Waiting... how much of our life will we spend waiting????

A child’s wait when people will finally stop pulling his cheeks and saying “how cute”...
A teenager’s wait for starting what they think is worlds perfect love story...
An adult’s wait to be finally settled in life- right job, right person, right house, right car, right lifestyle…
I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that person I always thought I was on the verge of becoming, waiting for that life I thought I would have. In my head, I was always one step away. In high school, I was biding my time until I could become the college version of myself where I would be away from parental eyes, and have a whole new world to myself. In college, the post-college “adult” person was always looming in front of me, smarter, stronger, more organized, having some own money to spend and leading an independent life. Then the married person and the the person I’d become when we have kids- more responsible, mature and a rolemodel like… For almost 15 years, literally, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin. And through all that waiting, here I am. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I am waiting for that time, that person, that event when my life will finally begin.
John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” For me, life is what was happening while I was busy waiting for my big moment. I was ready for it and believed that the rest of my life would fade into the background, and that my big moment would carry me through life like a lifeboat.
The Big Moment, unfortunately, is an urban myth. Some people have them, in a sense, when they win the American elections or become the next singing star. But even that person is living a life made up of more than that one moment. Life is a collection of a million, billion moments, tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous, glowing pearl. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies. But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible way. That thing I’m waiting for, that adventure, that move-score-worthy experience unfolding gracefully. This is it. Normal, daily life ticking by on our streets and sidewalks, in our houses and apartments, in our beds and at our dinner tables, in our dreams and prayers and fights and secrets – this pedestrian life is the most precious thing any of us will ever experience.
I don’t want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than this day. I choose to believe that there may be a thousand big moments embedded in this day, waiting to be discovered. The big moments are the daily, tiny moments of courage and forgiveness and hope that we grab on to and extend to one another. That’s the drama of life, swirling all around us, and generally I don’t even see it, because I’m too busy waiting to become whatever it is I think I am about to become. The big moments are in every hour, every conversation, every meal, every meeting.
I believe that if we cultivate a true attention, a deep ability to see what has been there all along, we will find worlds within us and between us, dreams and stories and memories spilling over. The nuances and shades and secrets and intimations of love and friendship and marriage and parenting are action-packed and multicolored, if you know where to look.
You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending…You are more than dust and bones. You are spirit and power and image of God. And you have been given just today.
Remember its hard being left behind…hard to be the one who stays ….so stop waiting… and catch hold of whats today ….

Its a journey (part 2)

I know this is not a real continuation of what was written in Part1... but this is something i had to write and which i think is a crucial part in everyones journey of life.
We come into this world through our parents… they spend sleepless nights looking after us, treasure us as their priceless gift, and give up everything to see to it that we have everything we wish for …
Who were our first playmates… our parents… they spend hours playing with us and making all kinds of funny faces just to bring a smile on our face…but when we grow up and get new friends and our parents still try to do sth funny to make us smile….we react and say “please don’t embarrass me”
We used to rush home to eat the wonderful yummy food that our mom made when we were kids… and as we grow up and she waits till night thinking we might not have had food….we come in and say “mom, please… im a grown up now… I can take care of myself.”
When u fall in love as a teenager and text your lover everyday “did you have lunch”, have you ever texted and asked your parents and asked them if they had lunch.. it wont hurt if you show that you care…or????
Our parents are and will always be a big chunk of our journey of life…Im not very happy about what I see around me where parents take appointments to meet their children, to have a meal together with them and most importantly to spend some time with them… forget about taking care of them, enquiring about their health and trying to fulfill their wishes.
The explanations I get here are coz they lived their lives and now its time for us to live ours… although I see a change in this attitude when they have their own kids… We all aspire to become great personalities in life.. But how will we achieve it if we don’t start from the roots…take your chance today, let your parents know that you are thankful to how they have raised you up and made you who you are today….take them out on no special occasion for a meal and spend some quality time with them…if you need an incentive to still do this…know that your children learn from what you are doing and tomorrow you would be in your parents shoes…
Make a difference in your journey of life….start from where you started off and things will definitely fall in place…coz there is no better blessing than from your creators….

