Personal – Page 11 – untitled atm

050 – two months of moving to India + 50,000 words

Lately I’ve had nights where I wake up with the same thoughts that were buzzing in my head when I was going to sleep. It’s kinda weird, because sleep is almost always a good way to get a “reset”. Without this reset, the day that’s coming up can feel really bleak (if the night had been feeling that way). I woke up kind of depressed today. I’ve been feeling low since the last two days. Which, of course, I’m generally used to, ie periods of feeling low, but things were still a bit tough this weekend.

This lowness was making me doubt my moving-to-India decision quite strongly. I’m okay now, did a bit of physical exercise, had my afternoon coffee, played a game of online Catan, and consumed a bit of nicotine too. In the meanwhile, my mind was able to come up with some counters for this doubt.

I did this to minimise regrets, and that’s still very important. If I plan to adjust to India even for a full year, I will have to go through the doubt days. The days when it feels like a bad decision. That’s just a part of any big move. I’ve had similar days in grad school in Atlanta, in SF and even in Amsterdam. Regardless of the place or the thing, I’m like a 100% sure that “doubt” is just a part of the package.

I literally don’t have the option to not be working anywhere else. So I just need to remind myself to be grateful for the career freedom I have right now. I don’t get that anywhere else. When I see people living in all these beautiful countries and “having fun”, I don’t see the 40 hours work-weeks they’re living for that fun. (Yes, that may still be enjoying that, but I personally wouldn’t at this time, so it’s just not an option for me.) I don’t get to compare the “fun” if I don’t keep in mind the work thing.

The other day I was talking to my sister, who was having similar feelings about her decision to be in the US. And we concluded that no place has everything, so even if we want to divide our time in multiple places in the long-term, in the short-term we still need to focus on making the most of where we are. That advice is obviously valuable for me as well. While I’m here, I need to focus on all the things I have here. ie the people, the art I want to make and all the additional time I have that I get to use on whatever I want.

That brings me to the next thing. How do I want to spend all this extra time I have? I think I’ve already addressed that here. Maybe it might be worth putting down some long-term goals to make all of those buckets a little less vague.

Currently, I think I’m also feeling blocked because house-search is taking a good amount of bandwidth, and I feel like I’m not able to fully feel the freedom that I want (need) until that isn’t done. And that’s fair. Since that is something I’m sure I need to get started on “life”, it’s okay for me to feel blocked by it. Of course, in ideal conditions, we won’t be waiting for X and Y to be sorted before we could work on Z, ie if Z was important enough, but I don’t think I’m there yet. And it’s not like I’m not doing Z at all. I’m just not fully able to enjoy it.

Since this is going to be my 50th post here, I figured it might be worth making it a 1000-word post. I was planning to reflect a bit on writing anyway, so maybe I can just do that here.

I’ve increasingly been feeling that setting up this blog was one of the best things I could have done for my writing goals. And my creative goals in general too. The freedom of just being able to write whatever you want and hit “Publish” without thinking much about it is amazing. The pipeline is easy, there isn’t much overhead, and I get to feel satisfied about sharing most of what I’m writing.

I have 70 subscribers here! Yay! While the number may not feel like a lot in today’s age of multiple thousands followers and subscribers that most people have, it’s still worth celebrating, since this is purely word-vomits, and by some miracle I have 70 people who receive updates whenever I share something. (They may or may not read it, it doesn’t matter, really, but I’m super duper grateful anyway)

Because dedicating a place for just writing was so helpful to me (and similarly the music account I have on Insta was as well), I do think it might be worth separating out my photography and art accounts too. I’m super conflicted about this one, and I follow a couple people who’ve experienced the same conflict too, but data tells me I should do it, if I really just want to do “more” of either (or both) things.

The other day someone asked me what is the one thing (activity) I feel like is “mine”, the one which I feel really called towards, or really am able to feel “attached” to in a way… and I said “writing”. I think that itself for someone like me speaks volumes. And I think I have this blog to thank for it.

