The story of our boy!

It’s been a month since the time our beetle nut came in our lives and our lives changed completely, our priorities changed, the things in our house changed, my YouTube, instagram and Facebook feed changed. 

I  kept thinking I would write about my pregnancy in my blog, but the 9 months flew away and I never got to it, but I didn't want to skip this story because  I don’t want these moments to be forgotten.

A lot of stuff that are not centered around the baby, I don’t remember it, they call it a mothers brain, siva told. If you ask me what happened last week, I can’t clearly recall, if it isn’t around the baby. siva told that a mothers brain prioritizes baby stuff, I opened my work email last week and I couldn't remember most of the stuff that I left and people I trained before I left for maternity leave, so before I forget how baby arrived, I wanna pen it down.

Baby E was a day overdue, two days before he arrived was eid and I are biryani to content, I kept telling siva that if this boy comes after eating biryani, then he's gonna be a hyderabadi. 

July 11th, Monday morning, a week ago I started my maternity leave on July 5th, thinking baby E would arrive on 10th July which was my due date. A week spent on maternity leave, I kept my patience, but I was getting bored now of all the attention and special care from mom, husband and my brother and SIL. My YouTube was full of suggestions like ' how to engage labor,''how to dilate faster' etc. I was lying on couch with mom on video call with dad and dad went 'you look so uncomfortable in that position, please don't sleep like that,' I got bugged and went to use the restroom, I felt weird, this may be too much information but I found that I lost my mucus plug. I told siva about it and without thinking or talking anything he went to take shower. I asked him, why did you take shower? He goes 'I wanna be ready if anything happens and we need to go to the hospital.' I went to the gym and did some yoga ball exercises after this, came home and made dal and rice and rested a little bit. Whole day I kept getting confused if my amniotic fluid started to leak too. But, I wasn't sure, I wrote to my doctor and she responded that I didn't have to come to the hospital till i get any pains or till my water breaks. Being first time pregnant , I didn't know what any of them felt like, so all was assumptions.

In the evening I went for a long walk with my mom, on the way I felt that my amniotic fluid was leaking, I came home and secretly told my husband that let's not get too excited but I want to go check at the hospital. But before anything I wanted to eat, because I always heard that you can starve throughout the labor. So, siva made 3 rotis and omlet and we ate quickly.  So, I told mom that there was no reason to be excited or freak out and I and Siva were going to the hospital. Mom was calm and composed, she was confident that I would come back with the baby but I was just thinking that it was a false alarm. Our hospital bag was ready, so we just went in the clothes we were in, I wasn't even sure if the hospital would take me in, because my contractions didn't start then. Mom made dua and sent both of us. I told her not to tell anyone until morning because it may make everyone anxious and excited at night time.

We checked into the hospital and they put us in a covid delivery room, which had a big hose for probably refreshing air. They told us they'd move us to a different room once my covid test comes negative, which it did and we were moved to a better room. Before the covid test they checked if the fluid I was leaking was amniotic fluid or not. once I was all plugged in to monitors, the nurse asked if I could feel contractions, because I was getting contractions, but I couldn’t feel anything. So, she told we will wait for the contractions to get stronger till the morning. 

12th July, as early as you can think in the AM, nurses switched and the nurse on duty checked every unnecessary thing possible to keep me awake. She suggested me to walk if I can, so that I can dilate. But, I was already feeling dead and just wanted to sleep, coz I knew I wouldn’t get enough sleep there after and I wanted to be prepared and well rested when it was time to push. 

The nurse who came in the morning told that she’d give me pitocin to induce labor, since my contractions weren’t strong enough. She put an IV and injected a small amount of pitocin to kick start labor. My contractions became intense, in general the contractions build up in terms of pain intensity and duration I guess, but I was getting a contraction every 2 minutes and the pain was indescribable. During pregnancy I googled how contractions feel, google tells you it’s intense cramps, like one would have during period, Google, like always you were so not accurate. Contractions weren’t close to period cramps. When the contractions first started I was lying down and every time a contraction would begin, I would want to kill anyone who’d ask me anything. The nurse told me to walk or sit on the birthing ball, I did and it helped a little bit, but I didn’t feel it was worth bearing so much pain if something like epidural existed, after an hour or so I gave up and took epidural. The anesthesiologist came and very casually tried to find the spot in my spine to give epidural, he poked me twice or thrice because he couldn’t find where exactly he wanted to give the injection in my spine. In the middle of contractions he asked me ‘does that feel the center of your spine?’ How on earth am I suppose to know what is center of my spine? Specially after getting poked. He mentioned some weird reason that he had to poke twice, thrice because my spine isn’t straight. Blah! No one ever told me that before. 

Once I got epidural, I felt the most peaceful and rested with no pain. I was told I can only be in lying down position and no food, only liquids. Hot breakfast and lunch came to the room, but I got chicken soup only, later I came to know that it was just the chicken stock cube dissolved in hot water. I kept craving icecream and asked my nurse if I can have it, she very pleasingly gave me ice chips. I was craving icecream before I started for the hospital and siva even asked me on the way to the hospital before delivery, if I wanted icecream, but I ignored. I regretted saying no to that so much, because I was feeling so hot with all the medication and harmones.

Whole afternoon, the nurse kept changing my position to stabilize baby’s heart rate. It seems some baby's don't like pitocin and our baby was no different. His heart rate dipped after every contraction. The doctors observed it from morning until five and took a call that it was a safe option to go for a C section. We were not prepared for a C section but at that time whatever was safe for the baby was the option. We asked the doctor, when would we go in for the operation? It was 5:30 at that time and the doctor responded 'in the next 15 minutes.' I was shaken hearing that, I wasn't mentally prepared or even had time to digest the news that the doctor just told me that I’d have a C section. Now that I think of it, it seems like it wasn’t a big deal and why was I so scared? 

