Ramblings

 [8:24 AM]

After writing the last blog, I got inspired to declutter my notes group on Whatsapp. I read about this app on Twitter (Notion) that allows you to make lists and immediately downloaded it. Then last morning, while being in bed, I reorganised my reading list. The list that I have made from the book mentions in some of my favourite blogs, a few Twitter threads, etc. Today I downloaded a few of those books. A couple of months ago, I was not able to read at all and I was mostly spending my time binging and scrolling through. Then somehow Deborah Levy pulled me back and just like that I am reading again. It makes me happy.

I am travelling for work today. I will be spending the next three nights at three different locations. The thought doesn't excite me though. It actually bothers me. I am most worried about toilets. So now you will hear from me next week, I think.

On some days, I like the silence of mornings, it calms me down. While on others, it bothers me and I start spiralling about things. Although I think the people I speak to matter a lot. Family, friends, colleagues and anyone who I am talking to on the phone or through texts/emails affect my mood more than they should.

I think I have grown more comfortable with this blog also. When I started, I was most worried about the point of all this. What is it going to give me? How will I benefit from this? What will I learn from this? However, somehow I am not thinking about any of that at this moment. 

Often I think about the digital footprint of people and what happens when they die. Someone I knew of in my grad college who would have been 27 today just like me died two years ago. She suffered from acute Leukemia. Her death was too sudden. She herself didn't see it coming. Every year, now on her birthday, I get reminded of her because people start posting on her Facebook timeline. Every year, then, I go back and look at her old pictures/ posts that she uploaded on Facebook. It makes me feel a certain way, although I can't describe that feeling. It's strange.

My experience of visiting gynaes since I was 20, my two surgeries, and numerous health checkups, have shaped me in ways I can't define. I am scared of hospital visits, I am scared of death (I don't know if everyone is). More than scared, it's better to call it anxiety. Shaheen Bhatt's book validated how I feel. I could relate to her when she said that she has visited hospitals for panic attacks thinking that it's a heart attack. I go to the office in auto and I think about toppling down the road and dying in a road accident. When I went to Chamba last year, my first thought was how and where will I get a hospital in such a remote location if I need one. So now you know I think about death quite a lot. I also inevitably end up thinking about my loved ones, especially P, reading this blog after my death.

Although I don't want it to happen anytime soon. I feel like I have just started living. I have built a home for the first time. I also truly believe that my 30s and my 40s will be a lot better than my 20s. I am looking forward to life. 

Okay. I have rambled enough. Bye, see you soon!

Phoebe-Horvath

[10:20 PM]

I changed the name of my blog today. It's named after two fictional characters that have influenced me the most. 

Phoebe Buffay, I loved watching you in my early twenties. Hannah Horvath, you made my late twenties more interesting. 

There have been so many more women who I have loved watching on screen. I have wanted to become them. Maybe in my pursuit, I also imbibed some of what they had. From Jo March to Anne to Lorelai Gilmore and Carrie Bradshaw even Jules Ostin and Ayesha Banerjee. 

I grew up in a small town watching YRKKH on StarPlus and so much of what I thought at that point was because of these TV shows. Much later, when I moved to Delhi and especially when I moved to Bombay for TISS, I was exposed to content that had real women. Women that I was looking for. Women who I could relate to. Women who made me feel less alone. Women who taught me what no education could ever teach me.

I wish and hope that someday I am able to write about these women and also those who were ridiculed in my extended family and society in general because they chose themselves. Or sometimes only because they lived and they wanted to be happy.

 It's annoying how much I think about writing and feel guilty about not writing than I actually write. I think about writing all the time. Sometimes I form the sentences and paragraphs in my mind but then either sit in front of the TV watching something passively or take my phone and scroll through mindlessly.

The last few days have been good. Mostly. There are restless anxious moments when I spiral for no particular reason, or when a family member's words trigger me. But it's mostly been okay. I have been working from home so that helps. 

I am so so much grateful for the house that I am living in right now. It's been four months and I still can't get over the sunlight that comes into my bedroom around dusk, the skyline, the clouds and the view I can see from my balcony. The fact that I hear no traffic noises in the street. There is no rush of any kind. We keep spotting snakes on our evening walks. The continuous breeze, the freedom to be me, the solitude, and the companionship that this place has given me is something that I have never experienced before. 