I posted a lot in May and June! So having the spare time to do this did make me do more of this, and that makes me incredibly happy.

Getting back into reading has been good too. I’ve had 2-3 years of very minimal reading, and now that I’m getting back into it, it feels really good. While reading is not necessarily a requirement for writing, it does help to get some inspiration from time to time. I finally left the book I was stuck on even though I thought I didn’t want to leave it midway, and started reading a new one, which was a great decision because a. It’s been a really enjoyable read and b. It makes me want to write more.

Alright, that’s a wrap on 50,000 words on here. Happy July!

049b – desire

But what if everything I want, I already have?

Love, peace, connection, security, health, beauty, worthiness, achievement, success, fame, pleasure, validation, all that jazz. Maybe I already have it all.

Okay, this probably doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know. I’m pretty sober, but this thought came to me yesterday night. And I’d thought to myself that this maybe worth thinking more about. But, I don’t know if it is. Maybe it’s just one of those thoughts you’re supposed to feel and believe, without really diving deep into it. Because diving deep won’t really reveal anything you don’t already know.

These days, I find myself getting swayed by material desire, but I don’t want to give in to that too much.

In general, I want to be able to say no to all sorts of desires and cravings from time to time. Skeptics will say this is asking too much of yourself.

There is a person I miss— but I know talking to them isn’t very healthy for my “progress” in life, so that is a desire I want to be able to say no to. I think I’ve been doing decently well on this, haven’t “given in” since January. I do sometimes wonder if this will ever become a non-issue. I know that if I meet someone new (ie fall in love), this will become a non-issue more easily. But, that could take a while. And I don’t want that to be the only way this becomes a non-issue. Point being, I’m surprised by the amount of time it’s taking to get rid of this person’s trace from my life. I started writing some of it in a “book” of sorts, because I wasn’t ready to let all of it go completely into nothingness, and that’s been “helping” quite a bit, and ideally, I should just be writing over there so I can continue “working” on this letting go process, but I didn’t feel like it today. So— surprise, surprise— here I am, doing the same thing in a different format. Eventually, kind of talking about the same thing I didn’t feel like talking about.

Ah, that was a tiring paragraph. Felt clunky and circular to me.

I’ve been stuck on a book I’ve been reading for over a month now, it’s not super engaging but I really don’t want to leave in the middle, so really need to pick up pace and finish reading it. Because I want to read something philosophical / spiritual after it, I’ve been feeling the need for it. Not sure what, though. Something in the Ekhart Tolle / Alan Watts realm.

The other desire I’m struggling with is the one for social satisfaction. I met some friends earlier in the week but I’m kind of experiencing the need for connection again. Talking to parents doesn’t feel satisfactory enough. And while, yes, I can make plans with specific people and maybe attempt to figure this out, I kind of also want to be okay with the desire just not getting met.

I might have overused the word “desire” in this post. It is what it is, is what it is.

049a – what else is coming up?

Excited. Excited to finish 50k words soon. Excited to begin my Delhi phase soon. I’ve never actually lived in Delhi apart from college (which almost doesn’t count because we were so sheltered, but I’ve great memories of Delhi). I wanna do some research around whether safety in Delhi is actually as bad as it was a few years ago. Just based on “vibes”, I feel like things might’ve improved. But I don’t know, vibes can be misleading. Excited to setup my house and fill it with a bunch of art and plants. I’ve ordered new painting supplies so I’m also excited to practice some art soon. Excited to see this person-I’ve-met-a-couple-times, again.

Content. I took a break from this because the excitement to paint took over me. It was a good idea since I painted a couple of abstract-ey landscapes which I really enjoyed. And they came out nice too. I was drained after so I didn’t get back to this until now. Content with some creative progress as well. I’ve gotten faster at painting the same things I was painting a few months earlier. I’ve also gotten better at leaving things at 90%. (Yes, going to the 100% is very important in certain cases, but personally, more often than not it’s better for me when I’m able to stop at a “good enough” state.) Content with this word-vomit as well, I quite like this grouping-thoughts-by-feelings thing.

