I found notes I had written to myself in April 2016. From a time when I was aggressively motivated to do something and find my calling if there is indeed such a thing. There are lists and threads strategically mapping one thing to another. List of things that give me joy. Travel. People. Books. Teaching. Helping. Photos. List of professions I have fancied. Teaching. Research. Fashion designing. Hairdressing. And because someone had told me that I can achieve anything, as long as I allow myself to dream it, there is TLC traveler, photographer for Nat Geo, and becoming a Psychotherapist on it.
I have surfed that tide and am in a happier calmer place now. And the April of 2017, I want to put down in the history of my life as the ‘coming of calm’. My friends worry, but I assure them, I am the same old hag with a few new quips. I still live off pani puri, McDonald’s takeaway, and Jab We Met dialogues. It’s just that my new April involves a new pani-puri wala, reduction in takeaway meals, less of “Nai dekhne mujhe ganne ke khet” and more of “Boring banado ji ab iss raatko”.
I still want to stitch my own clothes, travel, meet people, teach, and dream of being a Steve McCurry, but without the aggressive insecurity of running out of time, opportunity, of not being good enough. I have come to love mundane things and long for routines, things I was scared of as an adolescent. I look for an epicenter for my being. I have even made a home for myself where I feel calm, most of the time. And the FOMO exists of course but does not drive my life. Which makes me realize how important today is. Or every other day that is like today.
Today when a conference call goes on for too long, and you end up scribbling bad words on the corners of your pages when the boss just does not get your point, Medium articles are too preachy, when the room is too hot and the food too bland. Today, which came after a month of losing a wallet, having emotional breakdowns, being broke, being lonely, and losing another wallet. This ‘today’, the dust on my study table seems important enough to be scowled at. Today I thought of May and June. In May, I want to turn into this lady who has a life before she gets to work. Not just work with hours of binge-reading at night. I don’t want to groggily go to the office and wake up there. I want to read the newspaper, make coffee, finish what I left incomplete at night, and maybe even have breakfast before I get to work. So work feels like one of the components of life, just like reading is.
In June I want to get a tattoo of a wildflower on my arm. Today, problems are as fixable as adding salt to food, as picking up a duster, today’s mind thinks of the future and grows by that much. Such ‘today’s, I wish to devour, carefully smell, willfully hold in for longer like you would a good sip of spiced wine. Last April I was the storm, this one I live for the mundanes that follow storms. They don’t feel heavy with anticipation of the storm, they do not wreak havoc, they sit and soak all the tire out of you so you are less withered, less wilted during the next.