My body was shivering, tears rolling as they took me to the operation theater. The room was brightly lit. The anesthesiologist was beside me and siva was on the right side, the anesthesiologist told me that it is common to experience what I was going through during the process, emotional breakdown, shivering etc. I wasn’t sure what would happen, i just wanted the baby to be fine. Siva was at his jolliest and happiest, wearing the white suit that surgeons and others wear in operation theater. He was genuinely happy and trying to encourage me that our baby is coming. 6:00 PM, baby Eshan was out. He didn’t cry, the nurses were surprised why he didn’t cry. They cleaned him up and put him on my chest for skin contact for a few minutes. They took him up from me and siva was happily getting to do all the fun stuff like taking him for height check, weight check. I cannot forget that moment. Siva was his happiest, while I was getting stitched on the operation table. I kept thinking when would I get to do fun stuff with baby, I didn’t realize it would take sometime till I recover or now that it’s been a month, I think mom - son’s fun time is a little bit far away as it’s been a month with Eshan and till now it’s just been diapers, feeding and a lot of time spent looking at him enchantedly, another reason why I say mom-son fun time isn’t begun yet is because, he always starts crying every time I try to take a picture with him. 

That’s  the story of how baby Eshan made it into this world. I can write a story of him each day, because each day with him is so special. 

Starting from scratch

I started writing this post in November last year, its April now, I thought I rather post it than letting it sit in my drafts.

It is been a day we left everything behind and trying to find a place that we can call home.

We moved from our beloved city Chicago, to do better in our jobs in the west coast. We moved to the place I always said no to, when a recruiter would ask me if I am OK for positions in the bay area.

Starting from zero sucks, the first night here felt the way I felt when i moved from India, I have a better quilt and a phone to reach anyone in any corner of the world as compared to what I had when I moved from india back in 2010, but I don't have anything that I'd call my belongings - my bed, my TV, my home. But, I have my husband by my side and my plants that we managed to bring here on our flight with us. It was the same like how we entered  this country, packing all our stuff in 2 bags.

I will use this space to put down my house searching stories, so I can go back to this and read about what I sign myself for when I decide to move states, moving apartments and houses, I am pretty used to by now, moving an apartment every 1.5 year ah! but moving states I am scared and nervous of, coz you start from zero and have to find each and everything again, grocery shops, meat wala, your favorites joints of bakeries, coffee, the lady who'd trim my eyebrows 🥴 and restaurants etc and of all people/ friends who I can talk to, in the form of friends, neighbors and acquaintances, finding  the former is easier than later.

Anyways, day 1 - we reached our temporary accommodation, dropped our bags and went to say hi to one of siva's friend who lived nearby. 

I am not working this week and we thought we will look around places and check the vibe of places. So, we were eager to go see which area siva's friend lives in, because this was the neighborhood we initially thought of living but it would be too far from siva's office, once we knew the location of sivas new job our search engine crashed and we had to focus in a area on other side of the bay called Fremont. Indians get happy when they hear Fremont, because it's little India, all the Indian married people with kids live in this area coz it has a good school district and the rents are a little cheap. So, we thought let's do Fremont, but my brother happened to visit Fremont 2 weeks ago and hated Fremont and told us how dry the place is blah blah and our search engine crashed again.

Siva then started looking for places in the San Francisco and it's suburbs and that was our first day of house hunting. We were excited as we drove through the freeways around mountains and with so much vegetation. We first went to a place on ocean bay, the vibe was excellent and would make you feel like you are on a vacation, everyone in the area was chilled out and very hip. One of my criteria for home is a place where we have some indian community, not a lot but some. In SF and suburbs, all day I kept trying to see if there was any indian community, we only found people in cars but nowhere in the apartments we chose to tour. Also, the units we saw didn't fit even 50% of our liking criteria. We had about 5 appointments made, we saw 3 and skipped two because even the neighborhood or surroundings of the apartments didn't click for us to begin with.

Day 1: We completed our search for apartments in SF and came to a conclusion that our city living in Chicago can't be compared to living in the San Francisco city, we kept homelessness aside, but still nothing matched.

On the way back home we decided to drive by a different city, small but had some charm to it, it was a place called foster city. It had small water bodies, not sure lakes or ponds or shores, but it had parks built around the water body which was nice. So, we started to look apartments in this area, but it turned out that the parks and stores for grocery etc are far away from the residential area and the apartments close to the parks were too expensive, so we left that option too.

On the weekend we  thought we will give Fremont a try. We saw 2-3 apartments, the place didn’t have any charm to it, it was dry and felt like people living there had no life or happiness/excitement, I feel this in general about people living in the Bay Area, that they have no life, they work and talk about stocks all day trying to make more money and hike, period. 

Within a day or two of moving from Chicago, I understood I made a blunder, I shouldn’t have just decided to move cities just because I wasn’t happy with my work. I don’t know if this will change, but lessons learnt.  

 Anyways, after searching every neighborhood we moved to a small city called redwood city, north of the silicon valley, it is decent, nothing exciting as compared to Chi town, I will probably move again next year in November and you will see a 'moving again' post then! 😉 

Lost in thoughts..

 You achieve a lot in life..alhumdulillah to that. You keep praying for months and years for it to happen that one day when you get what you pray for..you will be in content. You will feel the best, you will no longer sit in despair, you will have your next steps planned. You will have that success. But that's not how you feel when you get things you been yearning for years, you feel the floating moment of success and happiness, but still lost in thought and confused about what will happen next?

Often we think about our purpose in life, relate it to goals with progress at work, family, buying property. But, is that it? And you will feel - yes!! No.

The lockdown and living at home makes you feel burned out, tired or is it the information you take in.  The pandemic has effected countries like Syria and Yemen so much, as if there was less suffering for those countries already and all I can do is send a prayer, like a photo on social platform and maybe sometimes support the organizations helping these countries people. It's difficult to get the faces of orphan kids, war ruined homes, draught effected pictures out of my mind. For me, they're just pictures and I am a spectator, but for someone else it is their life.

In this moment, I think - I wish I was there, helping people who need food, clothing, shelter. I wish we all were equipped to do things we want to..I wish we were so strong to just leave everything and go lend a helping hand. Theres a feeling of guilt that 'oh you don't have to worry about what's happening there, you are here.'

Oh Allah, let us help however we can, cross oceans and countries and help the people we want. Alhumdulillah for what we have, but please lessen the sufferings of the underprivileged.

Things Changes..We Change..for Good :)

It’s been sometime I wrote..(how many times do I start my blog with this line?). I wanted to continue writing something I wrote at the airport, but looks like Evernote did not save it and I lost my draft. ☹

Another note I wrote was on my birthday, but I forgot to publish it. I wanted to post it now..but if you can’t relate to those feelings at the moment then what’s the point posting about it? Anyways birthdays are awkward and this year it was rough with siva’s grandpa passing on my birthday due to covid.