Anxious. Anxious about a dentist appointment I have tomorrow. Anxious about spending too much time with mom, I don’t know why. Anxious that I don’t have too many social plans for the coming week, and my parents are traveling so I essentially won’t have anyone at home. Which.. I was excited about earlier but I haven’t planned the week well enough to still be excited about it. But maybe I can do some planning over the weekend. Anxious about some of the tasks on my todo list which I really don’t want to get to. But I’ll have to, so that’s going to be tomorrow and the weekend as well.

Unmotivated. Unmotivated to think about certain long-term questions that I thought I can take my time with, but.. since 2 months of chilling are about to be over, I might need to think about some of them sometime this month. Unmotivated to respond to a bunch of texts I haven’t been feeling like looking at.

Doubtful. Doubtful about how much social media usage I’m okay with. I’ve been trying to cut down on Instagram consumption a bit, but not super seriously, but I know deep down that as long as I continue to get some amount of dopamine from social media, I’m not going to put (as much) effort into other things, the more real things. But I know I can’t cut Instagram completely since it’s a big outlet for art-sharing for me.

Dissatisfied. Dissatisfied with the amount of physical exercise I got today. Definitely need to get more tomorrow.

Theorising. I do think it might be important to cut down (or completely eliminate) social media if I want to increase satisfaction overall. The wanting-to-be-everywhere problem only comes up more when you get a bunch of exposure from a bunch of people in different places.

048 – solitude, after a while

Haven’t written a 1000-word post in ages. I’m finally back from Bangalore and it’s been an eventful trip so maybe it’s worth reflecting on and I can manage a longer post.

This was probably my longest trip (12 days) in many years. Although it was a different kind of trip (ie I was still staying at people’s homes and not in hotels or airbnbs), it was still the longest time away from “home”, in a way.

Something I found myself craving on a day-to-day basis was alone time. But not just alone time where I don’t have to interact with people (because I did get this), but alone time in the sense of not worrying about being perceived for a few hours as well. I found myself really valuing the experience I was having in between destinations (ie cab rides), just listening to music and chilling. I was reminded of my teenage years, or even the time you spend in hostels (dorms) in college, where you really have to work hard to find pockets of alone time as well as privacy. I was taking phone calls in balconies and in the common society areas, which was also really reminiscent of college, where we’d have to often get creative to find privacy. It was also interesting to see how many people were doing the same thing – ie when I was downstairs I’d often come across other people also taking phone calls, often long ones. It was cool to randomly feel connected by this activity.

I also didn’t play much music or sing during the whole stay, so I spent most of my time today just singing and playing, and I realised I was craving that a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely experienced flow with it today.

Overall, I will admit that “experience” is so much more important to creativity than pure “time”. (ie the time dedicated to creative activities). Like the experience and the number of feelings I’ve had in the last 2 weeks has been quite valuable. I think I have a lot of material (maybe not direct) that I want to reflect on or use for art.

Got to reconnect with some of my older friends with whom I hadn’t had the chance to spend a lot of time over the last couple years, and also got to meet a lot of new people (some important, some just good in terms of meeting new people, but mostly good hangs), so pretty happy about that. Also, great food all around. Loved that.

Addictions went a bit up throughout the whole period so looking forward to cutting down on that a bit. At least, theoretically. Physically, thinking about working on quitting creates very strong feelings in my stomach, so that’s definitely worth noticing. I’ve decided on keeping a limit for 3-4 months, and then working on reducing the limit every few months. I’m committing to being more strict from today, and promising myself that I will come back to abide by the limits every time I fall off the wagon.

Other things: Most of my friends are software engineers, and observing them on a daily basis did make me think that maybe it’s not too bad to pick up engineering again. Apart from 2-3 months of higher workloads, I think most people’s work schedules are pretty decent. And a couple of friends also said work isn’t super mentally demanding, and although they meant this is a complaint, for me I think that’s a good thing to have. So, I’m optimistic about this option if I need to (or want to) come back to it a year or so down the line.

