In one way, this is everything. Even if I do the bare minimum (that I won't do), I'll still figure my space out. In the larger scheme of things, none of this matters and we are all specks of dust but in the microscopic view, people's attempt at taking me down at work is hilarious. I find it amusing that people with nearly double my work-ex feel threatened enough to be rattled by my suggestions and take it upon themselves to tear me down. All this while— I am floating on a large, dreamy cloud, breathing in the air of the times I've had— some good and mostly bad. People here have no idea the kind of trauma I have been through. They don't know I had to fight for my fucking life to make it there; they don't know I lost people I loved and I lost most things dear to me; there are things you can destroy for me but nothing that I haven't destroyed on my own yet. 

This brings me to this sensation I am experiencing now, fresh in the light of all the adversity that I previously faced and coming face to face with it again, I no longer feel terrified, like my life depends on this. I have once been here, stressed out of my life, stressing over smaller things. I used to be that person who felt terrified after micro-aggressions at the workplace. Thankfully, the thick skin doesn't allow a lot of attacks. You are here for life and this is life to you but my life is much bigger and certainly broader than what I allow these 9 hours to shape. 

I am learning a lot, and that's a great thing. That's always a great thing. Life can't be static and you can never find enough things to learn but in having said that, I am trying to find a balance between understanding myself better and letting people tell me what I think I should know about myself. I see myself being a wholly new person, like the opening guitar riff of Light My Fire, it's all too peppy until it's not and Morrison pleads with the beloved to light the fire. This is where I am at, light my fucking fire and see me run on these fumes. 

It's actually something my therapist said recently that resonated with me and has stuck around since. When I told her I'm functioning purely on adrenaline, she responded with how these are actually fumes (my words were, "I'm running on vibes") and the fumes are keeping burning me, consuming me as I face the heat. What people don't know about me yet is that I am a ball of fire and the more you light the brighter I burn. I feel invincible, like Kanye West and Taylor Swift's lovechild would if that union ever saw the light of the day in gossip columns and trending sections. In the past week, all the battles I have fought have been about getting the focus on this, right here. Pop culture might be pathetic but it fuels, feeds, and nurtures the audience online. Hopefully one day, the peabrains will look beyond conversations in STEM and look outside their limited boxed view of opinions. I might be long gone by that day and I won't care. 

I miss my grandfather a lot. He would have so much to say about all this; from what I wear to the people I interact with to the men I am seeing to the life experiences I am accumulating. For years, he insisted I wear formal pants and shirts to work and I rarely ever did. He actually paid me twice to get "work-appropriate" outfits and I never once bothered. The past fortnight when I went shopping for work-appropriate clothes, I missed him throughout the whole evening as I tried over two dozen shirts and regretted not knowing what works well for me and what doesn't. I miss him in my evening chats when we'd sit over a beverage and exchange notes on the politics in the country and sports (cricket for me, eye-rolling for me). I miss him in the wishes and the greetings and the blessings and everything in between. I wish he was here to know this is what I am doing and I actually came this far, despite all the curveballs life threw at me. I miss him so much that I find myself talking about him to the man I fancy from the dating app, and that he can sense I am hurting from the loss of his life. I wish I could tell him any of this but my eternal hope is that he knows this and more that I don't state. 

I also met someone who showed me that it's easy to do right by you and not fuck you over when they absolutely can. When I say I've been running on vibes, it's been a case of pure vibes and no other reason. In 24 hours, this person taught me that I am fucking valid, I deserve to be loved and acknowledged and not treated like a piece of meat. Can you tell I am smitten? You can't cause I haven't gone down the road of talking any other thing here and even if we don't go out of this tiny experience that we shared together, I'll forever cherish the memory of this person who treated me with empathy, kindness and softness that I fucking deserve. 

Vibes, till we die.