I am at home living by myself after a long time. I just got out of my apartment, to see other humans and thought I will sit in the lounge and write for a little bit. Christmas mode is dull this time, but its still there, with Christmas decorations and music playing in the apartment lounge.  It’s here where I walk after my heavy meals and when I am bored stuck inside my apartment. I see faces familiar(in masks) - students working on their assignments, doctor doing his paper work, door man/woman.

Siva drove to Seattle last weekend and I have some time to be by myself. The first day, for few hours, I felt so productive and relaxed, with no one to yell on to keep things in place. But, I think I get productive because I get so bored alone and I just want to be doing something and keep myself busy. With siva around, we both laze around, waiting on each other to do chores, cook and clean. By the night I felt how come I lived like this few years ago? I lived for about a year all by myself, just before I got married. Otherwise, I always had roommates or siblings living with me.I remembered all the old times before I got married, going to bed alone was one of the hardest things, especially since I grew up sharing my bed with siblings, sleeping by mom. I would open social media, see married couples’ pictures and feel the void in my life and just sleep off. Some days, it would take hours and hours of Grey’s Anatomys episodes for me to fall sleep.

When I lived alone, I felt I was very organized, I would come home from work, go to gym. My roommates admired my dedication, they didn’t know I was doing it to cut time too and not just to lose weight. For a second I thought did I lose myself? And by the time I went to bed, I realized ‘No.’

What a blessing it is to have a partner, to appreciate each other’s presence, you need to take breaks like this, where you do your gratitude list and be thankful for people around you.

Thank you Allah Mia. 😊

Stepping into Fall..

The weather is cozy, I usually don’t like weather like this. It’s a little gloomy, but bright. When I was growing up I would usually call it a ‘romantic weather.’ Because all I felt like doing when it was cloudy was to dream and sleep.

Right now, I feel like it’s a Seattle kind of a day or I feel like I am in London. Husband would totally argue if I say so, arguing – ‘if once in 10 days it’s a cloudy day, you can’t say its Seattle kind of a day, sun does come there,’ maybe it does, but that’s not enough sun for me. Doesn’t weather play so much with our feelings? For me it does. But, it feels good to be indoors, back in my sweater, sipping hot tea. It’s been a long long summer this time,I have soaked enough sun, finished two tubes of sun block. We have been at home for more than six months, we all have skilled the polar bear life, though the real test would be now, when the fall starts and soon we will step into winter.

Today I feel good, there’s clarity in my mind. The brain fog has cleared, a lot of times we live in confusion, specially when we have options, not picking any, living in confusion, not assessing what’s good and bad. What I learnt past few months is that, when in doubt – just ask, if its for you, it will come to you. This may sound cryptic, but people who knows would know.

The day has passed, it was a long weekend and its Tuesday today, I have zero but -1 motivation to work and I blame the weather, but hey I am writing because of the weather.

I have my favorite song playing , I don’t listen to it just any time, I savor it for moments, for me, each song takes me back to a moment. This song unfortunately takes me back to my school crush. Yesterday I watched ‘Dil se,’ its one of my favorite movies. I remember I used to listen to the audio album so many times while growing up, there are songs I would listen on repeat and this is one of those songs. My parents always thought I was a crazy girl, because I was always indoors with my books, learning, byhearting stuff, I also use to maintain a journal, I did it from 6^th Standard to 10^th or 11^th, then I moved online to my blog and the digital life took me away from penning things down, I regret doing that, I remember often I would read what I wrote and re-live some of the stuff.

Digital space is good, but not good enough, I post things on Instagram sometimes, but don’t want to come across as a person who shows off, so a lot of times I would just picture something or try posting it, but then erase it. I would also not put a lot of things because you never know how people would see it. There’s happiness, sorrow all kind of feelings one goes through, but we can only portray a certain character to certain people. I realized, I am a different person with different people and a completely different person with some. Sometimes I get confused am I being fake? But I don’t think that’s what it is, you can only open up so much to some people, things they don’t teach you about growing up!

When I was growing up dad would bring video cassettes of movies he grew up watching and try to make us watch it too, we would run away and think why’s dad so old fashioned? There’s so much new good stuff, why can’t he watch that? Now, I know..because my playlist and the movies I go back to are the ones I grew up watching, it has a special place and takes you back in time.

I had so many goals for 2020 and everything went phew..because God had plans for all of us before we could execute our own, I am thankful though that I am not effected by the virus. If not anything, I was more connected with myself than anything during this time, sometimes I really pondered why am I really here and is there a purpose for me on the earth?

Right now, I just feel like going to the mountains and live there, America has made life too comforting, I miss waiting for bus and saving money, in short I miss growing up. If I knew growing up was a path to a comforting boring life, I would never grow up. Haha! Anyways, yesterday after watching Dil Se, it reminded me of my forgotten travel destination where I always wanted to go when I was growing up – Leh and Ladakh. Travelling seems like a dream now, specially to Kashmir, can I ever go there in this life time? Such a heavenly place ruined and destroyed by politics. Kashmir was always a dream, I dreamt Dal lake so many times, the hills and the trucks. If I had to pick somewhere to be born, it would be in the beautiful Kashmir..with blue eyes..💙

Anyways, this random post is dedicated to my favorite song and my feelings to it..

Why Smirk?

Aren’t we all going through some life changing shit? If we all are in the same boat then why show so much disagreement or superiority to someone as if you are suffering more than me. Unless you got Corona?

I have been using the community boardroom in my apartment to study, work sometimes, just to get some different scene as we all are working from home. Have to compensate for all the different things we use to have at work right? Meeting rooms, Café, hideouts. So, I use the boardroom for that change in air. 

Just beside the boardroom there’s a yoga room which is equipped with TV and yoga mats etc; so people come there to work out at times. Today evening, I went to the boardroom to read and someone had the TV on with loud music doing exercise. I waited for sometime to see if they will reduce the volume. I am not someone who likes things if they aren’t supposed to be the way they are supposed to be, I speak up. Not only the person was disturbing me in the boardroom but the residents in nearby apartment units. So, I went in knocked the door and then opened the door and asked her if she could reduce the volume, obviously she couldn’t hear my request, coz she had a video with a deafening sound On, then she lowered the volume and I requested her the same again, she lowered the volume with an annoyed face. I didn’t ask her to leave the room, my request was polite. So, why that face?