Had to cancel another trip that was due this week since I’m a little drained (mentally and emotionally) and as much as FOMO I’ll experience when I see my friend’s pictures, I’m quite sure that it’s the right decision. But definitely want to make a trip to the mountains sometime soon. Maybe August or September.

More other things: I realised that the reason other people’s emotions and problems affect me a lot is because I tend to sometimes take responsibility for it all. I feel a need to fix it or make it better or to really be there for them (even at the cost of my own thing sometimes). And I think I need to work a bit on this, ie I do want to be there for my friends, but I don’t want to feel their feelings for them. I guess I want to be able to empathise and be there for them without taking on (any part of) their emotions.

Alright, I think that’s all I have for the trip-reflection. I’ll now share some other thoughts that are coming up.

A progress-related thought on writing:

I used to worry that some of the stuff I’m writing about could already be covered in previous posts, but today I realised that it’s fine if that’s the case. If stuff shows up again and again, that just means it’s persisting, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s valuable information. In a way, if I thought repeats itself, the situation is still unique, because the thought repeating itself for the 2nd time versus for the 3rd time (at least when it’s written down) are actually two separate situations.

Last meta-writing thought:

I feel like I jump from vastly different topics and ideas when I write in a word-vomit / journal format. I think that’s okay, but I do sometimes wonder what the experience is like for a reader. For example, Ocean Vuong does that too in “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” but because his writing is so beautiful, I feel like it doesn’t matter whether the thoughts are super connected or not. In fact, sometimes the jumps create more beauty because they leave the reader a little bit curious about whether the “previous topic” ended or not. And if so in what way. Or rather, the incompleteness of certain thoughts adds more beauty, essentially. Anyway, that might be something worth working on. ie how to make seemingly disconnected thoughts connect, or flow, somehow.

047b – sadness is freeing

There is a question that various artists and creators have addressed over the decades: Is sadness, pain necessary to create art? [1]

Everyone has their own answers, and I’m not going to attempt to share a version of my answer to this today. But I do want to share another observation, somewhat related. I do find that there is a certain freedom in sadness that I don’t feel in happiness. With happiness, I find myself getting attached, wanting to hold on to it longer, wanting to preserve, and overall just very afraid to mess something up. With sadness, or other “negative” emotions, on the other hand, I feel extremely free. There is no pressure to be a certain way, “you’re already sad”, things can’t really get worse, and I feel like that opens up ideas, the page, the canvas, everything.

So while pain may not be “necessary” to create art, I do think it lends better to most art than positive emotions do. But of course, this may differ for people.

One part of this could be my particular relation with positive emotions. Why is it that positive emotions demand more attention and preservation from me? I guess it’s insecurity at some level. Maybe I’m more confident in giving up control when it comes to negative emotions (because I learnt that I needed to, and there wasn’t another way), and in that way I’ve actually learnt to process them even better than positive emotions. I need to let positive emotions also take their own course. I need to accept that those, too, cannot last.

The other part though is the “sharing” of art, and not just its creation. Firstly, I do believe that more sharing leads to more creation, and that is the primary reason why sharing is important. But even with sharing, it’s easier to share stuff related to negative emotions (for me), because even though happiness gets more rewarded on social media, I’m almost worried about conveying that I’m happy and sorted. Because if I convey that once, I worry that people are not going to be around when I’m sad again. But maybe that’s related to same thought around permanence. Maybe because I want happiness to be somewhat permanent, I think that other people look at it the same way as well. Maybe I feel the world has an idea of permanence around happiness as well.

Okay, to summarise: I feel more freedom around negative emotions as compared to positive emotions. I think negative emotions are not necessary but do lend better to the creation as well as sharing of art. I worry that the world also has the same ideas as me when it comes to relating happiness or positive emotions with a certain amount of permanence.