There are still things and moments that bother me, the shadow of my roots won't leave me easily but I am trying to be immune. I read somewhere that 'Freedom is when you are okay with disappointing people and I want to be okay now.

I am fucking 27. The only person I should be making happy and living for is me. That is the best thing I can do for myself and everyone who truly loves me. 

If you are reading this, and you know more women characters (in books or in movies) who I will love who are somewhat like Hannah Horvath or Lorelai Gilmore, please recommend them. 

Guilt

It's been 18 days since I have written here. I was supposed to write every day. In the last 18 days, I have thought about writing every day though. I am reading a writer's (Deborah Levy's) three part memoir. I am watching this show called 'Girls' where the protagonist is a writer. I think about writing and the struggles of it all the time. However, it still took me 18 days to come back here.

Today was also hard. It was a long day. A lot of it was spent in the auto going and coming back from work. I don't particularly hate travelling for work. At least on most days. Especially when the podcast episode that I am listening to interests me. The long auto ride seems worth it then. 

A friend asked me yesterday - 'Are you writing'

I said no. 

I wanted to explain her, tell her why I am not writing. But in, my head all of it seemed like excuses that I didn't want to say out loud. It been almost a month since I have received an editor's response over an idea that I shared. She wants to hear where my research has led me. I feel guilty all the time that I have not responded to her but I still haven't. I don't know if I am being lazy or this is called procrastination or is it just life.

Today while going to work I was listening to a podcast where a writer was talking about books and writing and life and observation. I feel like my mind works at it best when I am in the auto watching people and buses and traffic and just everyone looking as lost as me. 

I was remembering all these things from my childhood and I was surprised how vividly I remember the details of some of those memories. I remember it so clearly that I can almost see it in front of me happening right now. Most of those memories are not good though. Most of them are terrible, the worst. I don't know if I have any good memories that I remember as vividly. I hope I do.

It's been one of those days, when I have been in my head. Thoughts come and go fast, I don't know how to keep a track of them, or archive them, or focus on one of them. I feel like I lose them. 

I was also thinking about the kind of things that I write. Can I write words like boobs, pussy in my writing? Can I explore uncomfortable feelings? Can I write things that are true but necessarily not pleasing? I am having trouble even writing examples here. It's so hard for me to be truthful to my writing.

I know that my personality of constantly thinking about people and feeling their gaze is not doing me any good but today I realised how bad it is for my writing too.

I can't even blog or journal if I can't say the truth. If I can't say my truth. 

Shit Show

I had weird last 24 hours. I witnessed how two women turn on each other because of one man. And how the entire world blames either of the two women but the man still gets away. The women blame each other. The world blames them and calls them names. They become the hysterical witches who are paranoid and insecure and unnecessarily possessive. While this man who grew up in a sexist setup, and was never taught how to be with women is in a position of power and influence now. It's a shit show. This man's world is a shit show.

-------------------------------------

I have realised that if I want to write this blog consistently, I will have to make sure that I take out 30 mins for this in the morning. The day just goes by and in the evening I don't feel like writing. Sometimes I feel that I seek too much comfort.

I am watching a lot of silent vlogs these days. Especially House Number 26. It's weird but I find it calming to watch women on the screen do mundane everyday activities. I want to create vlogs too. Although, I am not sure if I can really do it.

Anyway, I am too distracted to write more today. If I do create a vlog this weekend, you will know. The chances are bleak though.

Bye!

Didn't want to write today

 [11:55 PM]

I didn't want to write today. I am just here because they say that showing up every day is important. I had a lot of work. I did some. Went out to have dinner with a relative who was in my city by chance. Overthought. Overshared. Felt vulnerable and tried to not overthink it. Drowned the voices in my head by watching a Youtube video and now I am in bed. 

There is too much food in the fridge and it is bothering me. I also don't like most of it, which makes it worse.

I read my last two blogs and cringed. It felt so unnecessary and self-indulgent. What's the point plus it's not even good writing. On most days I don't like what I write, or how I write. There is just this desire to write like those few people who I like to read. Sometimes it feels like I don't want it enough.

