Adulting

Dear readers,  

For the first time in years, I'm attempting to put pen to paper, when I'm not being paid for it. Or being threatened into it. 

Don't ask me why. Perhaps because it's a quiet autumn night and Bear is out of town. I have the house to myself, and a room of my own. All perfect conditions to watch TV, cheat on him with McDonalds and drink coke. After having done all of these -- I'd gone to bed but a tempest of thoughts swirled around in my head and so here I am, trying to air it out, see what I make out of it. 

For anyone who's kept a blog during their youth, I suspect it's an awakening to revisit it now and see how much they've changed in their adulthood. I know I have. 

I'm more cautious, less precocious. I live as a greyscale version of myself most days, only catching a glimpse of me in colour on a rare day (when I do something new, or meet someone from the past) and then feel a pang of wistfulness wrap around my heart for the girl that used to be. 

I make it sound all bad - it's not, not all of it. There are things I'm happy about - like building a home and a life that's calm and peaceful. I've found a tribe of girl friends who are smart, funny, capable, and confident - and when I'm with them, I feel very grown up and very Sex-in-the-City like even though we never talk about sex, and don't even live in the same cities. 

I'm learning something from each of them. From 8, I've seen what it means to curate yourself a good life - focused entirely on self-care and happy things.  With M, I'm learning what it means to be unflinchingly practical and measured at work, and be an absolutely warm and delightfully funny bunny outside.  Nana is my beautiful yoga-teaching, French-speaking, gazelle that's an indie-brand in the making and has a face to whom you'll confess your soul.  Gaugan and I are bound by grief for the parents we lost, she makes me believe that while the world may say we're difficult, we're actually the good, no, the best girls. Jojo rabbit is the one that makes me feel like the most colourful me - always telling me the longest, most pointless stories but making me laugh with her adorable voice notes and her witty texts. 

Being surrounded by these incredible women has been, hands down, the best thing about the job. A job for which I only felt regret for the longest time but now have begun to slowly be grateful for. 

When I'd see people like Chimalgi (who has not aged in 15 years) or Akkalah (who keeps getting bumped to business class) or Smurfette (who is now a rich hot-shot in NY through a ridiculous twist of fate), I'd always plot for months - if there was just a way to bottle that Dust.  

Then there's me – I'm aging like cold-pressed olive oil. I am routinely bumped off flights I've paid for. The best I've been able to do is $1 pizza in Manhattan and watch Broadway for free.  Last year, I took a paycut coming to one of the world's most valuable companies. 

I digress – I was trying to tell you about how I've not exactly had it bad either. 

I landed with some amazing bosses who became mentors that then became friends. I manifested stock splits which added some zeros to my portfolio. An outstanding record of service to follow. 

Now, I have a place of work that's within the circle I drew when I first moved to this city. I go when I want (to drink spa water and stare at the beautiful woods or tabebuia blossoms that surround it). I've reclaimed my evenings (to then promptly squander away and avoid the gym). From time to time, they give me pocket money to buy books. So all things considered, it could be a lot worse.

Touchwood.

Okay, obviously I have so much more that I suddenly want to tell you about. Now that I know I can manage a sentence beyond a subject line, I'm highly encouraged. That and knowing you're all imaginary. The chances of you finding your way to read this I'd say are the same as me coming back to write a new post.

But let's see and hope and hope. Okay? Okay.   

2019, here I come!

Dear blog,

In my universe, 2018 was big. I got married.  Jughead got married. I turned 30. Did some epic trips -  caught GOT in Croatia,  jumped on a hot air balloon, saw mummies in Egypt, staycationed in Singapore. Moved jobs. Moved cities. Made a home.

Looks like growing up has happened.

There are still many things that haven't happened. College. Figuring out my purpose in life.  Losing weight. Learning personal finance. Cycling. Fitness.

But hey, what's a new year for?

Readers,  I have decided.  2019 is going to be the year of "Read, Write and Save and Exercise."  I shall read 75 books. Put together my mother's cookbook.  Write several stunning somethings.  Save a lot more. Get fit. And generally, be more useful with my time, effort and money.

