Being human

I suddenly find myself surrounded by talks about the Juvenile Justice System. As part of my new job, I have to facilitate few sessions in an observation home in Mumbai.
Every time, I enter the place, I find myself breathing hard, find myself getting ready to detach myself from every thing I am going to witness in that space.

When I step outside the gate after the session, I find myself emotionally drained. Maybe it takes a lot for me to detach emotionally from any thing.

Yesterday I had to walk into those gates all alone for the first time, and I was hoping that I would be able to detach without draining myself emotionally.

Well, I didn't anticipate what I was about to witness, or else I would have preferred not to get out of my bed in the morning.

When children are brought into the home, all their belongings are confiscated and handed back only after they get out. As I was walking out of the girl's quarters, a girl was brought in. I took a quick look at all the things they were getting out of her bag, and the letters indicated that she must have run away from home to be with her boyfriend, in the name of the almighty love! 
So they were checking her mouth, her bra, to check if she was hiding something.

I walked out of the space, one because it was time for me to leave, and secondly, I didn't like what I was seeing.
Unfortunately, I had to return, I had to pass on a message to the woman incharge of the girls. As I knocked on the huge iron door, no one opened it. But all I could hear, were sobs and screams. Apparently they were trying to force feed her some medicines and she was resisting. Her body couldn't flee from the situation, so she fought. The screams got louder now and I could hear the female caretaker screaming at her, she had bit the police woman.
Suddenly the door opened and I saw her lying on the floor and woman caretaker trying to get her up. I decided not to enter. 
Again I heard a feeble voice, asking for money. Followed by a harsh and loud voice, asking her if she had swallowed something, and more importantly if she had swallowed the money she had on her.
I couldn't just stand there anymore, so I knocked on the door again and this time someone opened. I just asked the caretaker, whose voice I could hear from outside the door, if I could meet the person incharge of the girls, finished my work and walked out as fast my legs would take me.

When I stepped out the iron door, my legs felt weak. I felt helpless. I could have done something for that poor little child. I could have reasoned with the caretaker and the police officer and told them how they could have got through her with some better words rather than screaming and being harsh.
But I just walked out. Walked out, because I was not supposed to interfere with anything else, not get emotionally sucked into anything.

I found a bench to sit on and called a friend. Asked him to talk to me about something, he instinctively knew something was wrong and I narrated what I had just experienced and how helpless I felt.
As I sat there, in front of the juvenile court, I saw the police woman, the caretaker walking the girl to the investigation room, and the caretaker had the girl's money in her hand - it made me feel worse.
At that very moment, I realised I had to put myself together for I had to facilitate a session with 12 other boys.

The whole time, the only thing that ran through my head was, what will it take to get them to care. They chose this job, they have been handed these children to take care of them and not abuse. I then wondered about the girl, how violated she must have felt!
As I slept in my bed at night, the only thought that crossed my mind was, as sleep comfortably in my house, with my mom nearby, with family and friends just a call away. The poor children in the observation home only hope to go back home, and maybe home is worse that where they are tonight.
Just pray that their future brings them some joy and happiness and the memories of this phase is wiped clean from their hearts and minds.

And as for me, I need to figure how I am going to help these children. For maybe this is my calling and I have to introspect and figure if I am ready to answer the call.

Draw the line!

You are comfortable in your skin, your self and your space is all you need to survive.
I need to understand this, I need to stop finding a crevice to crawl into. 
I need to stop hoping to make space for myself.
You have spent enough of time with yourself, and are not open any more to anyone like me, who wants to embrace you and share some space with you.

I need to breath in and live this reality. 
It is time I understand and imbibe this reality as part of my being.
I need to stop allowing myself to be vulnerable and hurt. It is not that you are intentionally doing this. It is just the way you are.
And the onus is on me now, to draw the line and say this is all of my self I am willing to put out there and nothing more.

I am stepping back. I have done my part. Now I will live my life, like I normally do.
Your scent in my life will fade one day, like the scent of so many before you.
I will lie on my bed all alone, and will hold my pillow for solace once again.
"It is better to be alone", I keep telling myself, but only I know how much I need someone to be besides me, while I walk on this road called life.

Random thoughts

I have experienced people, I have experienced their love. I have hugged them and known them in and out. I have let go, but always looked back. 

