Recalibration

Something is wrong with us, especially me. I used to be proud of myself, I used to smile at something silly, I used to cook beautifully, I used to write passionately, I used to have a sense of achievement even for the smallest things, I used to enjoy watching TV, I used to be happy and most importantly self satisfied and self sustained.

I say us, because when we moved to Pennsylvania after Masters, we were both alone, the only person we knew was Rohini/Didi and I am so thankful for that.  She helped us graduate from school life to work life. She took us along to meet some of her friends, but mostly we were content to be alone and we had tons of things to do and talk in between us. We used to roam in parks aimlessly, and appreciate the clouds, weather, amazing green grass and the sheer beauty of the day. We used to go to all possible libraries in our neighborhood, browsed the shelves for hours and would be grateful that my dad took me to the libraries as a kid. We used to go to fancy restaurants, dress up, drink, eat and be happy. We used to get up late weekend mornings, spend the whole 2 days aimlessly driving, listening to music, discussing, laughing, appreciating, crying; basically living our life in emotions.

All this is a thing of the past, as now a days we always look towards what needs to be done before we are in our late 30’s, its always we do not have this or that, its always striving. We take a break at home and than end up discussing, about our career, family or baby. We are in the lookout for the future, and the present is slipping by leaving us both so sad and worried. In our late 20’s, we did not have this sense of racing against time, but now every day is being counted for as again another day towards no progress in life.

We know we have changed and we do not like our pathetic selves, so we try to figure out the event or point of time that triggered this downfall. What are the few major events in the last 2 years, we went to live in India and came back, after which I changed my job. Maybe it is this event of going back to India that gave us an amazing experience, but you never come out of an event unscathed. There are many dreams that are better left as dreams and never turning them into reality. When you see the people you love changed, when you develop the surviving instincts to fight traffic, pollution, beauracracy, ideology and basic life; you give up a part of your simple self to more older, mature and practical self. Maybe that is the reason when you look at people who have faced hardships in their lives, you can almost touch the lines etched on the side of their eyes, you can feel the pain in their eyes, you can feel their hands and it would be worked, you can hear them talk and they would be cautious. This is my Masi who has faced challenges all her life, still smiling.

Time is irreversible.

I want to be at peace with myself, I want to take warm baths with nothingness on my mind; I want to be smiling and satisfied.

Happy New Year 2010

Another year, and that to 2010 sounds very far fetched or sci-fish.

In our case many things have changed in the past year, many things are there which we wished would change in the past year but it did not, hoping this New Year will bring us the joys which we search or grant us the satisfaction which we crave at times.

The last 2 months of 2009 was a roller coaster ride, still I did want to hold on to 2009 instead of letting it pass on to 2010. We went to our annual pilgrimage to India during the Thanksgiving holidays for my sanity check. India in different aspects is very reassuring to me, helps me come back to work and start all over again with a newfound energy. This trip generally gives me a yearlong quota for noise, pollution, traffic, air travel and above all loads of people and love.

This vacation we got stuck in India when I went for my H1B extension, and that resulted in a very panicky and unplanned holidays, which left very little to enjoy. We had another planned event which went haywire, and that was we were buying a house. We thought as we were coming back the first week of Dec, we had plenty of time to move and finish the changes we wanted to do. Good news is we bought the house in a rush and did vacate the rental apartment by Dec 31 deadline, bad news is we did not get any work done; still scrambling to get things in its place. The very good part was I had the whole of last week off, and the worst news is I am on my way to work and there are no vacations until May 2010, 4 dry months.

Forgetting all of the above, if I can live in today and move forward, that would be my New Year wish and try. I hope 2010 will be super special for us and for all of you reading this blog. I am trying to keep to my deadline of updating my blog Sunday night, but this one is late Mon morning 9:30am.