Ripples of my Reflections

I think, therefore I write

Category: LIFE HAPPENS (Page 5 of 25)

Motherhood

July 13, 2018 /

So fulfilling, yet so brutal. So precious, yet so frustrating.
So awesome, yet so tiring. So proud, yet wanting to run away.

The journey is amazingly detailed with attempts at prying open tired, sleep-deprived eyes to take care of someone other than your own self. Zombie-walking through the day and praying that she should sleep through the night at least once in a while so that I don’t drop from lack of sleep.

The only way out is to put one step ahead of another, to conquer yet another day with minimal disasters, to enjoy small victories like an easy burp and a proper poop from the little one, and to just keep going.

Everyday I keep reminding myself of this wonderful line from Stopping by woods on a snowy evening by Robert Frost:

I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Until later 🙂

Can and Can’t

June 20, 2018 /

Yes, I can do this! Yay!
Wait, who am I kidding? I am exhausted.
You got this!
Oh my god, what have we done?
It’s precious, I am blessed.
Is this how it is gonna be for the rest of our lives?
It’s all worth it.
What am I gonna do?

And it goes on… The fear, the happiness, the unconditional love, the guilt, the fulfillment, the frustration, the constant terrifying question that you ask yourself – will I be able to do this?

That’s parenting for the most part, riding up and down the waves without any stability, going with the flow.. It’s a new experience, fulfilling and terrifying at the same time.

Until later 🙂

The certain uncertainty

May 17, 2018 /

We live our lives assuming we have complete control over everything around us or at least everything that involves us. Life keeps telling us that it is not so but will we ever learn? The uncertainty is hidden in plain sight. The irony mocks at us every single day. We call it Murphy’s law, bad luck and tough times, when the truth of it is staring at us head on. There is only uncertainty in life. Everything else is an illusion of control. The plans that we make – they are little blips to help us feel as if we are in control, to keep us from turning into hopeless cases of melancholy. But what we miss is to realise that in the grand scheme of things, it is all chaos stringed together to seem like an orderly world.

The butterfly effect is a perfect explanation for life and in a hurry to escape the effect, we lose something important – The skill to accept and handle uncertainty in life. And when things happen and put you in place, you just feel like you are hit on the face straight on. But the truth is you could have seen it coming, if only you accept that you cannot see it coming. Get the irony? Well, this is the message given to me by this year 2018 and the message is still being delivered. And like a true homo sapien, I hopelessly cling on to my plans. Until I get hit in the face again.

Until later 🙂

Be careful what you wish for

May 4, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Owning a car was never on my wish list, but it turned out to be a mandatory evil that I have to deal with. Adit and I were happy with cab rides, public transport and our faithful Activa. But with impending parenthood, I started realizing the perks of owning a car. knowing how to drive a car. I was hell bent on the fact that we should at least know to drive a car even if we don’t want to own one. When you learnt to drive a car 10 years ago only for the sake of obtaining a driving license, you get a misplaced feeling of confidence that learning car driving again is easy. Well, the experience put me in my place.

Adit was not into buying a car and learning to drive it but I kept pushing him. I listed all the perks, nagged him and even told him I will use it even if he doesn’t like to. His main aversion was because of the Bangalore traffic and I fielded it with the typical answer that it is a known problem with any city. He was wary of the fact that we need to own a car and practice often in order to become a good driver and hence we would end up buying one anyway. In spite of his aversion and the fact that he attended driving school 6 months ago and then took a break before actually buying the car, I must say, he drives better than me . I just finished my driving classes and we bought our car when I was still attending the classes so that I can practice more. But disappointment awaited me. The learning experience threw me off my feet on the first day of my driving lessons. I realized that driving in Bangalore traffic is a different ball game than driving in my native.

Soon enough I started dreading the driving classes and the times when we drive our car to practice. Long story short, many driving classes and tense practice sessions in our car with Adit later, I can safely say that I now believe I can learn to drive a car decently  someday. Till then, nerve wracking driving sessions are to continue. I have started hating pedestrians who casually walk across the road while talking on the mobile, 2 wheelers who overtake you on the left, people who cross roads without using the over bridge, vehicles cruising on the wrong side of the road. These traffic hurdles used to bother me before but now I loathe them vehemently. It’s like a mini heart attack every time something jumps at you on the Bangalore roads in addition to the infamous potholes and irregular speed breakers. I agree that I am a poor driver, but these just irritate me further and send me into a whirlwind of panic.

To make things easier, I was even wondering whether we should just buy an automatic version because the controls in the car are one too many for me. However, many discussions later, we have bought the manual version and I gotta learn to drive it. Whether I like it or not. Well, I keep telling myself, “You will get there”. When and how is something that time will answer. Sigh! I should have been careful about what I wished for.

Until later 🙂

The pursuit of disarray

April 22, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Anyone who knows me for a while will know that I have a thing for cleaning. However clean the place is, I won’t be satisfied. I will compare and contrast against how others maintain their houses and feel bad that I couldn’t do enough. Adit might feel that the place is sparkly clean, but all my eyes tell me is that the place is a dump. So I will place the blame on his definition of cleanliness. My mom, she keeps the place clean enough, but for her, accomplishing the work comes as a first priority. So if she has to focus on cooking an absolutely delicious meal, she would focus on that. But me, I need things to be in place, I really don’t bother about how my cooking is. So that’s that for an idea of how obsessive I am in cleaning the house. As a result, I would be constantly cleaning, without ever being satisfied. I would start cleaning our room and by the time I go from room to room, finally finishing up, our room would look like a dump (at least to my eyes). Sigh!

Sometimes I think that my mind likes this miserable feeling of dissatisfaction so that I keep striving to clean, clean and then clean some more. No amount of cleaning seems good enough. On the plus side, cleaning is therapeutic. Also, it keeps me on my toes for a decent time. A strong urge to clean is the only thing that can beat the laziness out of me and get me going when I am in a state of zero motivation.

However, ever since Aditi was born, the house has been in chaos for obvious reasons. Lack of time, energy and everything else. And people tell that it is only gonna get worse as she grows up and starts to explore. To keep myself sane, I have been chanting to myself to let the obsession go. I keep telling myself to lower the bar, to accept things in disarray. It is hard! So hard! But things are going downhill, whether I like it or not. Although I keep cleaning here and there whenever I get time, there is no way I can match my incessant mind’s expectations. Just to practice letting go, I see something that’s out of place and try doing nothing about it. But it is there in my mind constantly. Yet, I try hard to do nothing about it. Some times, it works. Other times, it is just chaos in my mind. It is hell, I tell you.

The pursuit of disarray begins… Will the ‘Monica’ in me rest in peace? 😐

Until later 🙂

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