But you are different. I have a bond with you, which I have never been able to develop with anyone before.
You are on my mind the whole day, and your voice is all I need, to feel complete.
You talk to me, listen to me and we have a conversation like no other. Each moment of silence is also so comfortable that, it leaves me feeling warm.
I do love you with all my heart, knowing that you will never feel the same about me. Most of the time I do not refrain from saying just how you make me feel or how I want you to make me feel, and it is just to make you feel better rather than to fulfil the expectation of you reciprocating how I feel.
I hope you realise you feel as strongly as I feel about you; but I shall always give you your space.
I hope you invite me into your life, as your life partner. That we commit to each other to the end of time. We walk together through life's ups and downs and we hold each when we are happy or sad. 
I hope that we are each other's confidants and we travel together whenever it fancies us.

We will always be individuals. Living our lives, our dreams and walking towards our goals. But I hope that every evening, after we have lived the lives we have built for ourselves; we come together as one being and live the life we have built for us.

But how do I tell a wanderer to settle down? How do I prepare myself to let go more that holding on? How do I be fine about living without a permanent address and an anchor? How do I be fine about not wanting to have children? How do I live in fear, that one fine day you may just not be happy with me? How do I live knowing that you may want to detach yourself from my side?

Well, maybe its this dilemma that helps stay close to you, without allowing me to fall so deeply in love with you that I find that I will be another Radha to a Krishna. Well I have done that, and it hurts very bad; so this maybe another way to preserve myself - just love but don't expect anything in return. 

I wish

I wish, I were on your mind right now.
I wish, you were running around arranging for the materialistic things that would help us build our life together.
I wish, the houses you looking at, were for us to live together.
I wish, travel plans were being made to my home town and not hers.
I wish, the dreams you weaving, had me in them.
I wish, I was part of the plans you are making right now.
I wish, I could plan the wedding of my dreams, with you standing at the altar.
I wish, I could dance in the middle of the dance floor in your arms.
I wish, our friends could hug both of us, and wish us the best for our future together.

Well, it is only a wish, which will never be reality. But the only hope is that you have a wonderful and happy life with the one you are destined to. And hopefully I will too find the happiness I sought from you, in the arms of another. 

Picking up the pieces

"Your positivity is your asset, build on it, don't deplete it. When there is a low or an obstacle fight it. Face it. Don't lose hope. Don't give up. Just be you... Sunshine against all odds..." - wrote PS to me.

Well I didn't break into a million pieces; but I felt like I lost a part of myself and I had to find it at as soon as I could.

I have had a hard few months, healthwise I have been at one of my lowest points. Kept hoping, things gets better. But like the product life cycle, before you witness rejuvination or rebirth you have to witness the decline. Well maybe I have or I haven't yet reached that point and therefore until I get there, I will not see any kind of improvement.

But today I found myself at the lowest point I could imagine, I hope I don't feel lower than this, ever. It frustrated me and I lost my positivity. 

As soon as I walked out from the Doctor's clinic, my mind raced and tried to gauge what had just transpired and my mind just went blank. I felt like I had just been crushed from every side, and just couldn't make sense of all that was happening.
My mind went through all the people I could possible call to make sense of what was happening and I just called Piglet. Told him whatever the doctor told me and vented my frustrations, spoke to him about all the connections my mind was revealing to make sense of what was happening. 
Well I didn't get diagnosed with a life threatening disease or something that was incurable (blessing no. 1). But for that moment I felt like my life has taken a steep turn again and I have had enough of these twists and turns and maybe its time to give it all up and just let go.

I discussed with piglet about the various things that might be causing me stress, and many things that I was afraid to admit. 
All I needed at that point was a listening ear and that's what he gave me (blessing no. 2).

The day got better from then on. Met a sweet little 4 yr old, who distracted me (blessing no. 3). My colleagues and me then made notebook covers and enjoyed the whole process of learning and creating something new (blessing no. 4).

I still needed to vent, so I had dinner with Pri. I sat and spoke about things that made sense to me. But given the mess in my head, all Pri heard was contradictions, lack of clarity and fear of rejection. She called me on each one of them and all I could do is see the light (blessing no. 5).

After the enlightening dinner, I called Piglet back, told him about my insecurities and felt better. I have done it before, but this time I felt freer (blessing no. 6). 
I need to actually live something through to understand if I should carry it along or leave it behind and carry on. Well I guess I realised I had to leave one aspect of our relationship behind and carry on (blessing or not, I don't know... only time will tell :)).

But I still felt empty, I had to talk to G. But he didn't pick up the call and it struck me, why do I search for something from G, everytime I am down? when all I need to do is process and rationalise it within myself (blessing no. 7). This lesson is being reinforced time and again, its high time I completely internalise it.

The next thing I needed was an escape, I came home and asked PS that I wanted to visit her. She didn't waste a second to invite me to stay over for a couple of days. But the other thing she did, was remind and reinforced the fact that I was being stupid and that I was leaving behind my positive self and that I should not be a Ostrich and face everything head on, like I always do (blessing no. 8).