It's a journey

“life is a journey and not a destination”, I read it on some wall posting of a friend..
so is it indeed a journey… how does one define this journey….
I have an obsession with music, philosophy and the feeling of being loved. So does this define my journey… Actually yes and no…. coz I do find myself involved in all my obsessions at different stages of my life and even different days of the same stage of life.. I love to explore new music, sing songs, dance to them… I love to read quotes, hear people who try to explain abt life, advise people on wht I think abt life…I have had linkups and breakups but that never stopped me from evading the thought of being loved.. it’s a constant urge when you know you haven’t found wht you are seeking for…
But these are not the only factors which define my life….
I remember that I was the only child to my parents for 5 years and when I normally returned home after playing outside with my friends, I used to be sad that I don’t have any sibling to play at home….and thus requested my parents if I could have had a sister or brother to play with…and then when my sister was born, I was elated…but it came with a different phase of life.. she was born very fair and I was very dark in complexion….it made me feel tht I wont be loved anymore coz everyone wld like my angel like sister….then there came a phase when my mom told me tht I was a dark kid and so what….the constant realizations of truth that my mom gave me made me understand that at first I should accept who im and love myself and only then can I expect others to love me. The funny part abt this is that after having this realization to date….there is something I never forget to do in mornings even if I forget to brush my teeth… I look in the mirror every morning and talk to myself….tht im beautiful the way im…and im gonna spread many smiles today… its been around 16 years since ….but I still do this…lol… I still don’t know if I have become beautiful or not… but I do try to spread smiles genuinely….
I love to watch the stars….its coz I used to count stars once in my life with two of my fav cousins… those were like the best times of my life… but there are more reasons why I like to watch the stars.. it gives me an inspiration that even if the night is dark, the stars come out to show us the light….sometimes its just one star, and sometimes there are many….just like when we are faced with problems and we don’t know how to go ahead… there might be one door open or sometimes if you are lucky, many doors opening up….
I love the rains… some people say tht we might catch a cold, some say ur dress becomes dirty in the muddly water… but I still love it…it’s the freshness that it brings with it.. it is the sweet scent of the earth that flows with it…it is a feeling that sometimes when no one understands ur pain, the rain falls down to show that the nature does feel with u … and sometimes I love the rain coz nobody sees me crying when im in the rain…and sometimes its coz I always dreamt abt kissing in the rain…
But there are so many aspects of our life that nobody understands….we do try to make them understand but they sometimes don’t…and I normally get upset when this happens.. coz we want only those people to understand whom we care for most in our lives… but when they don’t, I feel that there is a connection missing …but then I realized that its so much better to nurture these little aspects of life privately…one can also enjoy some happiness alone too or?
All of life is a journey… which paths we take, what we look back on, and what we look forward to is up to us. We determine our destination, what kind of road we will take to get there, and how happy we are when we get there. The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.
(part two coming up next week)

