It took me a week, if I count it done, to complete a task I “should” take half an hour to do. I count the number of hours in a week, 168. Subtracting the time for sleep, I think I have wasted 84 hours of productivity. Such thoughts induce anxiety. I tend to chew my lip when I am anxious. My lips hurt. I think I forgot my chapstick at R’s. R’s is a stressful home, if home it is at all. People cheat, threaten, fight and leave. I came home from there last week.
I have decided to not take a bus home. The women in my compartment on the train were the chatty kind. They became friends so fast, that it made me motion sick. One made mehndi on everyone’s palm, I got a sun on my right, recipes were shared, and baby stories were exchanged. I don’t make notes of such incidents on my phone anymore. It bothered me that they did not talk about books, politics, or love. I could have used it. I have been swaying from one bad book to another. Don’t know what has happened in the world outside of mine and I got my heart broken so many times this week, I was surprised it had it in itself to keep going any longer.
My heart is one tough cookie I have realized. It goes through long nights that are tough, now that they are longer. I sleep in a sleeping bag next to my grandmother’s bed. She is doing fine, both of us tell each other. The weather keeps our mood company. It is glum. Most of the time anyway. Other times I think of cheesecake and of books that will win my heart in the first paragraph like Midnight’s Children had. I settle for reading feminist screenshots instead.
I am settling into a routine I have noticed. This routine feels like the thin comfortable quilt I got made out of mum’s old cotton saree. Peach. It is made of guilt, mellow happiness, longing, sleepy, sleep, bad tv shows, to-do lists on a white pin, reminders on yellow, punctured every now and then by encouraging paintings, messages, and photos of poems by virtual friends. One tells me I am bold with my feelings. Unapologetic almost. I try, dear you. I will say ‘you’, just you without a name, you like an old love song, I will tell you the more helpful thing I was once told: the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain.