Prose before hos

Do you know people who are obsessed with Obama? It was a whole moment in pop culture, right next to the owl necklaces and purple-coloured mood boards. I feel that the whole crowd died down faster than I could spell 'orange' but hey, it made an everlasting impact on my memory. When I think of folks who like(d) Obama, I think of 2016 when I first met someone who was low-key into him. Cute. 

Turns out, the doctor's prescription of 'take a trip to the tropics' was more than just pep talk. It was fucking fantastic, running the hell out of the country and escaping to the beach. I also learned new things about myself, including how I'm willing to forego everything and everyone while chasing an azure sunset and watching Arab-German men play Hip-Hop and smoke weed. I couldn't have written this trip better and I realised that I've truly grown leaps and bounds in a decade, and then in the last five years was worth every overpriced rupee to baht conversion I did. 

Thailand has offered me a new lease of life. I am the world's sleepiest and the most active person all at once. My hormones are alive and kicking (if I tell you the details I'd have to kill you) and more than anything, it was a homage to all the old chapters in my life. From visiting Commons on my birthday eve for desserts to the jazz bar, everything happened this time. Again, I'm trying my best to skirt around the facts without giving details because the devil resides there. We don't want to disturb the dead. 

Thailand was also simultaneously aggressive; I can't hold them responsible either. Drunk Indian tourists misbehaving with the extended support staff was just the tip of the iceberg. The only time I've been made uncomfortable in years of travelling, including this year has been in the company of Indian male tourists who surround you after realising you're a woman without a man around you. God help you if you've displayed your legs or chest. However, fat tax is something that could be looked into. If you think you're good-looking or hot, go to Thailand and the people there will humble you. It happened to me, that while the folks here couldn't get over how I was glowing and looking fab, the disdain that the locals had was something else.

I also travelled internationally for the first time post-pandemic and it's a new world order, hey. Everything is way more expensive than ever and even if you have grown in your career and spending capacity, the same doesn't correspond with inflation. The only difference that couldn't be measured up in capital invested in the trip is my personal growth and learnings. I went in a different person and came back a wholly different individual. No amount of money can make it happen, but just experience. Thankfully, Thailand always delivers. You either come back jaded as hell or a completely new being. I'm glad to be on the other side. 

This is probably also the first time in over 30 years that I didn't really care much for my birthday. It was super chill. My companion in crime (who organised Thailand's end of places to eat, see and do), and family did their best to raise my spirits and raise they did. I had a fantastic Taiwanese meal and went to a killer speakeasy before stopping for the world's best ice cream and churros. We basically peaked that night and most of it was planned last minute. Even the part of it when I returned to India and whatever I did was last minute. Everything was light and the vibes were immaculate. I was surrounded by the people I love the most. The day was a potent reminder to know how many lives have you impacted and touched over the course of the year and life and then take stock of things for the time to come. 

Another life lesson to pick is that risks can be good, especially when you're going in blind. Half of this month went into doing everything I never thought I'd do or could do and yet, here I am. I pushed my body to move and I'm grateful to know it's capable of doing that. I ate clean and listened to my body, instead of approaching food with a scarcity mindset or doing a whole 'this is the last time'. Even if it is the last time, it's okay. I'll die on a hill that pre-pandemic food is better than post-pandemic food and that birthdays are best brought in with people you love than people you don't know at airports (especially if you're taking a 7:35 am flight). 

I've resumed walking and it feels fantastic. I mean, I'm not able to do a lot and especially all at once but knowing that I can still do it, is all the inspiration I needed for the year. If I could do it once, I could do it again and that better be my whole 32 experience. 

...but help me pack my luggage before we go go. 

Can you be partly in inertia and partly panicking? If so, I'm there; I can feel my heart pacing but I'm also sitting legs up and writing this like I'm about to spend a week-long holiday out of my bed. It's a holiday alright, but it won't be anything like spending a week in bed. Although there's nothing wrong about being in bed. Sinner succinctly explained, "Just think of this as you escaping the bed," which is true if you know me on holiday. 

I could be researching on my Excel sheet of places to go to and eat at and shop from and where to meet local cuties but I'm passively rolling through this. Yesterday, when I booked the flight, an entire table full of women cheered on and a few stepped up to tell others, "She's getting engaged!" and "She's going for her bachelorette" which was cute until it was followed by a round of applause from the entire office and then it became fucking hilarious. Adults need a small line to be psyched for others; for some of us, food is the reason, and for others it's milestones. 