Work remains a challenge. I felt extremely productive and successful last year and now, I feel wrongfooted and unsure most times. But I'm telling myself, this too shall pass. I need to feel and show more confidence in myself and so I shall fake it until I make it. As they say in narcos (Mexico, not Colombo), this is an opportunity.

My biggest focus however is to try and become a little better on a few things. 1. Treat my mom better (especially if I have to get her to give me that cookbook) 2. Beat bear at being nicer (even if it kills me)  3. Stay in touch with people (in a non-creepy way) 4. Deliver birthday gifts to people before their next birthday 5.  Invest in self-care (comb hair, buy pants that don't fall off).

Here universe, take.  All my good intentions. So you better whatever they say you do to make it happen. Okay, that wasn't meant to be a threat.  Just trying the optimistic route, okay? So don't disappoint.

Let's go.

Turning 30

I'm writing this sitting on an airplane between two ageing uncles (one of whom has been binge-watching grey's anatomy for the past hour) while ruminating on life.

Back when I was 18,  I predicted that I'd like to die at 29 3/4.  Thirty was going to mean old age, failing bodily functions and senility.

Today I turned 30.

Rusting body is right - it seems the metabolism that unfailingly sustained me through my 20s has failed and my scales don't tilt towards the 50s or even the 60s anymore. From someone who could live-in in her jeans for weeks at a stretch now prefers to be in PJs (when in polite company) and pantless (when not).

As for old age - well it's not as bad as I imagined. There are regrets, of course - a wasted youth (should have dated more; dressed better; taken advantage of that body and those fleetingly good looks; saved more; kept more friends) but otherwise I'm okay.

For one, I found Bear -- a rarity among men (and among people, for that matter).  He is kind and gentle and with the purest heart that I've ever met. Someone who never strays from his principles - not for love, not for friendship, not for money, not for anything.  He has a curiosity about the world that's unquenchable and an undying optimism that can lighten the darkest day.  That's not to say, he's a saint, not by any measure. He's also arrogant and overconfident and reckless in a way only boys can be. But for those shoulders and that smile, I think I can forgive him almost anything.

He's taught me a lot about love and happiness but above all, about living a life with grace. But that's another story.

I thought I knew love - that torrential, volcanic, undulating ferocity that usually accompanies an act of god. With Bear, I have discovered something else -  a tranquil stillness, deepening like a coastal shelf, anchoring my wayward self, bringing my soul to rest -- a sense that I've only ever been to find sitting by the sea.


It's been four years now - a half year of which we have spent married - which thankfully hasn't done anything to us except make our lives a little easier.  Hoping that never changes.

Let's see. The other big reflection -- the job. As the bodhi speculated, it seems I'm slowly and reluctantly climbing up the corporate ladder - joining the scores of talented, entitled and confused creatures that wander the cubicle nation. In the absence of writing (for which I lack the discipline), this is the next best thing.  Though I have a feeling it will also be the biggest regret of the next decade.  On the plus side, I'm making enough money to now shop at Ratandeep. Hopefully, in the next decade, I can upgrade to Namdhari.

As for senility, it has certainly arrived.  I've already become that crabby person who hates (i) teenagers (ii) children (iii) old people and pigeons.

I'm also beginning to question if I know anything.  Everything in the world feels like absurd theatre:

- eating activated charcoal
- cancer
- mob trials
- beauty brands, bloggers, and giggly adolscent girls.
- bad literature
- rents and real estate in general
- gated communities in particular.
- people who procreate
- people who make their parents pay for their weddings
- instagram stories
- tinder/grindr/aisle/truly madly/okcupid, bharat matrimony
- elon misk
- overachievers of any kind
- application and scholarships processes
- male leaders
- the immigrant crisis
- god fearing people
- adventurists
- hollywood franchises
- clothing for women

You get the point.

So, would I want to die just yet? No. There's still too many places in the world I haven't yet seen.  And there's the puppy bear promised to get. And the home, I want to put together. Not to mention the book/article that'll put me on the map.  Getting a job that'll give me Sodexo.