I just thought what happened to people? Am I from a different generation or are we loosing it how to behave? I see it everywhere, trolls in social media, people at grocery stores. Why can’t we be nice to each other anymore? Or is it just me who takes even the smallest thing and makes it a mountain? Because we have only so much exposure to people these days past six months.

Anyways, I just write and let it out, the girl reduced the volume and I got what I wanted, does it matter the kind of face she puts up when interacting with others? Hah!

Ramadan 2020

This post may sound like it's coming from a teenager, but what to do 'Dil to bachcha hai ji,' and the lock down is adding the additional dramatic touch to life so, harmones + lock down = maximum drama.

Sunday is Eid, when I got up Friday intending to fast, my head was hurting - I cancelled my 8'O clock meeting with my Italian  colleagues and postponed it to Monday because the whole week I have had early morning meetings. Though Monday is a holiday, just not to postpone things more, I thought I will just talk to them on Monday. Anyways, after a good sleep I got up with my head hurting a lot, it was the last Friday of Ramadan, an important day to fast and the last second day of fasting just before Eid. I lay in bed texting my sister that I doubt I can fast today because my head hurted a lot. I figured it was going to be a tough one that day, but after sometime I realized it was that time of the month. 

I felt sad that I couldn't make the last two days of Ramadan and also not be able to do the eid prayers, though there was a lot of sadness, there was no guilt this time that I didn't make the most of it. The night before when I sat for my night prayers, I didn't intend to pray for so long but I kept praying for few hours, in my mind I had it - you never know if you get the next Ramadan, this thought was due to the uncertain things that's been happening around us, COVID and all the unpredictable things that you read in the news paper. We take things for so granted, plan things years ahead, save for the upcoming decades and plan but in that process we forget doing things whole heartedly, because we always feel there's a tomorrow, and you will do it the best tomorrow or the next time.

This year Ramadan was special, it was not like before. we all were facing once in a lifetime crisis, the covid pandemic and I found solace at my prayer mat. 

Fasting, practicing a religion where you are a minority with much distractions and limited community is tough, while growing up, I never took not fasting as an option. In fact I argued and cried when mom used to tell me that I can skip my fast because I was getting weak or had too much on my plate, like exams, taking public commute to get to college and the summer season etc. But after coming here Ramadan had a different meaning, it was more of a commitment that you had to make to stick to your religion and to be practicing it with people of different religion and color around me who did not follow Ramadan.

This year I felt, Ramadan came at the right time, we all felt stuck and hopeless and scared , I wasn't sure how I would fast as I was used to fasting being at work and the day would pass just like another day with no one knowing what you are upto. But this time, I felt more connected to myself and God. I felt the most calm, in regular times I lose control, get angry when things get delayed or when I have to cook to feed myself when I am hungry but during Ramadan I never felt 'hangry' or impatient, isn't that what a religion is suppose to teach you? To be right and patient and positive and hopeful by keeping faith in the supreme. 

One of the goals of the month of Ramadan is to teach the humans to be thankful and patient. I did experience this truly this year. I felt like I was back in the day connected to God and he would listen to me if I repeatedly asked him for the same thing. When I was young, I would laugh and wonder if God would really listen to me if I keep chanting the same thing all time, that one wish was that I clear my 7th standard Maths paper, haha. So, this year reminded me of that time.

When I started writing this blog before Eid, I had it titled 'the not so Eid, Eid' but never can Eid lose its charm of being a special day, if you perform the Eid prayers or not, this year was no different, I celebrated with my sister, made Biryani and sheer khurma. Though my heart went out to a lot of people who couldn't celebrate because they lost their loved ones due to COVID, plane crash in Pakistan etc.. May Allah forgive us for all the wrong we have been doing and ease our sufferings in the coming time this year.

State of Mind - Now and then

How hard is it to say no?

How hard is it to say a No or hear one?

I thought its easy for the other person to say No and tough for the one who’s hearing it or taking a rejection. I was wrong, its hard for both the parties, people who are telling you No and the one who is on the other end hearing a No.

People reading this must be running their minds, ‘Ab kisne No bol diya? Dosto ne?’

(who said no now, a friend?) specially after my last post of me writing about feeling lonely and not having many people around.

It’s a difficult post to write as I want to get this thing out of my heart but still not mention much, because you can only write so much, having a digital presence is risky, you are associated with so many things, people related to you, the company you work for, the friends you have. Anyone can link it to anything. Not that I have 1000 readers.

My wise friend Rabia advised me to be anonymous, also because I can write more. But I would like to have some readers and being anonymous, I will have none. It’s difficult to grab people to hear you out or read what you write if they are not benefiting from anything out of it.

Ok, what you just read was something I wrote 3 months ago, I wrote it and it was just lying in my drafts and as things repeat themselves, situations repeat and so does our feelings. And here I am again worrying about the ‘No’ I just told.

It’s tough being rejected and rejecting someone, with this whole process I understand there are so many variables you look at when you say No, it’s not just you or how you qualify, there can be other silly reasons, as silly as – It didn’t click to me, my heart didn’t feel like it. More than that I feel - it’s not the right time. But I know that when I hear something that isn't expected, God has better plans for me, he has always rewarded me with the best, better than what I asked for, be it a  job or a house, sometimes the decisions I take makes me fall short but the things he pick for me have always been the best, so the way I like to see it is -may it's not the best for me, remember Allah always wants the best for you, he knows what's good for you and what you will like the most, so he will pick what is in your best interest, so it's ok not to feel dejected when you hear a No.

 If you are reading it in March of 2020, you know why its not the right time. It’s not the right time to say yes to anything, infact it’s the time to undo all the yes’s you have told in the past, undo the yes for the wedding, to move homes, to change jobs and to travel. Yes, we have been in a complete lockdown past few weeks, thanks to coronavirus but the virus aside, life still keeps moving but the decisions you make in life are hugely impacted by Mr.Corona (not the beer, the virus). The way Coronavirus is spreading right now, I can probably right another 5-10 posts about how it has changed our lives, others lives and our every day activities, but for today I just wanted to finish documenting this weird, guilty feeling you get when you say No.