[1] Ocean Vuong talks about this in “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”

047a – the value of thought-dumps

People can be quite afraid of thought-dumps. Or self-deprecating about them. Like that isn’t “good writing”. But I (along with a lot of other people) think they can be super valuable. Like if I wasn’t afraid of thought-dumps I’d tell you how happy I feel when I have a nice time with a person I’m getting to know and learn about and how great I feel when I’m able to express that to them. If I wasn’t afraid of thought-dumps I’d tell you how excited I am for my morning blended iced-coffee and how I can’t wait for it to arrive. (The light is out so I can’t make it at home or I would’ve.) I’d tell you how grateful I’ve been feeling for some of my friends who’ve taught me how to communicate more, and better. Who make the logistics part of things easier. Who taught me that you can exchange goodbye hugs before you wear your bags so that the quality isn’t compromised. How bad I feel that I’ve been procrastinating on calling some people just because I’ve been unable to find blocks of time but I really do want to talk to them and get caught up with their lives. Thought-dumps show you what you care about the most, at the moment. Clearly, for me it’s people things. I didn’t fully love Bangalore as a city. This has been surprising for me since I’ve visited a few times and I’ve never noticed anything non-positive towards it. I like that I have so many people here, of course, but objectively, I don’t know if this is a city I’d want to move to, even to “just try” it. Maybe definitely not to “just try” it. If I had another reason to (like work), maybe then.

The other day a sufficiently close friend of mine told me I can be quite intimidating. The reason, he said, was that I have a really strong sense of boundaries and I’m also strict about making sure to set them, and not allow people to cross them. I think, his reasoning is fair. And of course, it’s not pleasant to hear that you can be (are) intimidating, especially if that’s coming from people you consider close, but then, I also think maybe that cost is unavoidable. I’m generally pretty socially satisfied and I don’t think that’s possible without strict boundaries. I have been letting loose quite a bit overall in this trip though. I’ve hung out with people throughout the two weeks, and let myself be in their physical presence for really long periods of time, even though I didn’t always feel safe or comfortable. I was realising yesterday that emotionally, my capacity to be vulnerable is quite high, much higher than most people I know, but what’s hard for me is vulnerability in physical space. (This includes just hanging out as well.)

So anyway, thought-dumps can be quite valuable. I hope people can see it too.

046b – i feel shitty when i don’t journal enough

Haven’t written anything for the last 4-5 days and it’s getting to me. Last few days have been quite emotionally exhausting since I’ve been spending a time with a lot of old friends and in general, what seems like an insanely new environment. I did expect a lot of discomfort to show up during this trip, but knowing that didn’t help me too much in navigating it. Finally got some time to myself today though, and that’s been helpful with recharging etc.

I’ve been having an explosion of thoughts right around midnight which then keeps me up for at least 2-3 hours before I finally fall asleep, and needless to say— that’s not pleasant at all. I think journaling before bedtime (like I’m doing right now) will be helpful.

There’s a few triggers I’m recognising which I probably need to be mindful of when I’m hanging out with a lot of people (old and new):

Happy couples, relationshipy things
Overly work-focused conversations
People who are seemingly thriving, well-adjusted and sorted wrt more than 70% of their life things
Being “bad” at anything

That’s all I can think of right now but I’d love to keep coming back to this list because I’m sure having it written down in front of me will be helpful.

Otherwise, things are okay. I’m getting to explore Bangalore as a city a little bit and that’s nice. The (good) weather does make a difference, I’ve found. More like-minded people around (as compared to Delhi) and that might end up being important too.

Sometimes I feel like going really deep into the micro-ness of situations. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid of putting it all out there. I think something I’m going to struggle with is how to talk (write) about the people around you without revealing too much. Not because I’m afraid of the truth of certain situations to be out there, but because sometimes the situation isn’t completely yours to tell.