So enough to live for still.  Shall revisit when I'm 39 3/4ths.

O couple, my couple.

Yes, I know. No, really. I know. 

I had to reset my password just to get in here. That’s how long it’s been.  But forget that. I come bearing news.  No, not my brilliant euro trip.  I'll tell you about that later. 

This.  This is big. In my universe. It’s defining. I can’t tell you about it, exactly. Because I don’t know if she’d want me to. But I can't not either. Because, well, because. You know, news of this genre usually doesn’t faze me one bit. But it's her! So, I am jittery and excited and nervous and apprehensive and happy? 

I remember all the nights we’d sit in empty college corridors in the dark.  She and I. And talk about boys.  Me about Blue Shirt. She about the tall, dark, fellow from across the hall. We’d talk about sex. If we’d ever do it.  Why we could never do it.

Walking under the lake bridge in Manipal, feeling the electric buzz of a train thunder across the tracks overhead. Me telling her about why I’ll never forget tecchie. She about Catman, and then WoT, the white boy who she'd just started to see. 

Getting into a taxi, grabbing a dripping hot aloo tiki wrap, waving bye to her and the monopoly boy, whom I didn’t like at all and who she dumped just after my flight landed in Hyderabad. 

Bear and I, walking from our hotel to meet them in an airy roadside cafe. Seeing him for the first time, sitting in a corner, with a beer in one hand, a wry smile and a smoke in the other.  Walking away, knowing she’d fall for this one hard. He was, after all, me at 24. 

I didn’t think I’d see this day.  But it is here.  She’s grown up now and setting off on a grand new journey. I hope it will be much like one of our trips - filled with lots of happy accidents, wonder, adventure, peace, joy and heart. Always, heart. 

Congratulations, my sister. 

Assassin Grief

I've lost track of time. They tell me it's been a week.  For me, it feels like both yesterday and a year ago.  Quite stupidly, I had assumed that the first day, when I saw them physically carry him out, was the worst. No, it wasn't. Now I know, shock is really your friend. It shields you from the actual monster that's set out to destroy your mind - grief.

It is the dementor that sucks all the joy and happiness out of your life and feeds on your deepest darkest moments.  It tricks you into feeling better and then stabs you in the back, so you can feel the pain afresh each single time.

I can't explain why I'm so handling this so badly, though.  Everyone around me, even people closest to him and me, have expressed their condolences and have resumed their lives. I'm still stuck here.
Unable to remember what it feels like to laugh. Or sleep. Or to function normally.

What people don't get is that it's not his passing, but his loss, that I don't know how to handle.  The irreversible and permanent absence.  When I see his glasses around, or his wornout wallet , or the novel he didn't get to finish, or the t-shirt that my mom had set out for him to wear on the last day - that's when it hits,  they will never know his touch again.

But what kills me more than these constant reminders is the conspicuous absence of his big smile when I'd walk into his room every morning, or him waiting by the window when I came back from work, or the warm "good nights'' when I turned the lights out.

Grief. Reminding me every chance I get that there's no more him. That there will never be again. No one who will come close. No one for whom I will feel as much. No one who can ever give me the love, care or warmth such as his. That, from now on,  I'm absolutely and unequivocally alone.

Life is Life

For the past year, my world has revolved around my dad.  I ate/slept/thought/talked about little else. He is the reason I know I can love someone so much that it could break me. 

After fighting an unwinnable battle with cancer, when he couldn't summon one more breath - 
he decided to call it a day.  He's gone. 

I have regrets.  That he will never see my story. That he will never know what I could really become. That I couldn't do more for him. Or give him the life he deserves.  I'm sure he has an equal number. We didn't get a chance to talk about it. We took him to the ER two days ago, fairly confident we'd bring him back after some treatment, much like every other time.  Except, this time, he went to the MICU and never returned. 

His lungs had filled with fluid, any oxygen they gave him was not enough, his heart was failing and they said he wouldn't survive the night. He did, that and then the next.  But then, as if sensing our anguish and to spare us the grief of having to see him struggle for air any longer, he let go.  Even then, not at some ungodly hour of the night but at his usual wake-up time in the morning after a glorious sunrise, so as to not inconvenience us and give enough time to plan his send off.  

