Secret lives, self-help jargon and honesty

I’m about to inflict another unrelated, incoherent list without as much as a warning. Take this.

1.) I inhabit a parallel universe for the most part of the day. In said universe, I’m the protagonist, I always say the funniest things and I have doting friends and family. In this version of The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, I may not swoosh down from the air and rescue people from calamities and disasters, but I kind of make their day with my charming presence and wit. I heal broken hearts with sinful brownies that I whip up in my cozy chic kitchen. And brighten up weary souls with stellar home cooked meals as I regale them with interesting stories, great conversations and soul-stirring music. Sometimes, when the stars are aligned, my secret life and real life merge like a dream and even as I revel in it, I know it’s short-lived, temporary as all things in life, and life itself. I flit between these universes and I think they feed off each other in a strange way. This is not just useless distraction, as I see it; to me, this is insightful, it is a means of self-improvement, and it’s also a kind of mental rehearsal. But most importantly, the person in that secret universe is who I aspire to be. Living in it gives me hope, strength and makes me feel like I’m closer to becoming that person, that this is all possible. And that, my friends, is enough. A life ripe with possibilities.

2.) I sometimes come up with really cool, interesting thoughts or a great joke, but I don’t say it right away if it’s a private conversation with just one person. I feel like that thought deserves to be shared with a larger audience who’ll appreciate it better. (Bring on the applause and the standing ovation.) So I hold it and wait endlessly for said opportunity to present itself. It’s not like I’m going to address a Ted Talk, but hey, you’ll never know, right? Why do I do this? Because I want people to know that it’s mine. The thought, the words, it’s all me. I wouldn’t want someone stealing it and taking credit for it. I’m vain, like that.

3.) I’m all for self improvement but I cannot stand people who speak like they’ve ingested every cheesy self-help book in the world. I have friends who speak in self-help jargon (read gibberish) of aligning their past self with their present and extension of identity beyond societal norms and for the life of me I don’t get it. Whatever happened to simple, honest talk? The more I hear friends spout such BS, the less I’m inclined to spend time with them, or most of all, trust them. Drop that mask, honey. I can see right through you.

4.) That brings me to honesty, the number one trait I look for in people these days. I’m not in college anymore, so I know that you can’t build everlasting bonds based solely on taste in music, books, movies, food, TV shows and fashion. I just want to meet real people with whom I can be more of myself. I don’t want to be impressed so stop trying to seem cooler than you are. I want to know who you really are. Your deepest fears, your imperfections, your flaws, your dreams, your genuine ideas, thoughts, feelings. I want to be able to share my world without judgement and scorn. And without the need to pretend or be restrained by political correctness. I want to be lost in conversation on things close to my heart and I want to rest assured that the other person has my back always. It’s the kind of community I want to build, where people care for each other and make time for each other, no matter what. And don’t dish out unsolicited parenting advice.

Notes to self

A set of reminders for a better everyday.

1.) Focus on being present in the moment . This has been a recurrent theme in my blog of late too. Learning the art of doing this from 14-month-old D.

2.) Set apart time for fitness. Work out at home, resume yoga, meditate for a while, go for a walk. Was regular with this but been lethargic ever since I got home to be with parents.

3.) Read good books. And read more often.

4.) Listen to music. Surprised that this is on the list because this is the one thing I used to do all the time. Now, though, my phone’s always on mute but I do play music in the background when D is eating or playing. But it’s mostly devotional or classical music, thanks to my family. Maybe pick different kinds of music too, so D is exposed to more variety.

5.) Mindless social media surfing needs to stop. My fingers and wrist hurt after a point!

6.) Start driving your car. Enough with the excuses and the baseless fears.

7.) Wear sarees more often, and learn to drape with more finesse. On a similar note, wear good clothes, give away stuff you don’t wear. Been doing this in regular intervals but wardrobe optimisation is a life-long process.

8.) Focus on self care. Seriously. It’s about time. Treat yourself to a good hair cut or a pedicure every few months at least.

9.) Practice patience. Easier said than done especially for someone like me who’s most impatient. But, but, I’m already doing a lot better than the last few weeks ever since I felt myself spiralling out of control. Point number 1 , aka, mindfulness, has helped.

10.) Get on top of your finances. Pending PF withdrawals, invoices, investment status, mutual fund returns, SIPs… get them all sorted one by one.