 It is a cryptic post, I just didn't want something I wrote lying on my desktop..so here it is. At this point I so wish to go anonymous and write my heart out.

Types of...

Note:

I wrote this sometime last year, just before new years, a lot of times my blogs end up being on my cell phone. While I wait for the clock to hit 3 /3:30, i thought I will just post this and make use of my time here in this miserable place..(not giving a lot of details..people who know knows, it's a mystery for others. Yay! Can I write mystery novels?)

Actual Blog Begins..

I came out of my apartment (rather call it a den or cave coz I haven’t gone out in three days, sleeping like a bear, lazing around), thinking I will go to the gym. But I felt I am carrying a lot in my chest and it’s got to be out somehow..

I have always find myself in two stages - running away from people - hiding or lonely with no one to talk or hang out with. I don’t know which one’s  worst, because I am experiencing the latter, I’d say being lonely is worst.

It’s that time of the year when you try to pretend not to be gloomy plugging in few lights, lighting candles or baking, cinnamon and nutmeg aroma in the air. There’s a void we try to fill in with all the different smells and lights, don’t ask me what the void is, I thought it was the sun, but maybe not, because this time we had a lot of sun whole winter. Alhumdulillah for that, otherwise I would be whining  at a different scale right now.

When I wasn’t wise and I didn’t even have a strand of grey hair I told a friend something, maybe it was bad of me to do that, but I told her that there are different types of friends, the real ones who will stand by you, be there for you, be there for you however far you are and will still talk with you the same way as he or she would, regardless of the time spent apart from each other and the second are the social/namesake ones(this may sound so bad..but trust me they exist!) who’d be your go to for when you/they need some entertainment, not necessarily you can go to them when you wanna cry or share worries. The third kind are the hi and bye ones. As I grew up I learnt there are more to these categories, because  there is technology and us humans have almost forgotten how to talk and express feelings, there are instagram or Facebook/Snapchat friends, they would reply to you when you post something, but when it would come to talking/meeting, being a little real coz we are humans after all, they would shy away. I don’t wanna blame anyone, maybe they’re going through a bad phase or they’re in one of the phases where they wanna be hiding. But this is another category I found. Thanks Zuckerberg!

One thing I realized is that the best time and the most awesome conversations I have always had were over a cup of tea/coffee, sometimes I would feel stuck sitting in a restaurant on a table for couple of hours, but not return as satisfied. But chai conversations are always best, be it with mom on skype when I am having my morning coffee or chai with neighbors when I would run into their house just for something and they’d just make me sit for hours with chai.

It's weird as I think now, at some point I had blogger friends and orkut (the social media platform dead and buried two years ago if you remember?) friends too, each platform had different friends. It's weird, but sometimes I felt solace in chatting with a stranger than talking or chatting with people around me, yes! Call me a weirdo! Maybe, it was the fear of being judged! Maybe! Today's generation wouldn't know this, or maybe they do, in the name of tinder or dating websites.

Anyways, as I grow I feel the number of friends I have are getting to a negative scale now, forget about not finding any new ones, it's difficult to make friends in a foreign country, maybe it's just the age, it's difficult to maintain even the existing ones.

When I was writing this, I was just thinking where's everyone? why's no one with me at this moment? Is it so hard to get someone's time? I don't no..

I left the title incomplete, didn't want to sound a kindergartenish type of blogger..

2020 Vibes

A new year has started, 8 days passed. I wrote 2020 first time today on a PowerPoint slide and realized how years are moving apart from the year I was born. There is a lot of energy, dreams and goals to accomplish, some which failed miserably last year.

Lame picture, I couldn't find anything better but because this is where I can show my little bit of creativity I chose to add some picture because I like putting pictures.

I feel like there’s a lot of things I want to do and something or the other is stopping me or there are delays. I want to go to a chocolate making class, there’s a huge chunk of chocolate bar which looks like a brick, I got it to modify some existing chocolates I have, they are too sweet and all I wanted to do was melt some 80% of cocoa and add to it, to reduce the sweetness, then I started searching if there are chocolate making classes, there were some and all the classes are booked until March. The classes are offered by a Pakistani lady who incorporates spices and nuts in her creations, I saw that she also has some of her chocolates at Starbucks, so I got excited and I definitely want to attend her class. So, that’s goal one – maybe delayed till march, but then I feel in March I will be madly house hunting as my lease expires in April and I am done living in my current house, I am bored of the neighborhood, there’s no one to talk around, even after being diverse, I feel it’s not diverse. I can keep writing about it..but I dont want to..because I think I can’t stay at one place for more than 2 years at a time, sometimes I feel I want to move somewhere else the day after I move into a new place. That’s also why I don’t think I can buy a house, because the fear of not being able to explore and sticking to one choice, I feel it is too much to commit.

Another thing I wanted to do was a certification and again, the exam for certification is in March and after coming from India and taking up a challenge, anything right now is looking like a big thing to take up. I wanted to start my MBA again but again, I couldn’t because 2 marriages in the house in the first quarter of 2020. So, I am aiming to begin it in summer, if its in my hands I might just take all the 5 classes at a time and finish them off. Trust me! Not that the degree will take me places, but I see it as a thing that’s been postponed for too long and something incomplete, so I want to finish it soon.

So, a lot of goals have been set personally. I hope to finish atleast one or two by the end of the year.

One of the things that I have been trying to get out of but couldn’t because I had good intentions in doing it, was me trying to volunteer out of volunteering. Sounds funny? Yes, sometimes I volunteer for things and it almost turns out to be involuntary volunteering after two or three sessions of volunteering.

After moving to Chicago, I volunteered at different places, sometimes I thought why am I doing this? And sometimes I felt why am I so incompetent? Why do I have to shy away for things as simple as selling tickets for a Polish cultural show? Yes, I did that. Volunteered to help sell tickets for a polish cultural show, on a random Friday I stood in between strangers saying ‘Hi/Hello, do you have tickets?’ one of the things I don’t like when I do these volunteering sessions are that sometimes there are a lot of volunteers and you are just standing there like a stupid smiling and greeting everyone, I don’t want to smile and greet people on a Friday night! I stood in that theater that day for one or two hours thinking about everything I am missing on that day and what else I could have done in that time, but it was a bad time, I was going through something and I wanted to just get out of the house and see some people. So, I decided I would go to this random theater. It was an absolute waste of time, it did not have a cause and it did not need any volunteers. Anyways, I learnt that I will not take those volunteer emails seriously.

