bangalore – untitled atm

094b – hanging out

Sitting in a Doolally in Andheri in Mumbai and I’m determined to write a post today. I’d decided to travel for very personal reasons and even though I was content to be able to visit, I did keep an additional couple days on almost a whim of sorts. I thought I might meet people, go to the beach or do something fun, without planning too much for it. Also the tickets were much less expensive which was an important factor too.

I do feel like including a bit of randomness in life can be really lucrative, conducive, especially to creative work. Which is why I also feel that if I don’t get a post done I won’t feel like I made the most out of this “time” I had to kill.

Of course, if there were enough people to meet I would have been happy to spend my time with them too, but since it was short notice and somewhat last minute, I do have the evening to myself. I have a couple hours to kill before I can head to the airport and to be very honest, I feel like they might not be super easy to kill. But let’s see, we’ll see how that goes.

There are of course other “tasks” I can do but really don’t want to. Part of me wonders if I should have gone to a cafe instead of a bar. But cafes can be a bit too quiet actually. I’m not very sure. Maybe we do need “work places” that also serve alcoholic drinks. I know there’s probably a few out here but maybe not enough.

My time in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi has reinforced one thing for sure however— Mumbai definitely feels the safest and most “chill” (especially for me personally as a single queer woman) amongst the three. The other day I felt extremely unsafe and observed in Delhi, even at the airport, a place that’s supposed to be very busy and diverse.

As I start to feeling closer and more attached to the person I’m dating at the moment, I’m starting to feel warmer towards monogamous / monogamish structures again. I was thinking maybe I don’t feel jealousy and possessiveness for people lately but now I’m thinking maybe that’s not very true. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the last week and I’m feeling a lot of “new” feelings for this person since then. But I do, still, worry about the idea of attempting to “secure” our attachments. It feels quite risky. Addressing this feels good though. I hadn’t realised I was carrying this and it was weighing on me quite a bit. I do feel a lot of separation anxiety when we say goodbye or end calls and I just don’t know if that can ever be solved or if that will ever feel less painful. With separation anxiety, it’s never a lasting feeling, I know that things become okay once we spend a bit of time apart, like I get busy with my own thing, my own routines etc. But it is super difficult when actually separating. Maybe I look this up a little more and do some research on this. Maybe there’s a way to ensure that I won’t be co-dependent even if I’m in a monogamous relationship. This sounds tough to me but I DO feel that that’s my primary fear. Not that I won’t get to date other people etc but that I will lose my individuality. So maybe I think about this fear first instead of thinking about non-monogamy instead. Maybe detanglement and individuality and independence is what I care about a lot more than wanting to see other people. Maybe seeing other people is just one way of asserting that independence and choice, and wasn’t the aim all along. Let’s see. I’m going to sit with this for the next few weeks.

I’ve written this word vomit with only 80% focus (I also replied to a bunch of texts with 80% focus), but I think I’m good for now. Hope to write again soon, cheers folks! xx

090b – intimacy and travel

There is something about leaning on people that feels incredibly rewarding. Intimacy is magical and every time you do something tough in the journey (asking for what you need or want, or something you’d like, or canceling plans with consideration)— you know it can go either way. It can strengthen a connection and add more “events” (data) to it or it can weaken it. Both outcomes are okay but it’s always fun to see where it goes.

I have been spending most of my time in other people’s spaces and lives, and slowly but steadily I allow my life to merge in their spaces, that’s quite fun too.

Today I spent my afternoon in a good friend’s room, he’s moved out of it but some of “him” was still around. I send him a picture of his desk and tell him I’m having fun and he tells me where the trees are if I’d like to improve the view. It was all quite nice. His desk was dusty and yet the afternoon light made it all quite romantic for me. Dusty surfaces in otherwise mostly clean spaces are an interesting little detail to me.

I visited a very old friend in her house in a far-off neighbourhood in the city and I was reluctant to go there, but the trip was quite worth it. I like seeing residential spaces and how different people have different lives. We talked about everything under the sun and I wondered when we’d meet again. In the past we’ve gone many years without meeting and I’m pretty comfortable with that too.

I haven’t been doing as much writing as I’d like to be doing but maybe I’m changing that right now.

We talk about how “if you wanted to, you could write about anything, really” but something stops us, still.

All (okay, most of) my friends are analytical as well as creative and I love that about them.

I was more careful of my energy this time though and I’m quite glad about that. I felt like I was able to balance self-preservation and getting “enough” out of travels pretty well.

Headed to Bombay tomorrow and spending three days there and although I was feeling like I’m done with traveling, I’m finding that I am looking forward to meeting some people. Pretty excited about that.

Also did some good amount of “exposure therapy” over the last few days which I’m happy and content about.

Indulgences though, ah. Back to tapering down from it now, hopeful I can keep at it.

I think getting any new ideas and or art (or cultural expansion) from any sort of traveling makes the travel (or other activities) very worth it. We clicked a lot of pictures, had some good food, recounted old stories, wrote new ones, and that’s more than I could ask for, I suppose.

That’s 90K words! Glad to be here. Don’t think I’d like to get away from this habit, really. I like documenting things, I like noting down how I feel about events and things happening in my life. I do find myself going back to reading these from time to time, which I think serves a nice little purpose for myself too.

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.