Fearing the UNKNOWN

-You want to know what questions will come up in an exam, but that is unknown until you sit down and turn the paper over.
-You want the event to go well and as planned because you’ve put in so much effort into making everything perfect. But you won’t be sure until the party’s over.
-You have a job interview coming up. You understand the type of person the company is looking for (you, of course!), but you still don’t know what type of questions the panel might throw at you.
No matter how positive and prepared one is, the unknown tends to get in the way, doesn’t it? These situations can easily eat away at you. You imagine a million and one possible scenarios and outcomes. You panic over the negative thoughts going through your head.
So the question is: When life delivers so many curveballs, what is the point in worrying about the unknown?
More than any uncertainty in the above mentioned situations, there is one very grave uncertain fear that everyone has – death. No matter how happy or depressing our life is, death is scary. The very moment when we know we are going to die is the scariest. The fear and the uncertainty that death brings along is beyond explanation.
I cant speak for all but I can share a small experience I had recently. I knew I was going to Las Vegas for a conference and there was so much work to be finished before leaving. It might have been the stress or the workload or the weather but I knew I was ill .. it started with a flu, then cough and fever and throatpain…. But I had deadlines to be met at work and so I kept swallowing medicines and kept going for work. Then came the day when I was flying to Vegas. I was in high spirits and why shouldn’t I be.. how many get a chance to attend a conference in Vegas with the whole trip paid out… And trust me Vegas was so full of life , every time of the day and night. Went on full swing for two days until one day after dinner when I got back to hotel, I was kinda feeling not so well… I thought it must be just some sleep issue… but it was worse than I thought… I started throwing up, followed by high fever (around 39 or 40 degrees) where I thought my body was burning on fire. I could hardly stand up , forget about going for the conference on the last two days. I was so bed ridden and most of the time either unconscious or fast asleep coz of the medicines. I just wanted to go home. I realized over the trip that I had an increasing level of cough with mucous… which got worse after the 20 hr travel back home. The doctors wrote me antibiotics and full bed rest… although the fever came down, the cough persisited and the body was so weak , that when I walked a few steps I had to catch hold of my breath…felt like 80 years….Then another doctor told me to check for infection on lungs, thyroid and other troubles.. These were not symptoms to die for… but some fear caught me… what was the fear? Just simple uncertainty of whts wrong with me.. if there was something seriously wrong, then wld I die? If there is thyroid, then wld I become fat and nobody would love me anymore… if I were to have something big, then would I be a burden on my loved ones… A million thoughts on uncertain fear for something small of this grade…my readers might think i must be crazy to think so. But being sick with weird symptoms for 4 weeks and noone telling you whats wrong is not easy to digest too...Thankfuly the blood tests all came good and I was advised to improve my immunity….And all fears vanished into thin air…
People fear the unknown because it is beyond our ability to control and often presents us with truths that would compel us to change. I think its because it is our human instincts to want to have power and control, especially over our lives. When we don't know what is going to happen, we naturally get scared because that puts us in a vulnerable position
The secret is to trust that whatever an outcome is going to be, it will be a positive experience, either immediately or through hindsight. Not an easy task, because you are asking them to think and feel and change and grow.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. And even for the unknown death, why die many times before death actually reckons by fearing when it would come to us than live life and make it worth living. Each time we face our fear, we gain strength , courage and confidence in the doing. Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood .

Death

I was attending a funeral of a distant relative recently. I had never seen him in person or in photographs. Just knew that he was 45 and died of sudden heart attack and has left behind his wife and two children as family.
I must admit I was a child when I attended my grandmother’s funeral and then didn’t have much idea what it is all about and fortunately never attended anyone else’s funeral till date. And so only was in a very difficult state of mind when I went to attend this funeral of someone whom I didn’t even know.

There were people, lots of them , all dressed in black who had come to pay their last respects. After the church service, when the body was taken to the cemetery for burial, it all started…. There was a lot of crying and screaming and a wanting not to let go…His brother collapsed and so did his wife…I didn’t see any of it coz I was at the back of the crowd…. Just heard it… and it somehow made me emotional too… When everyone had paid their respects, his wife was brought to do the same… with a body so weak, a mind even weaker, she stood there…im sure she had all those memories about him flashing by, yet had to bid him goodbye and this time forever… the grief in her eyes, the pain in her heart was so evident… and then came the children… they stood there, looking at their dad for the last time, thinking of how he nurtured them and made them who they are today… and then the daughter just blew a flying kiss with shivering hands into where his body laid still… and a tear dropped from my eyes….

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. It is to muster up the courage to live without our beloved ones. Death can only end a life, not a relationship. Love is stronger than death even though it can’t stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries, it can’t separate people from love. It can’t take away the memories either. In the end, life becomes stronger than death. We learn to live without them being a part of our daily lives, we tend to achieve more than what we thought we could never do on our own- but its coz we still love them and their love gives us the strength.

Tears revisited...

Pain inspires the writer in me. That makes me a little sad because I don't want to let go of it either. There are days that I wish I felt as comfortable as I once did in expressing myself here in my blogs. If others read here, they know way more about me and my weird hiccups in life than I know about theirs. It feels unsafe sometimes. It makes it sound like I dwell in grief, but this is the place I process and repair that part of my life. And so it is important, I pen it down….

I have images that sometimes pop in my head that take me back to that dreadful day. A day filled with so many dark and haunting thoughts that I sit alone with. Sometimes I wish I could paint them, maybe they'd leave me alone.

A few months back, I was just basking in the glory of being pregnant, with all that extra love and attention, enlightening and reminding myself every moment that there is a new life growing within me…when a miscarriage followed and I was left with merely a pool of blood as the only memory of my unborn child…

Over the months, I've become very good at compartmentalizing the grief. It no longer swallows me up for hours or days at a time. It comes in moments like when I hear a song in the car, I completely lose it for 5 minutes then I pull it together and walk in to meet friends with a smile on my face. And that smile is genuine, not forced. Seems strange that I can just wrap it up like that now.

I also feel less self-conscious. I remember in those first days, I felt like everyone knew there was something wrong with me, like I was the only woman in the world who failed in the worst way. And if they didn't know part of me didn't want them to find out because I can't stand pity. I just wanted to be 'normal' again. Another part of me was desperate to tell them why I was so effed up.

I'm so different now. It's hard to find words. The pain has subsided and I've physically healed. As an outcome of this dreadful event, I've learned to love better coz there is a silent guilt, which tells me that my baby left me coz I didn’t love it enough….

I've been up to my neck in the everyday life now. Sometimes it's the keeping busy that keeps the grief at bay. It’s a constant struggle to fill the emptiness of the void, the endless pain of losing my child. I've lain awake many nights. But it's in the silence of the night that I find answers to what’s really in my heart …To look at myself and see something more than my empty womb staring back …To search for a reassurance that I wont be disowned again … To search fanatically for hours together to find the brightest shining star in the sky and believe that there is still a trace and my baby isn’t lost forever…

When I lost my baby, I didn’t know who to turn to and who to talk to. There wasn’t anything out there that I could relate to.
We forget to count the blessings at the moment and to enjoy it. But life is so unpredictable that any moment lost, is lost forever.
So cherish your moments and count your blessings when they last…. we can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of the treasures we hold.

Love crushed in the tiffs of Real world vs fantasy world

A friend of mine recently said that its quite different to love somebody and to be in love with somebody…. Got me thinking…. They are such simple words yet has so much depth to it….

It is quite often now we see that people who are married have strong feelings for others in their life. Before you blame them, put a thought across why should have that happened in the first place… If they were completely satisfied in their first relation, they would not have ever been in search for another…and we know no relation is perfect, but if the couple were happy together then there was never a place for the third person. They would have never felt the chill on their spine and goosebumps on the arms and butterflies in the stomach when they met this new person and their eyes locked for the first time or when they shook hands for the first time, if everything was simply imperfectly perfect in their marriage life.. Definitely you care and love your life partner but you are not in love with him/her.

What if you are out of a relationship for which you gave it your all, your blood and your soul, but for whatever reason it may have been, had to get out of it… you thought of this person as your soulmate, your friend and your advisor, your first thought as the first rays of the sun awake you and the last memory on your mind as you drift off to sleep … you might not be around him/her but the very thought of him/her make you blush, gives you a chill, and makes you feel all the fight is worthwhile….Now, here you are in love with a person….
And when you did get out of this blissful relationship, just imagine how long would it take for you to even start loving another person, forget about falling in love with him/her.