11.) Pick your projects. I’ve been turning down out a lot of work that’s come my way these days because I realise it’s not important now. Maybe it’s a good idea to say an outright No rather than reeling under the pressure once you’ve agreed to take on said work and then opting out. I want to spend more time with D. She’s my number one. Work scene seems more manageable now.

12.) Ask for help. You can’t and don’t have to do everything yourself. I can count on family and friends to help with babycare and more or just talk.

13.) Stay in touch with friends. And get out more to meet them. Also don’t shy away from forging new friendships.

14.) Do things you love. Sing, bake, cook, paint, photograph, write, work, laugh, play with abandon, with passion and zero expectations. And don’t think about how you’ll be perceived or if you’re good or bad. Treat everything as an opportunity to learn. Try it without holding back. Without seeking validation.

15.) stay grateful and positive. You are in a god place.

16.) Cut yourself some slack. It’s all right.

Why I am on Instagram

I’ve been grazing Instagram a lot lately and I have to admit that I like this social media platform. I post almost every other day and most of my content has to do with motherhood, D, and now that I’m home, snippets of our garden, my grandparents, and some glorious food which I don’t have to cook. Most of what I share are happy frames and the ones that are not so happy are usually disguised as light-hearted posts.

However, a few days back I found myself in a really dark space and I did something I’ve never done before: I vented on Instagram. I am a private person and I generally don’t like the idea of sharing too much information online but this time I was so lost and helpless that I had no second thoughts about honestly expressing how I was feeling. I got plenty of very thoughtful and supportive messages from friends and people I barely know and it made me feel secure. M completely disapproves of me doing this though. He believes that certain things are best left unsaid when it comes to social media and his view is that it’d soon become an obsession and you’d feel the compulsion to share every trivial detail of your life on a public platform. I agree with him to an extent considering I’m just as guarded about posting stuff online. Yesterday, for instance, I took down a story because M insisted it was showing D in bad light. I thought it was a funny post – irreverent but funny, nonetheless- about D’s sleepless nights but M said I was being harsh on D and it’s not ok to complain about our kid like that. Had a major argument with him and eventually deleted the story.

By now, it’s well established that Instagram holds an unswerving power over our relationship. Especially now that we’re in different cities temporarily, the stress gets to us: to me, more than anyone else. And I’m already plotting sweet revenge when I get back to Hyderabad: determined to go out and explore the city alone while leaving D with M all day. Anyway, the question is: why am I on Instagram?

The answers are multi layered. For one, I like the Instagram community, now that I’m a mom. Earlier I’d just post travel pictures and get on with my life. But now, I’ve discovered Instagram moms! I follow a lot of them for their absolute honesty, humour and no nonsense approach to parenting, for keeping it real, for normalising a lot of things like breastfeeding, postpartum depression and the hellhole that motherhood is, at times. No judgments. I also follow moms for book reccos, fun activities, toddler food ideas, and so on. More than anything there’s a sense of camaraderie, a feeling that we’re all in this together, our experiences matter and the anger, rage, irritation we feel as mothers is normal.

Secondly, I don’t have many mom friends. And I live in a quiet part of town that’s very far from where a couple of my only friends in the city live. I do not have friends in the building I live in or in the vicinity. So it’s a rather lonely journey with me staying holed up with D all day long in the flat except for walks in the park in the morning and evening. Instagram on the other hand is home to plenty of moms, most of whom I want to connect with and be friends with in real life. So I live in that little bubble when I’m home, exhausted and a little lonely.

Do I want to document my journey and D’s on Instagram? Not really. I quite enjoy sharing snippets every now and then but I’m not comfortable with the idea of flooding my page with personal photos. I used to deride moms who can’t stop sharing pics of their little ones but I kind of get where they come from, and I enjoy reading their posts so it’s all cool. Instagram captions are the new blogs, it seems like. I’m still pretty old fashioned though and prefer writing long winding articles here to posting lengthy Instagram captions. This is my safe space.

Why do I spend so much time on Instagram? The response to this is plain boring: i cannot leave D alone even when she’s asleep ( here our bedroom is upstairs so I have to be with her) during the day or night. By now you know that my little peanut hates sleeping and i have to draw the curtains to make the room pitch dark. It’s too dark to read a book. So my phone is my friend! Instagram to the rescue. Or Netflix on mute with subtitles.

