Prose before hos

 If you tell your friends that you miss me

Or that if they ask you to stop and focus on your work, your job

than my boss and me combined on what caused it— I wish I could go back in time and bottle that concern

Shiv Roy wouldn't, I just know it. She wouldn't be this sad even while she's pmsing. 

 Some days I tell myself, I can do everything. 

On those days, I can touch the sky. I can hop, skip, and jump for 14000+ steps between Delhi and Gurgaon and be stoked through the 9 hours that I spend there. I can willingly be in discomfort and pain while wearing heels through the day, prancing between South Delhi and Cyber Hub, riding the train meant for toddlers, where parents younger than me are waiting for me to get done so they can get their child on the toy train. On those days, I can grab two donuts and look like a total idiot with half my lipstick smeared off my face. All through everything, I'll be joyous. Heart full of love and warmth and rainbows and unicorn poop and glitter confetti. 

On others, I can put in a decent workout, wait for it to exhaust me, hit Gurgaon, hit 10000 steps, sit in an unfamiliar lobby and blast terrible boy band music while corporate executives judge me for wearing a jumper dress with pearl embroidered as popcorn, make terrible decisions and speak more than I should, crack a joke when I don't have the strength to keep a straight face, call my best friend and cry to her about an hour about a boy who broke my heart. No amount of clean eating, diet soda, helpful conversations, break-up music, and wins in my stride helps. No favourite meals or jokes about natal charts and planning can help me get out of my head. 

Today, was another day. Tomorrow will be yet another. 

A friend from the past life would offer the sauciest running commentary whenever we'd be swiping on dating apps at work. She'd often say how men will upload photographs of them working out and claiming they love to trek and scale the next big thing after their trek to Mount Everest. You'd see this in every third bio, ever so often men sprinkle their prompts and bios with the most absurd and extreme ideas. However, when it comes to talking to the girl on the app or sharing their dating goals and ideas, they hesitate and low-key evaporate in thin air than ever admit or say anything on their chest. 

Turns out, absurdly changing lifestyle overnight by cutting corners with sugar, working out when I can barely move or breathe, and journalling every night is my descent of becoming the dating app man and is analogous to climbing Everest and building a six-pack. 

All of this—because—I can't man up enough to admit I'm hurting so bad. I'd rather do obnoxious things and embrace uncomfortable lifestyle changes than text a man I miss him bad. I'd much rather take all my feelings—bleeding heart and open wounds of losing a friend I genuinely cared about in the pits of hell where I'll be shopping my heart out because capitalism and cis-het men hurt in waves and one leads you into the embrace of another (it's a long topic, best reserved for therapy). 

Here's hoping I can see myself through a kinder gaze than how men see others on my way out. 

I went to a temple today after two decades or so. 

I know, I am just as shocked. 

The whole experience felt similar to that of accompanying a friend at a gig where you know the opening band but are not a big fan. What do you do in a scene like that? You hang tight, next to your friend, copy their movements, and mirror their signs; if they headbang, you try to headbang, if they mosh, then, well you awkwardly stand protecting your peace. 

A list of things I paid for since I got dumped and got an untimely period out of stress (complete with item reviews)—

A butterscotch birthday cake - did not taste. I hate whipped cream. 

A whole meal at SBOW- pretty fucking good. It tasted like a good spend. 

One vegetable and one chicken patty - vegetable patty was sick, it was flakey and soft and delicious. 10/10. Sibling ate the chicken patty so no clue. 

Platform slippers - very hot, love that I can wear them everywhere and they're cash promiscuous. 

Slice of Biscoff Cheesecake - had two spoons. Average. 

A unicorn sipper - came fucking broken. Returned. 

Five lipsticks for my mother - each of them one better than the other. 

A double bedsheet - mother likes it but thinks the quality isn't as good as the last one I bought. 

Burgerama Chicken popcorn - Jesus in heaven, so fucking crisp and so so good. Shared with the date (who hasn't dumped yet) while watching a film. 

Skims lounge dress - it better be worth 6.3k cause that's one whole article payment. 

A unicorn sipper - let's form a prayer circle now. 

Plastic straws - look promising and hella cute. 

Peppa Pig and a unicorn gel pen - I am FIXATED. They work okay but god, the body is incredible and I have been using them as a distraction from anxiety. 