Bite the reality..swallow the bitterness -but its true…

The real world might be harsh and rude and one searches for their fantasy world where everything is rosy. What makes the fantasy world so beautiful is the sheer fact that the real world is so cruel and harsh and so only when one falls back from the fantasy world, they feel even worse coz now they know the taste of honey which lies within the beehive of thousands of stinging honeybees.
Fantasy is a place to escape when you no longer want to live in real life -where you can let your imagination run free and have control over what you see and hear. That’s where you fall in love with someone.
There comes a point in your life, when you are tired of chasing and trying to fix things… its not giving up- its realizing that you don’t need some things, and that extra drama they bring along. As long as I have been breathing, people have been deceiving… Been through the breakups, backstabs and lies….
I do think we try to create in our little fantasy world what we desire in our real world relationships and tend to get lost. This is not when we become really desperate, but just by searching for some place to fulfill desires . And when people are desperate we are able to believe in what we need to believe in rather than what actually is. Many wonderful memories and certain closeness a bond that can bring and will never end..
The need to be loved makes us use our fantasy thinking. Who has not imagined finding a desperately needed love or exaggerated its sincerity or completeness? We can experience good things for a time but' hopefully have the sense to pull out and remain friends .We experience so much disappointment later in life when our hopes are dashed by reality. It seems we need to control our imagining so it does not set us up for more unrealistic expectations and suffer even more. I feel we can have resilience to endure and push forward not to risk it again.
We look for others that have the same feelings and desires, and use our ability to create a unique world. We see ourselves and project it outside, giving it reality in the heart of our creation, to hide from reality and imagine an inner place the ability to dream of a better world. Creativity is a human gift you spend your life trying to create a part of the world that gives you comfort.

Love is when you shed a tear and still want him, it's when he ignores you and you still love him, it's when he loves another girl but you still smile and say I'm happy for you, when all you really do is cry.
There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.
When we're incomplete, we're always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.

Simple facts – It is good to live in an illusionary world but know when is the right time to buckle up the seat belt on a flight back to reality… none of us want to get hurt in emergency landings..…

Never force yourself or someone else to fall in love ..Force never creates love, only creates distance….
So if you got my love, don’t abuse it and if you have my trust, don’t ever lose it.

Life in darkness

I’ll never learn to become numb about problems. Every now and then, when you think everything’s going smoothly, life smacks you back in the face and gives you another problem. I can’t blame life forever. It’s not destiny or fate that makes my life this way. All things in my life right now unfolded because of me. I made the turns. I made the decisions. I chose the road. I walked the path. All these are of my own doing and that includes making these problems. Of course, these are not done on purpose. Sometimes I wish I had enough courage to hurt myself. Maybe a strong punishment is what I need to get things straight. I mean for once, why can’t I manage to go problem free? Why do I always fail to stay on the right track? Is it because I lack punishment? But then again, isn’t it punishment enough to have to deal with the consequences of these problems I made for my self?

When you’re all sobered up the problem is still there boldly grinning at you with such amusement. The only way to solve a problem is to face it head on. Oh the right thing to do just smoothly slips out of your mouth but it’s never easy to actually do it.

It just amazes me when some people can face every single problem they make for themselves with such composure. How do they do it? How can they stay frustration free? Do they ever reach their limit? Do they even have a limit?

I wish I could just believe that there is a God...and that I have a future planned according to how he wants it to be.But I can't. My mind refuses to. My mind would rather see me paint my own future. My mind would rather push me to paint my own future...to paint my own story.

I thought I'd never say this again, but sometimes, I just feel so empty. I feel like I'm dead and it affects me so that I take deep breaths and consciously inhale and exhale air to make sure that I'm still alive. And if I'm not satisfied, I think of something really sad, or listen to the most heartbreaking songs and just cry, cry until I feel down enough that my heart hurts.

No matter how happy one is, once emptiness hits you, you'll never be able to run away from it. It lurks in the dark and when unaware, when you've got a stoic expression about you, it strikes, takes out all the feelings you have and murders you until you're almost dead.