Caring and gentle and above all, incredibly kind. That was my dad. A big smiler. A big dreamer. A big family man. A big friend. A big everything. He had any number of flaws but they were just never big enough to overshadow the rest of him. 

I saw this again at his funeral today, when we kept running out of chairs despite us having had no time to get the message out, how many lives he had touched in some way or the other. He had a generosity of spirit that was vast enough to always include, always extend a hand even to those who weren't always grateful or deserving, and forgive, when things went bad.  

But for me, he was more than all of this. He was my best friend, my confidante, my partner-in-crime.  I called him for everything.  After hearing of a shot-gun wedding in the family,  my mom wryly told me that she has no worries on that count because even if I were planning to elope, I would have called my dad for help.  I would have. Without a doubt. He would have helped. Without a question.

My failing, as I presume it is, for so many of us, was to assume we had more time.   Even otherwise, I suppose we wouldn't have told him any of this.  He knew. I knew.  That's all that mattered. 

Now, I face a world that's lonelier than ever.  But if I went complaining to him, he would say what he always said when I spoke of fairness - that life was life. That it was going to be a mixed bag, sometimes happy and joyous and sad and brutal. That I just had to make the best out of it. 

So, I will try to do that. I will miss him more than anything else and if there was any spell, any sacrifice, any prayer, anything at all that could give me my dad back, I would do it. But there isn't. So, the best I can do is have him live through me. 

At my funeral, I hope to be half the person he was. It would have been a life well lived.  

A Full Circle.

In a sense, my life has always run in circles. I went to college on the same road that I went to school ten years ago. I now live in the same house that we used to rent when I was a child.

When I finally moved out and went to live in Bangalore, I ended up living in the same lane where my mom and dad first lived together. I thought then that I had come a full circle. But no, not yet, it seems, until now.

Today, I walked in and took up my old job at The Firm, six years after I left it to go to J school. Ordinarily, I suppose it would have been okay.  By now, I have somewhat made peace with how spectacularly mundane and ordinary my life has turned out to be. But today was still a blow. 

Right now, it feels very much like the first day in a new school. A school that’s very different from the last one, where you had all your friends and a teacher you loved and where you were learning and doing very, very, well for the first time in your life. 

But all that is gone and you have to start all over again. So I shall. Because, there’s a reason I am doing this and for that I’m willing to do anything. 

The Grey Cub

I am writing this, weeping and red nosed, sitting in a cab heading to the Airport. I am leaving behind Bangalore, a city I used to detest but is now home to everything I know and love.

I am leaving behind a home, an airy little world of teal and yellow, where I was the happiest I have ever been. And I’m saying bye to Boov — Bear and H — with whom I have made a life together; who have seen me sob, laugh, and live out my grief these past few months and have come to become my people.

I know it seems like an overreaction, this terrible feeling of loss. But for me, its more than just the idea that I’ll never live with them again. And that I’ll never go out for frisbee nights.  Or have our cookouts. Or talk for hours by the peepal tree.

As I head back to Hyderabad, the pain comes from knowing that there is no more sanctuary. No more packs that will take me in, care for me, and shield me from the cruelty of what’s to come.

I’m on my own now. 

Life in a black hole

One of the things they don't tell you about cancer is how isolating it can be. More often than not, with people I just act like its fine, as if we still had hope, as if his chemo didn't utterly fail, as if they were still things we could try, as if my dad really wasn't dying.

I put up this front mainly to save other people from making the effort of knowing how to rightly react. And, it works for the most part, except when you do it so convincingly that they really do forget.  So, they make jokes about dying. Or take you to idiotic pubs where they sit across you and giddily sip vodka hooked up in saline bottles as your dad lies in the hospital the exact same day hands red and swollen, being pumped up with antibiotics to counter a blood poisoning.  Or, people tell you the big tragedies of their life like parking woes or salary hikes and expect you to sympathise.