Some events are fun, but people who host those events just use you. I remember for one of the events, the organizer promised us lunch and didn’t give us anything, the volunteers were standing there for hours and the organizer for sure made a lot of money out of that event, but didn’t care for the volunteers. I have totally digressed from my original topic of this blog, but anyways I was going to write that I volunteered out of the Syrian refugee after school program, the program changed a lot in the last six months, people changed and because I volunteered only for a day I didn’t feel that I completely belong to that place, others volunteered there almost daily because they got paid or they got credits from school to volunteer. My intention was to help and educate, but there was a new girl who took over the program and only put me with the kids in the garden area where I have to stand and watch the students play or play with them, I didn’t feel like I was contributing much, maybe I was but I don’t know. As the program became famous the number of teachers increased, for 25 students there were almost 8-10 teachers which I felt was unnecessary, when the program was started it used to be 4 teachers and I felt I was contributing. Though it got less chaotic with more teachers, I felt not needed. It used to be 2 hrs  of driving for this..but I enjoyed my time seeing the kids. So, I have to find another activity to replace this, I am thinking I will go to gym more often this year and read more.

So, there’s a lot that is going to happen, at least for the first four months I will be super occupied which I always want to be..

What do you think at 4 AM in morning?

I wanted to write about this from a long time, today as I can't fall back asleep at 4 AM in the morning, I have the moment to let the words flow.

Life's been crazy past few months, you know how you have that insect inside you that ah! This isn't for me, what am I doing? The dull feeling of waking up to the same day everyday. 

I was watching a show with husband day before, the show is called 'abstract' it's on Netflix, each episode is different, it's about Art and Design - something that I wouldn't watch alone, but would love to watch it with excitement and questions when watching with husband. So, the designer says -'if Life is predictable, You are a zombie!' When i heard that, I felt - Yes, so true. She then explains, how we expect things to be the way they're supposed to be and never create anything new or different and how it just kills creativity and invention, the simplest thing she told was her dislike towards wash basins/sinks, we use it so often, people of different age, but it's designed to be used by a fully functional  adult, children can't use it until they reach the right number on the scale. I don't intend to write the whole blog on the episode, but something to ponder about.

 I have been thinking about doing something different in the 8 hrs of time we dedicate in life for the routine we call 'work.' May be move industries at work and sometimes there's a strong thought in mind that - Why work for others? why make others earn more bucks? Why not do something of your own, something you like, something flexible and something which isn't same and boring everyday. I always laughed when husband told 'we should just retire at 35/40 and live life, we can go back to India, buy land, grow our own food...' But as I think more about a job being something to do that you like, the idea of the way we see it just appears wrong. But, it's a form of security, the kind of security which you wouldn't get if you have your farm and there's drought and no food for you to eat, sounds scary, but it depends how raw do you want life to be? I feel I want to open a coffee shop and operate at my own pace, it won't be a place by office space, to serve grumpy people who rush to go work, help others make millions/billions, it will be like a corner shop with minimal goodies and news paper on the table and maybe a football game running on the tiny TV, this is the coffee shop scene we went to when we were on vacation in Mexico, the guy working there looked so chilled out and happy doing what he was doing.

It might be justice if I write a second part of this blog..but the situation is that I am bugged with what I am doing and my mind and brain looks like it's rusted, you know if you see the  picture of a head and multiple gears inside it, I imagine mine to be rusty and unable to move, coz the society in the world we live in gives us only little chances, less that 0.000001%. 

The need for change theory which everyone talks about is bullshit, it's only good in books and fake speeches from the so called 'leaders.' There's a lot of resistance and no acceptance and people think you are a fool, when you try to do things outside what you have been doing or they might just label you as incompetent or confused. 

I have been in the automotive industry for sometime, moved from automobile to agriculture industry a year and a half ago, when I switched I didn't  have the intention to do something different, it just happened to be that the area I have been working on lies in the sector of mobility, so I fit in.

Why would anyone want to change their job if they don't want to change roles? More money? Bad manager? I don't know. If you  want to change roles for reasons like above, shouldn't it be considered in bad faith or ...? and already be seen as negative or maybe someone wants to move to a more competitive Industry, but even that  would be taken as a negative point, thinking - isn't your current job challenging enough? instead they wanna hire a person with 10-15 years of experience or a lifetime of experience in the same role, how can people even do that? I don't think I can..though I will be, if I don't get out of my current role. I kept thinking why wouldn't anyone use the 'need for change' concept - either they are too afraid of the change or they love what they do. And what about people who hire- why wouldn't they give people a chance to do something new? They don't believe in challenging the status quo? Isn't it suppose to make things better, get someone in the organization and fix some issues which you might have never looked at, where are all my MBA graduate leaders and people in HR? It's all bullshit and limited to books and theories. 

What do you think at 4 AM in morning? Hope not what I think. :/

One of those days...

So, it was not just a bad coffee day but a whole bad day! One of those days where even if you walk, you risk falling. 

My day started off with me staying home because my throat wasn't doing good from yesterday and I needed a break, I stayed home planning number of things including that 'make ginger garlic paste' reminder still blinking on my phone. I will do it, I got myself to a point where I took the ginger and put it outside the fridge, so that it gets my attention that I have to do it. I created that reminder after throwing the garlic which mom pealed and left in the fridge when she was here and it was rotten. Do you know how much pain is pealing garlic cloves? Now, I don't know if I will make a ginger paste, but I will do anything before it rots too.

I usually get coffee from the market below my apartment building when I work from home, lately the coffee there's been bad, its not good if I get it after 10, so I went at 9:30 and got a cup for myself but it smelled like there was a fancy sanitizer or a soup and I quickly threw it out thinking about the long nails of  the lady who usually makes coffee, though I complemented her nails once. My imaginations are crazy at times, what if the lady used a sanitizer and touched the inside of the coffee thermos? or what if she didn't rinse the can properly? Anyways, I threw the coffee out and I went in the elevator again to get coffee from starbucks across the street after husband insisting, coz he knows what happens if I don't get coffee - I vine all day. So, I went in the lift and I realized a strong smell and I knew this smell, it was the same which was in the coffee, so it was probably the cleaning spray smell which was so strong that it even got into my coffee when I was coming upstairs in the elevator,  coz I usually take the cup from home and it doesn't have a lid. So, I cracked the smelly coffee case. I don't know if it was possible, but I think it is, coz it was the same smell in my coffee. I then went to starbucks taking my work phone too, thinking I will sit in starbucks for sometime and log on to skype from work phone, but when do I ever have charging in my phone? and the coffee sucked, every sip of it. I hate starbucks, specially the one by my house, coz they always don't have one or the other thing, this time they didn't have sugar and by the time the lady got me sugar my coffee went cold and everyone knows that I like my food and coffee at boiling point.