I have an editor's response to a pitch I sent two weeks ago. I need to work on that but I am not doing it.

Okay, going to sleep now.
Bye!

Who are you?

[7:18 AM]

It's hard to form sentences right now. My thoughts are all over the place. I woke up at 6 and then slept again only to see a weird dream. I don't know what it means.

I met my school friend who recently got married in my hometown. She told me that she and her husband are living separately because it was good for her career. She also said that she was becoming dependent on him a lot for her happiness.

----------------------

I was an obedient child. I was raised to be one. I always thought that if my parents are giving me freedom and letting me study in the best school, I should be grateful to them. I strived to be a good child and consistently sought their approval. I thought I needed to do that and only then will I be allowed to go to a big city and follow my dreams.

I didn't have dreams though. Apart from moving to a big city and earning my own money. My only motivation to do well in school was that I didn't want to be one of the women I grew up with. 

Even though deep down maybe I am?

As an independent young adult, technically I should be very comfortable doing my own thing. But I am not. I constantly feel the gaze. I still subconsciously seek their approval.

I read somewhere that - 'You can only be free when you are ok disappointing people'. It seems simple but somehow it's not. At least not for me. I know how hard I work on it every day. I am hoping that someday all this work will finally accumulate and show. 

----------------------

Last weekend I was talking to another school friend who said that among all the people she knows, I changed the most when I moved to Delhi. I also think so.

I was completely different in college, especially during the first two years of graduation. I was doing everything that I judged girls for in school. I won't say I became my own person. But I was not the person that I used to be at home.

As a 27-year-old, when I think about this, it gives me an identity crisis. How will you know who you are, when you are constantly trying to become what others want you to be? The voice that keeps telling me things in my head. Is it really mine? Did I not like dressing up and decking up as a young girl or did I not do it because I was a 'good daughter' and this made my folks happy. There are hundreds of examples like this. I don't really know who I would have become if I didn't follow the gendered code of conduct that was passed on to me. I don't blame anyone for this. Because there were still girls around me who didn't conform. They were ridiculed, mocked, and scolded. And I was happy being a good child until I wasn't, which happened very late.

Everyone rebels in their teens but I didn't. I never understood 'rebels' like I do now. Because I am a rebel, maybe a silent one most of the time, gathering the courage to speak up.

Rebels don't fit it, no matter how much they try but they don't. Once they realise this, they have two options. One is to live a life that's a lie and pretend to fit in. The second is to defy the norms, be a 'rebel', and be someone who is not liked by most. This must be difficult but I feel it's especially difficult for women.

It must be hard to be a bad woman but it must also be extremely freeing. I want to feel that freedom. One day, hopefully. 

---------------------------

Time to go. I have to go to office again today.
Bye!

And it begins!

[7:24 AM]

It's a Monday morning. I have woken up like a zombie. Didn't have a good sleep. But turns out, that it's a good day to start something that I have been wanting to start for weeks now.

Julie and Julia + Rumlolarum + Atomic Habits + My own desire to call myself a writer led me here. It took me so much time to start this because I was terrified of failing. It's not easy to do something consistently. I didn't want to add this one to the list of unfinished things that I wanted to do but could never do. But now I am here. 

I am going to start blogging. Everyday. Yes. Why? I will tell you:

1. I want to write every day even if I am not getting paid for it. I think if not better, it will at least make me a more disciplined writer.
2. The idea of having a ritual or something that you do every day, on good and bad days fascinates me. It's extremely challenging but also exciting. 
3. I have a lot of thoughts. Too many thoughts I would say. And a release might just do good to me and my mental health.
4. Obviously, I want to be Julie and Carrie Bradshaw. I might not be as interesting but I can try.
5. No one is going to read this blog but I am still scared of putting myself out there. I want to get over that fear.
6. I love archiving my life. I love the idea of being able to go back and see how I felt in the past.

That's it. I think that's a good number of reasons.

Generally, I work from home on Mondays but today I have to go to the office. This is the first time I am spending two hours every day travelling for work. And surprisingly, on most days I don't hate it. 

Although today might be an exception. I need sleep to function. A lot of it.

Now, before I start rambling in the first blog itself, I need to end this. 

Bye! See you tomorrow.