For a while you try. You try to explain this new world you live in -  where everything feels surreal, like you're in a loop and everything around you is either speeding or has slowed down. Where everything is shaky, and you are constantly trying to keep afloat, stay in the sun, and not go under. Where you see a person slowly disintegrate and with them, take you too.

No one get's it. Not even the people who say they're closest. Every day, you realise you're slipping farther and farther away, and no one's noticed. Then, one day, you wake up and see that you're alone, in your own raft, and there's no saving you.

So it starts.

The earliest memory I have of my dad is of Sunday mornings. Of me sitting in his lap on our verandah and he carefully cutting my stubby nails into the newspaper spreadeagled infront, while he mulled over the Sunday crossword.

Then, there was the summer holidays. The one time he was made to babysit, he had put us (7 and 8 year olds) on our first ever flight, and by ourselves. By the time amma got back from grocery shopping, we were on our way to Calcutta.

Slightly older, at 8 or 9, I remember him taking Demonkid and me to school. We never once made it on time to the morning prayers. We spent the first hour of every school day standing outside the assembly hall for most of an hour. For five years.

Then, at 11 or 12,  I had not seen him for over a month. When he came back, he looked a lot older than when he'd left, quieter, more grave. He handed me a bag and went to sleep. It was a boardgame I'd ordered him not to return without - LIFE. My mom told me later that it was the first thing he asked on getting out of the hospital. He had had a heart attack.  

In later years, I remember him on the sidelines, seeing me trudge through colleges and jobs and boys and everything else. Never once telling me what to do.  Even when I didn't go to the college he'd have liked for me. Or take up a profession he would have wanted. Or be with boys he approved of. He stood by quietly, through my tears and mistakes, only ever wanting one thing -- for me to be happy. 

I always laughed at kids who were terrified of their fathers. I didn't think of mine like that. I think, neither did he. He treated us as adults, even when we were children. He let us burn our fingers and learn. He let us fly and all. Mostly, because he didn't know how to be a parent. 

What he did know and like were friends. And so we were, him and me. But he was always the better one -- Always curious about the world. Always wanting to do something new. Always trusting than doubting. Always living in the now than worrying about the morrow. 

But I didn't end up like him. I became my mother instead -- Cynical. Guarded. Reclusive. Risk-averse. 

And now,  I sit by him. In his chemo sessions. By his bedside. Willing him back to sleep as he wakes up breathless and panting every few minutes; still checking and double-checking PET scan results and experimental drug trials and median survival rates every night, feeling my jaded little heart crack every time I find out Stage IVs don't make it past a few months.

He has to. He just has to. 

Because right now, I don't want friends. I want my dad. 

Winter is coming.

Usually, I don't write on request but this one time, I thought I'd oblige. Mainly because I want to and partly because, if not for him, then who and if not now, then when. So on. 

Except for a random post its been a year since I read or wrote anything and that's pretty sad. Actually, you know what's sad? Me and my year. I spent the first quarter in the hospital with a spinal injury and thought that was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. Then, my mom grew a tumour and I worried that this was it. But it was benign and they did operate and then it was over. Except of course, that it wasn't. 

Last month, my dad came down with the flu and went to our local doctor for a cough syrup. Last week, we found out it was Stage IV, cancer.   

You know, considering how many horror movies I watch, I should have known, the false scare. Classic stuff. Mother walks the halls of her new and eerily quiet house, following the whispers from the basement. With her heart in her mouth, she takes one step after the next, climbs down the stairs and in one sweeping motion, yanks the closet open - there is nothing.  She can't believe it. She sighes in relief and turns to go back to bed. And then gasps, but...no... its only the cat.  She picks it up and laughs and chides self for being silly.  She gets back into the bed and under the covers.  There he is, waiting.  

That's how I feel. Shocked. Numb. Screamy. 

Life hasn't changed at all though. Not yet, anyway. My dad still laughs merrily discovering email forwards, youtube videos and Telugu TV. My mom still worries about the milk. I work. Or play boardgames. Or from time to time, sob uncontrollably into Bear's chest. 

