken away by a rude little breeze, but then slow and dreamy. One becomes many through the parts that drift away.

Is that why we have children, one of the strongest tethers there is? Because without an equivalently strong tether, we’d want to float away? Evolution knows, biology knows, all of them know what happens if the grapnels rust and break, or if the thread themselves snap. The mind knows, why do you think it fights the silence so viciously? Why does it want to occupy itself all day long? The threads, the hooks, the inconvenience and abject terror of floating away. There is only one brief to the basic system of a being: survive, and ensure your species survives. Hence the chemistry within reflects that motive in everything we do. But what about those whose chemistry has changed? The outliers.

I feel a little existential today for several reasons. One being stuck in a job that is the equivalent of a hamster running on a wheel, except the hamster has more going for it than I do. Second, a message from an ex-best friend (yea, that’s a term) who threw shade at me for ensuring she stays an ex-best friend. And it’s never nice to be have sudden shade thrown at you and not be able to duck. So yes, oh and also, would this be a story of true sorrow without some mommy issues thrown in? Yes, those too.

Things feel floaty. Grapnels weak, threads stretched taut. My mind is aiming for something to sink into. Hasn’t found it yet.

Yelling.

It was an exhausting day thanks to my dual life of being a fangirl and well, real life. I shall have to add a new category here: the secret life of a fangirl. It has taught me infinitely much and it’ll make for a fun read/write session too. I hope.

My throat has been itchy and my chest at that precarious edge where it isn’t quite congested but feels like some invisible clamp is tightening around it. Fun.

I’ve realised I’ve been catching cold often these days. It is the worst. Also thanks to the whole chest situation I am wont to take deep breaths and release, which makes people think I’m sighing often like the melodramatic protagonist of a sad, romantic movie.

My neighbours, two women I don’t know, are fighting. Really loudly. So far all I know is, someone wasn’t there, someone was on drugs and someone wanted to be with someone on 31st so she went to Goa. I could fill in the blanks, but it wouldn’t make up for the irritation caused due to all the yelling. They also seem to have rounds or something, like a boxing match. Because there is silence in between and then the shouting resumes. I don’t understand people who are okay with others listening to their quarrels. At times it can’t be helped, but these neighbours of mine tend to do this a lot. I’m a private person so it is appalling to me. But on the other hand it would be liberating to not give a damn and shout at your family members and get shouted at in return, without having to worry about what people think. That’s one perspective. Definitely different from mine.

It’s been tiring today because of sleep deprivation and the sore throat, I look forward to some rest.