Feeling a lot of pressure to create and share more. I think I need to focus on skill development as opposed to just having this vague goal of “creating more”. Need some structure with all of these (creative) activities. Or at least some of them. Or maybe this is part of me realising I don’t actually enjoy them as much as I thought I did and I’m just not ready to accept that yet. Man, it’d be very disappointing if that were the case.

I think lately, even though I’m not always happy (which of course is not possible either), I’m definitely more satisfied with life. Like overall, I’m satisfied and content with the decisions I’ve taken. And of course I’m still working on a lot of my shortcomings, some more important than others, but despite that, I’m definitely content with certain things:

Having a regular journaling / blogging routine
Making enough time for emotions and myself
- Through regular therapy
Improvement on my ability and speed to come back to the present when needed
Having taken the decision to take this work-break & move to India
My social connections

Alright that’s enough of the good and the bad. Write soon!

046a – time distribution

The part of me that worries about the future is also the part that has a really good imagination. I imagine being 60 and realising that I’ll have a lot of time to create all the art that I want. Provided my health stays somewhat okay, I can still do creative stuff at 60. Which also means it’s worth investing in the skills I want to pick up. Which means even if I’m not making great paintings right now, it’s still worth just doing the thing since I have around 20-30 years at least to get to the point my current self might probably be super proud of, then.

I don’t have to rush over anything. As long as I’m not irrational or completely stupid about the way I spend my money, I think I can afford to take my time with things.

In other news, I miss Amsterdam a little bit. I imagine everything must be really beautiful now that the summer must have arrived fully. I miss the afternoons, the evenings, I miss biking for errands. I miss storytelling nights at Mezrab and poetry nights at Labyrinth. I miss the coffee and the bread, and a random “Bedankt” here and there.

Reconnecting with my friends here in India has been great though. There’s a level of familiarity and familiality (this should be a word) that is almost unbeatable.

May has passed decently and June is going to be occupied with some travel. Once I’m back (ie July) I’ll start looking for apartments and move out of my parents’ place as soon as I find one. Looking forward to that, quite a bit. I’ve kicked off dating again and that’s been good, at least in the sense that I can afford to feel optimistic a bit, and don’t have to beat myself up about not putting in the effort on this front. I’m going to be 28 soon! Despite theoretically being in what I call “my yolo era”, of course the weight of societal expectations will trigger me about all of this from time to time. And the best defence to that (for my sake, I mean, not as an answer to society) of course, is — action.

I’ve been struggling a bit with how much time and bandwidth I want to reserve for the part of me that feels duty bound towards certain people (like family and friends). I think this is how I’d want to divide it*:

Dating (20%) (14 hours)
Creative Goals and Pursuits (30%) (21 hours)
Well-Being & Health (20%) (14 hours) [Includes recreation]
Social (15%) (10 hours)
Responsibilities (15%) (10 hours)
Misc [Future Planning? Lol idk? Other things]

Okay I think this helps. This tells me how much I can afford to spend on these buckets and if I did actually spend my time this way I probably wouldn’t be unhappy. Currently I’m not living in ideal conditions so my time is not distributed this way, which is fine. I’m hopeful that once the distribution moves closer to what I’ve listed above, things should be better. I’ve left a bucket open for other things that may come up and demand some of this usable time of mine.

Anyway, good sesh. Let me know how y’all spend your time and if I’ve missed important buckets!

*Rough weekly estimates. Calculated on the basis of having 10*7 hours of usable time every week after accounting for sleep, food etc, commute.

045b – gratitude + journeys

I am absolutely in love with the world today. I don’t know if it’s because my dad did a really cool ally thing* today morning or because a cute girl called me cute on Bumble or because I took the metro to go somewhere after ages of being fed up about traffic and the (perceived) lack of public transport in Delhi** or because I spotted (and bought) a super cool t-shirt at Uniqlo which gave me major gender euphoria (and general euphoria) and made me feel like I have great taste or because I had a nice time hanging out with this really close friend of mine or because… just. It’s probably all the things, not just one of them.

Regardless, it’s a happy day.