Not just these two coffee events, I went to the lobby of my apartment where they usually have coffee(not the greatest coffee), but their machine was down and they had a new lavazza coffee brewing machine but they were waiting for installation. So, all my encounters to get a good cup of coffee failed miserably.

By the time I finished having the bad cup of coffees, I had other cravings, it was almost lunch time and I was craving schezwan food, I usually get craving of having spicy food when I am sick. I will admit that one good thing that happened today was that I got a good mapo tofu for lunch. But, when I went to the restaurant to pick the food, I almost fell because the floor was wet and the waitress mopped the floor and didn't put a sign. 

Now comes the main event why I started this blog, today was the first day of volunteering after the kids returned school this year for the Syrian community Network I volunteer at, I was excited and looking forward to it, I was gonna meet the kids after 4 months. I got ready and took a train because it was more convenient to avoid parking on the street.

There are two train stations near my house, a red line station and the green line, the green line is close to my house and during office hours even the red line comes to the station, so I went to the green line station and waited for the train, my phone showed the train will arrive in 10 minutes, I waited for ten minutes and got into the train that came on the station, half way through I realized the stations on my google maps weren't the same as the ones the train was stopping at. I asked the guy beside me - 'Is this red line?' he told 'No, its green.' I got down at the next stop and tried to figure out where I was, I realized I went west instead of North. 

Me - in the library, before starting to blog

I once took a bus and went southbound just looking at the number on the bus, but I had to go north, after that incident I knew which way is north and which way is south, simple directions - they existed even back home and I took the bus everyday, for 6 years and how did I become dumb all together? not knowing what is south, what is north? I blame technology. It made things easy, but it also made human beings brains to stop thinking like - If you want to go North and if you sit in anything going towards North, you cant just sit in it, it can also go west, that's what happened to me today, not only did I sit in a wrong train but also just sat in it for 15 minutes thinking this is a train going North bound it will only go North, not thinking it can also go west. Sorry, if this is too much E/W//N/S, but there was a lesson to learn, to be focused and to pay attention. I felt so bad thinking I cant commute in train without husband? I  drive everyday, but to the same place and use GPS if I am going to a new place and it changes things so much when you are walking and trying to use bus/train. 

I gave up and didn't think of taking a train again to go to the volunteering spot because it was too late. I thought 'be easy on yourself..' and sat in the library of my apartment because the library was cooler than my apartment and I needed a change in set up for the day.

That's all venting for the day. I know too many unnecessary details were shared and the hatred for starbucks was out loud .. After all the events of my day, do you think it was just me trying to find faults in the day or its me doing things wrongly :/

Not all things that happen are ...

Sometimes you have to just hold yourself, you may wanna speak a 1000 words but you wanna hold yourself, for your own sanity and to maintain that standard and threshold.

This post may sound a little cryptic because I may not discuss the details behind what's happening.

Siblings always came first to me, no matter what..be it work, be it money, be it me letting go and patch up, most of the times I don't let my ego intervene and take actions, even if it does its only for sometime and I come back like a small pet waging it's tail and apologize, because it's not in my nature to hold grudges and not talk. Ok, I will try not to glorify myself and make this post all about myself. But there's been some lessons learnt and I just wanted to write them down, lest I forget I can always come back and read this.

Somethings going on in the family, my younger sister aka Potter sister is kind of fleeing from us. Because I write everything here and it's my own space, I will express what I feel. (To be honest, I typed some stuff and deleted it coz hello ? Who cares? And at the end of the day you have to go back to your family and siblings, so why whine here and spread negativity?).

So, not all people are similar and we as siblings don’t share the same interest either, I talk to everyone in the family and so does my younger brother, unless you are being a pain to him or make him realize his mistakes - he will talk to you everyday, almost bug  you everyday 😛. Me and husband are the same, maybe we talk to everyone and not hide out and something happened recently and we are accused of back biting. I hate to say 'we' because unfortunately I got husband involved in this mess. I respect his time and I only take him as a reference in a lot of things I do, but when he sees me struggle and unable to fight the odds, he will intervene and literally put day and night to keep my point or make the other person understand what they're doing wrong in the most decent and delicate way. 

Social media has completely changed the dimension of family feuds, the conversation and message that a person can say and hear isn't just over a phone via a transceiver but it's all over, the whole world has to see it..from whatsapp status, whatsapp display picture to instagram post and statuses. Sometimes I wonder how much can a person bend? 

Maybe I am responsible of using social media and bashing too? No, I am just expressing what I feel, infact venting. Honestly, it helps me let go of negative thoughts, if I can't share it completely with someone, I just pour it down here in a constrained manner, through a funnel, to try not to hurt anyone from my words. That's always been my goal - to try not to hurt anyone from what I speak or what I write. Sometimes this may play against you, because people may think 'ohh she's week,' 'oh she's wrong,' that's why she's silent, that's why she has no words. I don't think I can let go of this quality anyways and I think it's a good quality? 

It's snowing again!!

A Bollywood song in the background plays 'Kahan hoon mai..' means where am I? I instantly related to it. Being stuck at home all day on a Saturday sucks, specially when you make plans and cancel it cos it's snowing, snowing when it's almost may. It's happening for the second time in the month, we got snow all day, like someone was angry and lowered the thermostat, someone indeed is angry at us -earth, hopefully we only live for so long and I won't be able to see other disasters our generation and the previous generations have done to the planet.

As the song kept going I kept thinking where am I? Away from a lot of people I have known for years and close to some who I have formed new relationships with and far from some very close blood relationships though being so near. I think priorities change..