 I started a new medicine to put me to sleep. However, a friend corrected it's not a sedative which is a plus, the minus of course is that it's done nothing to me except made me cranky. 

I had been long thinking about why we initiate relationships with people? Is it the intimacy and companionship that leads or is the bodily urge to bond, suck face and reproduce the deciding factor? In some ways, forging a relationship with someone who's far away and not in arm's length at all times is a bit like writing a journal entry. What are you upto? I'm chilling with the pets and playing a game and yourself? I'm losing a round of game but I should be working. Tell me, how's this exchange any different than me reporting this for two persons in a hypothetical script? Sure, the other person has a mind of their own and that is attractive enough to keep you down bad for them but besides that? Is it just fog and noise in the brain for the need to hold on tight to someone or do they truly add anything to you? 

There's this thing, that I have heard all my life from friends' parents and then from mine (but never directly uttered to me) on how people seem to move on past a certain point in your life and you're left to your own devices, and this is where marriage and a partner can save you. 

It's also not as if I have a lot of pressure (or any) to address this. I've never once been asked to see someone for the sake of it or think of it, it's just assumed I'm not fit for it, and there's really nothing to fight there. It's cool, it's fair, we get it. 

All these past years, it's been rather easy. I've seen people around me get married, have babies, buy houses and all that and be unfazed in my presence. Maybe, this is where bar drinking comes in and I have never felt like I left the cool train or whatever it is, but going out and seeing people, doing things, pursuing hobbies, all that really aided. 

And yet, one year and a few months into this fuckfest of a global shitshow pandemic, and I now feel FOMO about this life I don't have (and possibly won't). 

People around me are moving on; I don't know whether this is an absolute urgency or a moment of reconciliation with the situation around us, but I found myself knee-deep in confusion planning bachelorette for two different friends from a group of four of us. That is to say, 50% of my circle is getting married in the next few months and I'm supposed to hide and plan these surprises without the brides knowing about their respective parties. For a group of people where half of them are getting married and the other quarter is in a foreign country, it is an awful lot of stress to bear. 

That's the fun part, my stress is a privilege to count on. I am not moving houses in between the predicted third wave, nor am I looking out for ways to discuss how I don't want certain rituals in my inter-caste wedding, and I'm definitely not worried about letting my friends know that they're not invited for the wedding lunch. I'm fairly simple. I watch a sport, I eat food, I watch TV and I write about it. I have no bigger ilks to think about, including what furniture can I take from one home to the other and what can I drop. 

That for me is where my FOMO begins. It's perhaps the first time in the entirety of my existence, I have questioned whether choosing to opt for the person I am and the life I have is a bad deal or if it is really fine and I am just nervous about not being able to find people on my level. 

I don't expect anyone to empathize with my life or the problems that surround it, "I ordered too many fries and I didn't know what to do with them." I was told it's a nice problem to have, and it truly is, no two ways about it. 

This is where things get real- when you talk to your friends and they no longer care to want to get shit faced with fancy domestic gin or do whiskey shots to celebrate your biggest win or want to hang out for a meal. They want to build their life, with their partner, build a house, grow their career, look after the baby they've had after many problems with conceptions. Their life and your life no longer align and you find yourself bang in the middle of the words, "People will get married and move on and you'll be where you are."

Moving on, dear readers, is very fucking real and very fucking traumatizing. 

I think we can safely celebrate and specially mention two other kinds of moving on— where once a man who threw himself at me, and continued with that for months, is back with his ex-wife (or did he ever leave?) and another who told me things are not working out in his life with his wife and their relationship and sought me as a crutch to move on has a 4-year-old baby who started school this year. Life's really funny, people move on without you and you're reminded of the hike from a school trip years ago, where you and three other losers chose to get sick and stayed back at the hotel, empty stomach while the rest of the clowns went hiking, get this, in a car. 

Somehow, I found worth in getting sick and choosing to opt-out there, even after all these years. It's not something that I had to do but I did. Maybe, I will find peace in my choices of being stationary and letting the world move around and move on. 

Maybe, the 30s are all about uniting with others like you and starting afresh with a different road where you're no longer the central character in a sequin dress at a pub, on a date with the hottest guy in town, but instead, cosying up to other freaks like you halfway across the world cause they see you for who you are. Until then, we can hope they don't celebrate their wedding anniversary anytime soon.