Overall, more good days than bad days over the last month. And that’s really great.

Having time for your emotions and ideas is really great. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go back to the constrained ways of living. I mean, I still practice “discipline” a little bit, I haven’t let everything run amok. But I don’t think I can do the 9-5 routine thing anytime soon.

I like the idea of having “certain things” that you do do everyday. Like I like playing online Catan and having cold coffee for breakfast each morning (or noon, when I wake up). I like watching a little bit of good TV with some good food sometime in the day. I like reading, I like doing at least one creative thing (painting, singing, writing). And lastly, I like some physical exercise (workout at home or preferably a walk outside). I do like having these set things that I do do, almost daily. But I don’t like having “fixed” times around them. Or I don’t want a compulsion around any of this.

I love the journey. Some (very few) of my thoughts (very tiny thoughts) lately have been in colours. And images. I really like that. It’s like learning a new language. And then to truly learn a skill would be to directly be able to think in this different language as well. Because, sure, translations are important. But the real magic I think will happen when your consciousness directly receives these thoughts and feelings (from inside you) in this different language. (Think words, melodies, colours, movements, sounds as the “different languages”.)

Anyway, I’m not high. Point is, the universe is great, life is precious, routinely activities are nice, and learning a skill is like learning a language, and if you’re lucky, you get to enjoy the journey.

*cool ally thing: he forwarded me dates of a pride march that his company is doing in various cities

**public transport in Delhi is actually pretty decent, compared to some other cities in India. But of course, my latest point of comparison is the Netherlands, which is hard to beat, so I hope I can be excused.

044b – three weeks of living at my parents’ house

Man, it’s been tough. In the last year or so, I’ve spent a lot of time at my parents’ house. And though it always does come with its share of hardships (I call them “red dots”), it’s been a little harder this time. Primarily because everyone thinks that because I’m more “free” (ie because I don’t have a job), they are entitled to more of my time. Or well, maybe not everyone, but my grandmother definitely seems to think so.

My sister was around for the last couple weeks so that was relatively nicer, since I absolutely love having her around (and so does everyone else). But now that she’s left, my grandmother thinks that she doesn’t “have anyone”.

Okay maybe this is going to be a grandmother rant more than anything else. She’s 83, and doesn’t really have a good relationship with anyone. She hasn’t treated her kids (one of them is my dad) very well throughout her life and is now (I think) suffering the consequences of her actions. Old age is of course difficult for most people (I guess), but I don’t know, it feels really difficult to take care of her.

Overall, I’ve been questioning some things as well. ie how much suffering can I see in front of me? How much of myself can I actually sacrifice just to attempt to ease her suffering a bit, though any of this sacrifice or charity (of my time, for example) doesn’t actually make her feel better on a deep level, which then makes me wonder whether there’s any point to my sacrifice at all.

I think I just need to set some boundaries. ie know my boundaries. I will always get frustrated when she wakes me up in the morning or noon or asks me to have meals with her, so that’s something I can allow myself to feel. But what I can do is spend some time (around 20-30 minutes) once in a couple days talking to her, and then even if that isn’t enough for that is eventually not my problem.

Had some small arguments with my mother as well, but I think they’re small in the grand scheme of things. My parents have overall been quite understanding of me, my preferences, etc. So that’s really nice of them and I appreciate it. (I probably need to tell them that, since I know one of their complaints is that I don’t appreciate them enough)

However I know that living here isn’t very sustainable, so I definitely need to move by July, latest.

Some things are nice though. It’s nice to have regular food, and two nice balconies, and most things smoothly running. It’ll obviously take some time to get that all once I move, wherever I move. And obviously it’s nice to save a bit of money as well.

I’m slowly trying to find time and solitude to engage in mini creative activities which has been really fulfilling. Also finished reading “Steal Like An Artist” (really short book, highly recommend for anyone) and started working on some the recommended things mentioned in that and that feels really good too.

So anyway, that’s what’s been up. Write soon!