My mom's favourite anecdote from my childhood is that she could almost always predict when I'd get sick. She'd have a stack of leave letters to send school every time my dad went away on tour. The morning after he left, I'd just run a fever, every single time. I laugh everytime she tells this story because of how far-fetched it is. But now, I can see why that could be true.  I feel physically, revoltingly sick every time I have to think of a world in which he doesn't exist. 

But, I don't have to think about that. Yet. So, I won't. 

Gaah. This is not what I started wanting to write. Also, I think I just DDed you. In case I haven't told you about DD, she is this girl who sat next to me for breakfast last week and told me about how (i)her boy broke up with her (ii) her PhD didn't work out (iii) her house got flooded and rot (and) grew moss (and) got infested with rodents (vi) her dad had a heart attack (v) her grandma died (vi) her house caught fire (I might be making this up) and (vii) her mother found her a new boy who's 15 (or was 10) years older. 

(viii) Oh and also, she got food poisoned two hours after she told me the story. 

Let me stop here while some of your pain receptors still remain.   I will write the post that I meant to and before next year, I promise. 

On marriage and other things.

After many, many months of radio silence, Smurfette and I got talking one day last month and she casually let it drop that she and the boy were looking at a December wedding.  I pretended outrage. I didn't even know there was a wedding on the cards, let alone the season. And then, she said something that's been in my head ever since. 

"What else is there when you start dating at this age, man," she had said. For someone who's been single for a decade, at 25, I found myself reluctantly conceding her the point. 

But now, when I see one talentless photographer after another making millions filming my friends and their mothers getting dressed in incandescent-lit wedding shoots, I am beginning to see the point. No, wait, doesn't mean I am getting married. But all I am saying is that I get it. 

I think there just comes this time when you finally realise that you no longer need to belong to the misfit of a family you were born into. That you can make your own now, one that will look and feel just as you want it and you can at last have that the home and the dog your mother never allowed you to have. And above all, have someone in whose story you'll be the hero.

So, yes, I come to the same conclusion that has been arrived at by millions of minds and shaadi.com a million years ago. I don't know why they don't just advertise it like this: 

Marriage (v): A great distraction from the dreary business of life.  

There. I am sold.  

A quick hello

Wow, I didn't think this was what would follow that godawful post that you kept seeing every time you came visiting here these past few months. But as I (and Robert Jordan) keep saying, the wheel weaves as the wheel wills. 

A lot of crazy things have happened since we last met, especially with the friends. Jughead went through what was possible the toughest phase of her life. Samwise went back to college. Dark Lord got married. Ha is back in India and working the grind. And I, dear readers, have been in a relationship. 

There, I said it. 

Now this blog has seen it all. Me. In a relationship. With a boy who lives in the same continent and time zone as me. As long-term readers of this space will know, that's a first. 

If it helps, I don't get it either. Bear is nothing like my type. He's irritatingly idealistic, stable, gritty, confident, expressive and incredibly physical. And somehow, he has managed to convince me of his merit; and that my lazy, nihilistic, existential, fickle, talentless self is what he needs. So it goes. 

That in three months, he's managed to worm his way into every part of my life so much that it doesn't scare me anymore is what scares me the most nowadays. That I am happy doesn't help matters either. 

But enough about that. If it survives the winter, I'll tell you more. 

Speaking of winter, and in case we don't meet in the next fortnight, I am going to be off for a White Christmas (if the visa gods are kind enough to humour me). So, see you guys on the other side! 




P.S: I'm still not reading or writing at all, so please excuse the brevity with which I aimed to finish this post. 

P.P.S: It's probably because my writing has no fuel, which hitherto was served my unending reserves of misery. Therefore, I deduce that its my temporary happiness that's hampering my creative muses.  

OR 

More realistically, its because I've been binge watching the latest episodes of everything from Scandal and New Girl to Newsroom and Homeland, which are probably some of the worst shows on modern television at the moment. Ergo, the acute paucity of working brain cells.

P.S to the P.P.S: Once I figure out why Rhonda Shimes makes her people talk like that, I will be back, I promise!