Whenever I look back at the crossroads where I made a different choice than those who were on that journey with me, it makes me feel nauseated. Kinda like right now, I can smell chicken broth and mince on my top, which I wore to get a few passport-sized images shot and then stopped for a quick snack before I get the fuck out for long. Lots of things make complete sense about why I feel the distance doesn't make the heart feel fonder but again, I find it hard to relate to even myself from 4-5 years ago. I recall just booking the tickets for my second international trip in two months when I was making peanuts and today when I actually should be able to afford a reckless activity like that, I go from tab to tab in figuring, "Must I?"

I truly don't know if what I've done is right or not, which is to say, planning to bounce and fuck off to take time off from everything that's been up professionally and then some personally. Care can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. For me, it might mean keeping myself safe, whether it means being reckless or being too safe. For my doctor, it might mean telling me to change my scenery so I can ensure I'm not depressed beyond permissible limits (aka not pull a Sylvia Plath, which I don't intend on). Care can also reflect in the gestures of a man, whom I first met a year ago, and realised he was looking out for me when he prevented me from a possible road accident earlier last month over a long walk. Care could mean your friends actually celebrating the fact that you're going out and leaving a lot of shit behind and it can sort itself out when you're back. 

Whatever it be, I hope it ends with me 35,000 feet high up in the sky as a way of celebrating my 32nd birthday. 

Earlier this year, someone who's into Astrology (and I mean, like, professionally into Astrology) remarked on how this is a rather strange year for planet placements. I didn't make much of it because it didn't sound ominous and that's a fatal flaw I have. I tend to overlook things until they become dark and heavy to the point that I spend the next 365 days remembering every clue and sign I overlooked. People keep telling me that I overthink and I keep thinking that it couldn't be farther from the truth. I've switched to underthinking, it's a blessing. 

The pizza phase usually has bucket lists that go in all wild directions so if you're here looking for my birthday wishlist, I'm afraid you're in for no luck. That stuff is only shared via personal communication so if you're lurking for that, text me and I'll share the link because I do have a wishlist that is somehow getting more serious by the minute. 

As for the bucket list for the next five years: 

• Get a job that pays me enough to walk into a Prada store and buy a pair of sunglasses (I know they're all manufactured at one spot, please spare me the eyes to be better than buying something designer off the rack and a pair of sunglasses at that, it's just my thing, let me have it my way). 
• Get a job that pays me 60 LPA in content. 
• Get fitter and leaner. Pick a style of workout/exercise and get better at it.
• Don't bawl when someone asks "Are you okay? you don't look okay?"
• Find someone who loves me for who I am. 
• Find someone who will stick by me for who I am. 
• Find someone who wants to be there for me, for the person I am (even if it means he's there for my 60 LPA). 
• Adopt two cats and name them Shah Jahan and Shah Rukh. 
• Learn to make my favourite veggies the way my mom makes. 
• Learn to pickle and ferment, from my mom's recipes and then from Korean restaurants I fancy. 
• Double my stock investments. 
• Actually, forge a fucking career path. 
• Have my finances sorted to the detail. 
• Have a semblance of my personal life that looks like something I've made in my own time and space and not out of a pity party or desperate decisions at the last minute. 
• Focus fully well on my priorities- family, health, finances, love and friends. 
• Move out and move to a place I want to move to. 
• Stick firmly to my boundaries and not be vulnerable to the situation and people at play. 
• Consider motherhood with the right partner, if all the above align. 
• Karaoke at a bar with my best mates and fully be embarrassed. 
• Get into the skin of gaming and have fun while I'm at it. 
• Visit Japan, Italy, Turkey and Kashmir. 
• Find a person who will want to travel with me and let me plan the trip. 
• Have real good sex. 
• Consistently get laid. 
• Focus on myself. 
• Get a job I love. 
• Get a side hustle I can do while I'm asleep. 
• Write a TV pilot. 
• Work in events/Delhi culture space. 