PS asked me to list my blessings, instead of concentrating on the negatives. 
While writing this post I realised that I didn't even have to look far to find 8 good things that happened today, opposed to that one negative thing that took over everything.

Well going back to be the sun shiny me... loving all those who help me see the light, time and again.

Just the way you are...

There is a certain kind of joy that radiates out of knowing that someone chooses to love you.
As a Catholic, you are always told, " you are special because you are made in the imagine and likeness of God", "God has chosen you, he loves you", all these positive things somehow are taken for granted. Like even your parents and siblings love for you, because they are supposed to love you. But when a stranger loves you, opens up their life to you, well that's what we give importance to.

Then the question is asked, "what is so great in me that someone chooses to loves me?"
We forget the positivity that love brings and go into the spiral of trying to understand 'why'. Well sometimes the answer is favourable, sometimes it not, but for what its worth, it makes you feel like a million dollars!

I have experienced lots of types of love, right from the love of a parent to siblings, to selfish relatives to selfless relatives, to wonderful friends, to something they call platonic love, to one sided love, to passionate love and to simple love.
The best kind of love is loving someone for who they are, not for something that they can be, or were or the person they can tweak, till they are perfect for us.

I am in search for a love which I know will start as a compromise, but waiting for it to turn into the love which will resonate the vows I will take ~ to love him for the good times and bad, sickness and health, richer or poorer, till death do us apart.

Well writing this blog to mark, me taking the next step into life, going beyond hope, going beyond ~ I will move on after you are settled, when its sure that there is no hope left.
Wishing myself luck for life will never be the same.
Started the year on a platter of mixed emotions, well ending it on the same note. Good luck to me, waiting to discover what the future has in store for me.

Circle of life...

As I sat on the steps of Rani ki vov in Adalaj, my thoughts went back to  the memories I left behind, and few, that I was about to create.
My thoughts were revealing a pattern that I always ignored and it wouldn't let me ignore it anymore...

While sitting in silence on the steps that lead to the well, my thoughts lead me through the dark deep well of my life which has passed me by and forced me to think about my priorities, my dreams and how I picture my life would be...
They reiterated how difficult it is to accept what you have at hand, especially when it is not how you pictured it all along.
It reminded me that, I have somewhere along the way stopped planning how my life should be or how I would want it to be... and that has made me live a freer life than I would have ever imagined...

Always wondered how will it be if I 'let go'... 'let go' of things that imprison me within myself... the compulsions and complications that I create for myself... is it really that hard to live life on your own terms or is it me who makes it all the more difficult to accept myself as I am...   

My thoughts took me as far away as those days when I was a giddy headed girl who was too afraid to look beyond what she believed was right, and had blinders on, who didn't allow herself to look beyond her values and principles. A girl who would prefer killing herself from within rather than be open to experiences... 
Well I have come a long way from those days, life has taught me some bitter lessons and put me inside a shell which was hard to break... but the same life has now helped me embrace experiences, which I wouldn't normally even consider. 

So today I accept the fact that I am an open book, I wear my heart on my sleeve, I am afraid of being hurt, but that doesn't mean I will not put myself out there, I can love unconditionally and it is easier for me to express, more than some people, I am compassionate and I hurt as easily as I love, I can't face conflicts, or even ask something that is due to me, I believe in the goodness of others and I am silent... I love the silence but at the same time crave for someone to listen to me and help me clear the webs that have been clogging many parts of my life, but I find it difficult to trust someone with my truths...  

I felt happy thinking about the time we stared at the Taj Mahal from the Agra fort and imagined how it would be part of the huge crew that created the magnificent structure... and there was a strong urge that made me pick up the phone and call him... but it was a sign when he said he will call me back. That moment was all it took to remind me that my happiness doesn't depend on anyone, I don't have to always be able to share a moment with someone to make it better (even though it would be great)... the warmth in my heart is all I need to be feel good.. and it is time to make more and different memories...

Then my thoughts drifted to the future, well I don't know what that is going to bring... the only thing I can do is to hope, to have the strenght to face whatever comes with a smile.

Falling in love is so easy... but sustaining the love is the hard part. How do you get out of your own selfish need to be loved or your love to be reciprocated and not think about the larger picture? Well that is what the next chapter of my life is going to teach me. Another truth to accept...

Getting ready for the next phase of my life, I kept telling myself you have 'let go', which may have not been completely true, but all it actually took was sitting in silence and readying myself to accept whatever comes my way, sitting on the steps of Rani Ki Vov...