Tag: summers

100a – may updates

Back from travels, it was all surprisingly nice. The travel anxieties didn’t hit me as hard as they generally do and the pros (like weather, good landscapes, the general mountainside peace and quiet) was very very worth the little bit inconvenience of the actual “traveling”. Of course, this was also my “first trip” with Y and so I’m quite happy to record that it was all quite smooth. 

Being back in Delhi has been quite unpleasant even though it’s just been slightly over 24 hours. The weather is just absolutely horrendous, it’s quite intolerably hot. I really don’t know how people are continuing to function business as usual, and why we’re even expected to. It’s supposed to get better by the end of this week, though, and I’m hoping to god that’s true. 

There are sufficient things to look forward to in June, though, so I’m just going to attempt to focus on those for now. Mom’s birthday is coming up, another short trip with friends, plans with Y and her brother, maybe another open-mic or something if the weather gets a bit better— yeah I suppose that’s it for now. 

I also want to do more reading and writing, but really, I find myself at a loss of things to write about. It almost feels like nothing else is worth writing or talking about with everything that’s happening in the world. I find that I feel more this way whenever I visit social media, which, in certain ways is good, I suppose, there are benefits to “spreading the word”, but I also feel that sometimes I just end up feeling very restricted. That it would perhaps seem insensitive to speak about anything else at all. This feeling comes up quite often, every time something tragic happens, the news takes over all of social media, and then you do feel insensitive for talking about other things. But I don’t know, I haven’t found a solution to this yet. 

My apartment situation has been a bit troublesome and I’ve been feeling some anxiety about how my landlord may not renew my lease, but hasn’t told me about it so far. I think it’s all a bit unfair but I also don’t know if there’s much (if anything) in my control. If they decide to not renew it they ideally do need to tell me in a couple days more at most, so I’m just counting on that. It’ll be quite a bother to move at this time but I have to, I’d rather know about it sooner than later. 

Overall, quite upset with how much power differences there are in the world. Capitalism, eh? 

Hopefully June will be better than May was, I guess. 

I’d also like to learn to be content and happier about the things that are right than be upset about what’s not. Like they say, I’d learn to focus on the positives. I don’t know. It’s tougher than it used to be. I have a good emotional support circle (including friends, family, a really great partner), I am financially okay, and I am in relatively decent health. (Knock on wood). I have creative pursuits that fulfil me emotionally and intellectually, I suppose that’s enough to celebrate? 

Then what do I feel that feels so difficult to face? Why do the troubles feel bigger than everything that’s good? I’m not sure. This may be the first time in many weeks that writing about these things doesn’t seem to solve them, either. Could it be that I’m avoiding something else? I know I want to look for work post September, and I know I don’t want to do that right now for sure, yet, I think it does bring up a certain amount of anxiety to think that maybe I’m delaying the search for work for peace and relaxation. Maybe it’s because my music lessons are also paused at the moment so I feel like I may be officially “wasting my time”. Yeah, I think that’s it. Guess I can find something actionable in here. 

Okay, that’s it for now from me. Hope y’all are having a decent end to this month! Cheers xx 

026b – on softness and femininity

Random thoughts from the past have been visiting me lately. Mostly good stuff, thankfully. Memories from my childhood, often a source of comfort and warmth in the cold summers of San Francisco. What a contrast from the summers of New Delhi, eating mangoes at my nani’s house. I remember the one time I was sitting next to her watching TV, and she softly held my palm in hers, told me how pyaare and soft they were. She said she’s old now, so her hands are rough and wrinkly. I told her how I thought they’re rough because she works a lot, I’d read something like that in a book. She laughed and then accepted that without much argument.

I value the softness of my skin a lot. The one other time someone’s opinion of it affected me this much was when I was around 19. The first boy I was ever intimate with. He’d whispered a soft “wow” when he’d touched my arm, and I genuinely felt happy and grateful to have my body loved by someone. There’s something about softness and femininity being related that appeals to me, it appeals to the girl who’s always been “tomboyish” growing up. I suppose she cherishes it because it’s a visible mark of how feminine she is, something that sticks with her regardless of how she presents – regardless of the clothes she wears or the haircuts she sports. 

It took me a while to become comfortable with myself and my body, years and years of misery and therapy and coping, but I think I’m finally getting there. It’s incredibly liberating, as I always knew it would be. I would imagine days like this as something from a piece of fiction, something I knew I wanted but wasn’t sure I could get. Something I was working towards but not actively so. I always thought that societal acceptance would be the easiest path to self-acceptance (even though I knew that sounded wrong, somehow), but I think it was also some sort of rejection at this stage of my life that actually sped up the process of my self-acceptance. I’d been putting a lot of effort into myself when this one brutal rejection came my way. It was devastating, but somehow made me reach a point of “I don’t care about anything anymore”. Or at least, I attribute getting to that point to that event. And with that lack of care came a lot of forced acceptance. You could perhaps call it “giving up” as well, but eventually that evolved to a healthier version of care – i.e “I do give fucks, but mostly only when I want to”.

I don’t have a lot of structure for this post, since I followed a bit of a “I’ll let the words take me where they want to” approach, and though I’m not unhappy with it, I’d love feedback if anyone happens to read this – was this as confusing as it feels to me? Thinking about Rilke’s lines now – thinking about what he said about soliciting feedback on your art. If you delve deep inside yourself, and you create art out of that knowledge and awareness, you wouldn’t have to solicit feedback. I suppose I haven’t delved inside all the way, yet.