One of my favourite things about Instagram is that it has helped me discover some fabulous indie brands – be it fashion, beauty, kids clothes, toys, books, home decor, food, recipes , you get the drift. It’s like Pinterest, Amazon and Facebook rolled into one. I’ll share some of my favourite Instagram brands in another post. Plus I’ve been following a lot of accounts related to fitness, food, home decor and parenting that inspire me and give me hope.

I am prone to jealousy but by and large, this community doesn’t stir up too many negative emotions nor do I feel the pressure to keep up. I look at these Instagram accounts and pages as free tools to learn new things, seek inspiration and get better. I even got interesting work opportunities thanks to the platform, so while I have toyed with the idea of deactivating my account I don’t see the need for it. On good days, I share the joy I experience and on bad days, I seek validation and support. Doesn’t seem like a bad deal at all.

Belated gratitude

gratitude: readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness

Don’t we all aspire to be grateful? Maybe we’ve even dabbled in keeping a gratitude journal, diligently noting down five things we’re thankful for every day. Or every other day. Okay, once a week. Realistically, once a month. And then forgetting its existence for a long time only to fish it out one particularly rough day hoping it would soothe your violent heart. But no. Instead it seems forced. Your gratitude journal is one big fat lie. On one seemingly uneventful day you’d written ” I’m grateful for a quiet evening spent reading a book and sipping coffee”. But you’d spent said evening sulking at home and wishing you could go meet a friend.

Maybe you truly are grateful… but only on retrospect. The full force of it hit me now as I lay next to a sleeping D on the bed. I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and moved to tears thanking the powers that be for the gift of this little squishy in our lives, for her enthu-cutlet-ness, her relentless curiosity, her sense of wonder, her overall cuteness and the boundless joy and love she brings.

Cut to a few minutes ago, though, I was a mess. I lost my cool while dealing with bedtime; I’ve never seen anyone fight sleep as much as my baby does. She was tossing and jumping about on bed, kicking me and biting while I was trying to keep calm and nurse her. And then something within me snapped and I literally yelled at D telling her she’s troubling me way too much and if she doesn’t sleep, I’ll go nuts. And I meant it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to call my mom to help me settle D to bed, and while she slept peacefully in my mother’s arms, I broke down into tears.

I remembered just how grateful I really am for D, for my family, and felt guilty about what had just happened. I shouldn’t have yelled. She’s a baby. But at that moment, when I was battling bedtime with a fidgety baby, I was honestly not feeling grateful at all. When my mom came upstairs to help me, I wasn’t particularly thankful either. Why is this gratitude thing always an afterthought? Why is it so hard to remember to feel grateful when you are bang in the middle of that moment, no matter how happy, sad or overwhelming ? Is it just me or does anyone else have a problem with acknowledging the moment you’re in, being fully present and reacting in a way that does not make you cringe with guilt later on?

I used to jot down things I’m thankful for, as an exercise. And I noticed that it simply seemed too forced at times, especially on days when nothing significant really happened. Arbid entries like “grateful to be alive” or “thankful for a nice meal” evoke zero feelings of genuine gratitude. It’s also confusing because I don’t know whom I should be directing my gratitude to for staying alive, for instance. The Beegees? (Worst joke) Plus, there were entries that seemed to suggest I was grateful but I really wasn’t; definitely not when I was in that predicament. “Grateful for the long wait at metro station and conversations with a stranger”. That’s a lie. So not grateful at all because who likes to wait endlessly for the train after a long day at work? In retrospect though, it just seemed like something you ought to have been thankful for. It’s very tricky, this gratitude thingy; even when it’s real, it seems fake. And when you ought to be genuinely thankful for something, it’s always too late, it’s always on hindsight. If only we knew we are grateful when we are in the thick of the moment! If only we were more mindful and consistent, there’d be no need for things like gratitude journals on bedside tables. Or therapy.

New year, same me

I’m not big on New Year Resolutions, but the last year has revealed several aspects of my personality I hadn’t encountered in a long time. Anger, frustration, anxiety, also unbridled joy and love – having a baby brought a whole lot of big big feelings and emotions to the fore. So I really feel the need to sit back, take stock and put it all into writing. It’s my version of therapy. So here’s a laundry list to help get myself back on track.