Woe is me

Somewhere in the process of growing up, I've become a person who no longer trusts words.  It's funny considering how I'm in the business of words.  And that I love words more than everything else in the world. Or maybe that's exactly why.  Words mean different things to people than they do to me. Words of affection and appreciation, gratitude and regret are thrown around so casually that they mean nothing to the said or the received anymore.

For me, words have measure. And meaning. Weight and worth. When I do say the words, I will them with everything that I am. Naively, I expect the same of the people I love.

Knowing that words don't mean anything, actions do, is perhaps one of the hardest things I'm learning about life. 

***
I could never communicate pain. I was one of those freaky babies that didn't cry at all. Instead, I stared unblinkingly at people until they looked away. Predictably, I grew into an incredibly pigheaded and prideful child. Probably also why in every fight of my life, I have invited myself a world of pain.  

For as long as I can remember, it was always simple -- never show hurt, never reveal a weakness, never expose any vulnerability. Never give anyone the power to get to you. So I didn't.  Not when I was hit by a bike. Not when I had a cigarette burning into my leg.  Not when I was being beaten bloody. Not the million times after.  

For someone who prides herself on being pretty perceptive about most things, it never occur to me to it would mean, because I don't say, I must not feel. That because I refused to let anybody have the satisfaction of seeing me hurt that I got hit that much harder.  

In that, nothing has changed. In fact, I do it so convincingly now that nobody can tell I'm breaking. 

*** 

Have you ever found yourself frighteningly lonely? I don't mean like waking-up-on-a-deserted-island- with-no-hint-of-humanity-in-a-thousand-mile-radius lonely.  No, I mean, the kind of loneliness that creeps into your life without warning.  When you roll down numbers and numbers on your phone and have no one you want to call.  Names you hover over but don't ping when you see them shining green on your chat list. Eyes you don't see when you walk into a room.

You know, all this while, that they are there - your staples. People who care. And will listen. Who will make you laugh and everything.

But, no, it's still you I want.

*** 

In one month, I turn 26. The end has begun. 

*** 

Speaking of birthdays, if I died today, my greatest regrets  (in no particular order) would be

Never knowing love. 

Never having travelled the world. 

Never getting a chance to write/report something truly brilliant/brave. 

Not having done something to make the momma and papa bear know I love them more than anything else in the world. 

Didn't do anything to change the world I was born into. 

****

This post is fucking depressing. I need ice cream. As Steven Meretzky would say, "Wasted day. Wasted life. Dessert, please."

The Lankan Sojourn

Maybe because I didn’t expect it to happen that it happened. Actually, it almost didn’t happen. A, who was supposed to come with us, left for the U.S. Tomcat lost his passport and almost didn’t come. Just when I was contemplating arsenic, everything miraculously worked itself out and we were rushing to catch our flight to Colombo. And then, twenty minutes before takeoff, as we walk to the airplane I lose my boarding pass.  This time I know, it is the end. So I walk to lie on the tarmac and wait for the flight to run over me when I see it, through the blinding sheen of tears on my face, lying there on the ground - the traitorous piece of shit - ready to go with the wind. It's only when we clear Indian airspace do I breathe again. You had to be there to see but it was like the Indian version of Argo. 

I didn't expect to like this place. But even the sun and the tourists and the stinky food, I loved every bit of the tiny island nation. i loved its blue beaches and green green hills. I loved the ochre drapes and serene faces on the buddhist monks. I loved the sight of hundreds of kids pour out onto the streets every morning in time for school. I loved the batik prints and the elephant motifs everywhere. I loved that the women show off their mid riffs and hide their elbows.  I loved the little hideouts outside of the tourist trails. i loved their shiny new trains and their crazy tuk-tuks.

But what I loved more than any of these were these moments of peace when time comes to a standstill, the world falls away and you become invisible. 

I think these are moments I travel for. When I’m lying under a starlit sky listening to the crash of waves or walking along a cobbled street watching my breath frost on a cold night or sitting at a cafe sharing a secret smoke with a stranger. Bartering tales of far away lands with fellow travelers. When even the voices in my head cease to be. And, I just am. 

There, I can be anybody or nobody at all.