My heart feels full. Maybe it's the cucumber sandwich I had for dinner. Maybe it's the day I had. Maybe I felt fucking free after a long fucking time. Or maybe it was the new A24 romance. Did you know A24 does romance? I had no idea. I mean, I did, I'd seen the trailer and ignored it. Like everything else, along with everything and everyone else. What a whirlwind of a year. I ignored it all and I'm facing it all. It's nice to do it, to see things and face things and to hold the life you were given. My mom did not struggle to survive with difficult in-laws for me to throw it all away for someone who thinks they know life better than me. 

Ali Sethi makes my heart full. All Ali Sethi videos have the same effect on me as pets have on babies. It calms me down and makes my heart feel full. It makes me smile, even if I've been stuck in a jam for over 2 hours at 11:30 am on the highway, while being accosted by a man I'd hooked up with hundred years ago, on account of how I discussed him and another man I went out with earlier this year (I hadn't). I don't know what is it about me that men think I discuss them with other men. I don't remember their presence. I write enough in my journal and live through every feeling to not think about them in their afterglow. When it's over, it's over. It's the nicest thing about me, I don't wake up the dead. If you're gone, be gone. For good. 

My therapist and I had a few breakthroughs today. She said she's seen a shift in me since the last few sessions and I agree, so have I. It's like finding a new ray of hope, a string of light, and a sizzle of glitter in my eyes. Therapeutic work is done outside of therapy, the actual session is a catalyst with your atomic bomb consultant, who helps you unpack your ideas and knots in the hope that you'll make flowers out of those bombs. Some days they really smell good. Some days those flowers make your heart feel full. 

Astrology has this thing about patterns and numbers. If you see things in repetition it is often believed that spirits are trying to send you messages. If that's the case then I don't know if the spirits are sending me flowers to help me realise it's time to wake up and smell the leaves; you can eat, shoot, and leave, you know. Ali Sethi is also a flower, a whole blooming individual who makes my heart feel whole. 

I've been eating out and not working out. I've been a bad girl. I've been reckless and shopping. I'm jumping through music and artists on the highway. I'm typing every wild thought and spending time on the drawing board. I feel wild, I feel free and most importantly, I feel full. The last time I felt this way, I had learnt that my office plays Fleetwood Mac in the ladies washroom and god that felt like a good enough reason to take a dump there. Feeling full can make you shit your heart out. It's what they say, if you haven't shat where you've eaten, you've not lived your life. 

I've spent countless hours in that room between fete, practice, sessions on how to cope with periods, dance parties etc. Unlike most parts of my school, I never particularly liked or disliked it. The man, our dance teacher, made a lot of girls feel like they are his children; and later during #MeToo, the allegations against him came as no surprise to me (or the group of people I follow on socials) that he was apparently a creep to many young girls. Doesn't shock me one bit. 

In the past month, I cut my hair short. Like really, really short. Like, I had them when I was 6-7. I remember going to Chandigarh at that age with the same hair and I found myself repeating that at 31, with the same hair. Both those episodes are incidental, and in no way planned. Yet, to a larger idea, it seems like it was always going to happen that way. 

When I found a few pictures with my short hair and had a chance to reflect, it seemed like a grown-up decision. That I had lived with my long hair all my life and I knew it was time to move out of the comfort of knowing how my hair feel against my skin when I wash them or how long do they really seem when I'm in bed alone. I was ready to embark on the journey, even though I felt my whole life upending moments after taking the plunge. It helped that people encouraged me and even the fiercest critic of that decision (my mum) came around and said I've never looked better. 

In the last few weeks, I've had to discuss some tough life decisions. I found myself offering things to a man I never wanted nor thought I was capable of and yet in that moment I felt so sure and strongly positive about those things I wouldn't change a thing even today. While those offerings are still up in the air given the status between us is unclear, I feel so strangely motivated and grown up about parenting, motherhood, marriage, and even partnership that I have started absorbing those motifs into my life without explaining or answering myself to anyone. I previously held extremely strong beliefs that I found eroded in no time as I mouthed the words, "I'll do it because you are at the center of it". 

At some level, the hurt flows because, like I said, it wasn't enough or good to get a total outcome but I know I have done my best and given whatever I could have. I do not know where life will take us and I am a sucker for definite things. Maybe one day I'll look up and realise uncertainty is just as beautiful as changing your mind and living life knowing results don't matter and that it's fine to live with short hair, regardless of how your self-hood is tied with long, straight and beautiful hair. It's okay, it'll be okay, it'll pass. It'll settle. I'll be okay.