Exercise

This tops the list for various reasons: I need the endorphins because baby care drives me up the wall on some days. I quite enjoy working out but haven’t done any hard core exercises so far, so this might be the year of high intensity strength training work outs. God knows I need all that physical strength and endurance. Surgery has left me with a weak back and there have been times when I’ve hurt my legs and back sleeping or just standing or sitting. I kid you not. I toss from sleeping on one side ( night time nursing is no fun but slightly bearable this way) to getting flat on my back and my body literally creaks and goes: whoa, easy there! Literally a wake up call ( pun intended). When sleeping has turned into an injury-causing activity, you know it’s time. I do not like gyms so I’m just going to resume my runs and work out at home. Any good YouTube channels and app recommendations are welcome.

Self care

I spend my day in atrocious clothes, my skin is dry and scaly (why you do this Hyderabad) and my hair is messy, wiry and has a mind of its own. My self care aspirations are hence very basic – moisturise every day, oil hair, use good conditioner, brush hair. Yes, the bar is set really low. If I manage to have a consistent night skin care regimen (cleanse-tone-serum) then I’d have outdone myself, but I’m the least disciplined when it comes to stuff like this. Moisturising seems like a chore to me, that’s like five minutes of my time I’d rather have spent scrolling through my Instagram feed. But I need to muster the self discipline to do this because I kind of care about how I look. To some extent. I’m always such a mess so it seems like I don’t give a damn but I do. So this year, I might be putting in more effort into looking like a decently turned out human being, because I don’t want to look like I stole someone else’s baby.

Declutter

I’m passionate about cleaning up and sorting out the house; I get wildly excited about it, and rub my hands in glee just anticipating the whole process. It started when I was still in school, this obsession with cleaning, sorting, purging, rearranging, and it’s still going strong. M probably thinks I display serial-killer type tendencies what with the mad glint in my eye when I talk about spending the weekend tidying up the home.

But despite this, my house is full of stuff. I can never be a minimalist because I live with a hoarder and a baby. M’s strategy involves buying anything and everything that’s on sale irrespective of whether we need it. We have multiple shelves lined with toiletries that’ll probably last us a lifetime. A cabinet full of single malt bottles. A cupboard full of glasses. A bag full of old credit cards. Drawers filled with cables, endless loops of wires, cardboard boxes, batteries, remote controls, screws. I’m perhaps marginally better, but the home decor section is my kryptonite. Can not resist pretty kitchenware, bed linen and the likes. And also cannot stop buying cute dresses for D. Time to channel my inner Mary Kondo and give away things that don’t spark joy.

This year, I vow to buy less and give more.

Don’t judge

Im prone to making snap judgments about people without knowing zilch about them. This has to stop. It might help to get to understand them better and be more accepting of different points of view. This judging thing is coming directly in the way of my other goal of making new friends and rekindling old friendships.

Nurture friendships

I really thought it’d be easy to nurture friendships but it takes effort. I hadn’t really thought of it, maybe even took my friends for granted at some point, but it dawned on me after I hit 30 that things aren’t quite the same. People change, they grow, evolve, and your friendship must provide that space for it to sustain and remain healthy. At the same time, it’s equally important to put yourself out there and connect with newer people. I thought of myself as an introvert but I kind of thrive in the company of like minded people, so I must make it a point to engage with my friends – both old and new – because it makes me happy.

Develop a hobby

Raising a baby leaves me with little time to do anything else of merit but I realise that when I’m overwhelmed, even ten minutes away from the offspring helps. So it makes sense to use my breaks wisely instead of staring at my phone. I used to be clued into the music scene, now I hardly know what’s going on or who the new artistes are, so time to reacquaint myself with new music and old favourites. I must also read more. And bake more. Do a bit of gardening. Give my attempt at painting another shot. Resume music lessons. Take online courses. Get into yoga. Or photography. Take up interesting freelance work. The key is to stay inspired, maybe D will pick up my vibe too.

Stay calm

I cannot tell you just how angry and frustrated I get if D doesn’t calm down or if she refuses to sleep no matter what I do. Most of that anger is kind of directed at myself for failing at such a simple task, and at that point it’s hard to see that I’m asking too much of a ten month old baby. It’s ridiculous. I must absolutely calm the fuck down! It’s true that as babies grow older, they feed off your energy, so it’s important that you pass on only good vibes. This year, I’m going to focus on letting go of anger, resentment and guilt, and aim to be a much calmer and positive person. Maybe give meditation a shot once again or develop my own strategies to cope with negativity. Time to get my zen mode on and be a much better version of myself this year onwards.

And you, what are your personal goals for the new year?