After moving to Chicago a lot of days I just break down when I realize how many people I have around me, how many people I use to be sorrounded with when I was in Detroit. Sometimes I remember a friend and feel sad misunderstanding her, she was married to a guy friend of mine, she then moved to Detroit from New York and she use to complain to me all the time how she feels lonely and bored, coming from NY to Detroit, I now understand how difficult it must have been for her, now that I know how it feels, me just moving from Detroit. I feel guilty that I thought she was overreacting. 

Anyways, I am now headed to husband's friends house, though it's raining/snowing outside, I sometimes self invite myself to random places just because i want to get out and see people and want to have some people to talk. 

Days like this can literally take a toll on you and today was one such day, hoping tomorrow will be a nice bright day.

Alaska

Returning to work is the toughest thing after vacation. Especially when you return home at 2 AM midnight. But I had to go to work today because my computer wouldn’t let me login. There was a ‘change password’ notification I kept getting, which I ignored and by the time I returned from vacation my password expired and I couldn’t change my password because I wasn’t connected to the internal network. Real world problems eh?

That’s why I had to come to work, just to check my emails, to confirm nothing ground breaking happened while I was gone and no one was waiting on me. Good employee! But after coming to work I only saw few cancelled meeting notifications and compliance training notification emails :/

Anyways, today I am writing to share my Alaska travelling experience. I wasn’t very excited to see Northern lights, I am not a science/space person, so it didn’t excite me much, though I hyped about it on Instagram posting pictures etc..just because it’s a onetime thing, you don’t get to see it every day.

So, this trip didn’t fit in any of the vacation idea category which interests me – it didn’t have beaches, no sun, no greenery, no amazing food..though I did think that I would get amazing seafood when I first heard about the trip from my husband.

Route of Dalton Highway to Purdhoe Bay

We headed out from Chicago to Seattle, husband’s friend lives there and he was going to join us from Seattle to go to Fairbanks, a small town in Alaska. After 7-8 hrs of flying, we reached Fairbanks at night 2:30 AM or so..and woke up next morning to drive to Coldfoot, as the name suggests the place will give you cold foot if you aren’t prepared and the name was derived because the truckers who’d go north for mining would usually turn around when they get cold feet and stop here, hence the name coldfoot. There’s only one highway that goes north or North east and the rest is forest. After driving all day, we reached coldfoot at night.  People didn’t live here, only the truckers stop every 250 miles and there was a camp kind of a setup which had small rooms, initially when I heard we’d be staying in camp hotel I was very worried about the cleanliness of the place, but surprisingly this place was well maintained and it looked like it had lot of tourist coming, specially Asian students, so they had sign boards everywhere written in mandarin. The hotel had the tiniest rooms, enough for a person to crash at night and take a shower and get going the next day.

Our car after all the driving on the gravel highway. The worst part was it would ruin my clothes every time I get in/ get out.

The sun did not set until 9 PM, I expected that we can see the lights from the camp but because there was some light from the hotel..we walked to some distance where there was absolutely no light, we did not know where we were going we just walked, it looked like a frozen lake with 3-5 ft of snow on it. We talked to the middle of it and husband and his friend set the camera. We did not know what to expect, we knew the aurora would come between 10 – 2 AM at night. We set the camera at 10:45 or so and kept waiting, we kept seeing stars till the lights started appearing. So, like I mentioned we were on a lake in snow..so we had to create a small patch stable enough for us to stand and for the tripod to fix the camera, we just stomped the snow to make it a smooth surface for us to stand, so that we don’t go inside the snow as we take a step. The boys did that work, I was just standing to be honest.

We didn’t know what to expect, but we were able to see some weird patterns in sky, an orange spot started appearing and on the other side a dim streak of pattern appeared in the sky, just like how it would be if a rocket would go in the sky but wide enough, we were confused, if this was it. We set the camera and there it was , the camera was able to catch what our eyes weren’t able to..the sky had green color patches as if someone painted it green with a brush. The lights did get a little intense and we were able to see it with our naked eye after sometime. But, the patterns kept changing every few minutes, they were just moving.

We kept watching the changing patterns for few hours, we were outside for 3 hrs or so..our legs freezing, hands freezing. We used the hand warmers and toe warmers, it was so hard to even take off my shoes and use the toe warmer, my husband did it for me. Once I was warm enough in hands and toes, my feet started freezing, we decided it was time to go back to the hotel and call it a day.

The next day we came to know the place where we set our camera and stood to watch the aurora was a frozen pond, I got scared when I heard that.

If you notice my style of writing changing at this point, you should know I am continuing to write this blog after a few days. The next day we went to a hot spring, a natural hot spring, I love hot showers, so there was no way I wouldn’t like it. It was amazing, it was a small pond of hot water, the hot springs are big, atleast the pictures of hot springs I have seen for the hot springs in Italy and other places, but this one was small, but good enough to relax us after all the crazy driving for 2 days.

Arctic Circle

Savage Lake and us :)

The last day before we ended our trip, we planned to go see Denali mountain range, I was excited. I fell in love with the mountains and snow on them when I saw the mountains in Seattle, so I was expecting something similar. But, the snow here had started to melt. I looked up a river to go – Savage river, after going there I found that you need to climb a mountain and climb down to see the river, I wasn’t ready for it, not just mentally but physically – meaning not trained to go on a mountain nor wearing the proper gear to go on it, but husband and his friend had their climbing shoes on and the jackets etc..more than the gear, I think mentally they were ready, unlike me. I was wearing my city snow boots bought from Kohls, they were wearing some heavy boots, I was wearing Jeans, they had their gear from Patagonia/Rei. I wonder if it was pre-planned, maybe not. I didn’t run my mind after that, I was trying to convince myself to do it. I did it, walking uphill was a little tough, I am not a fan of elevation or cardio. But walking downhill was fun and scary, there was a lot of stones and we literally had to scramble through it, but I liked the challenge and I learned the tricks from my husband’s friend, who is passionate about going on mountains etc. The tricks helped make the whole experience better and took it to a different level, that’s why they say, ‘experience matters.’

At few points during the downhill, I felt like I would lose control and fall, but I just kept my calm and kept going, kept telling myself ‘you will be down the mountain soon, you don’t do this every day, so just do it!’

The river was beyond describable when we reached there after the hike. We spent some time there and it doesn’t end here, we had to walk 1 hour to get back to our car, just because the roads were closed because it was winter.

While driving back to the Airbnb, we saw a moose by the creek, one more wish of mine was fulfilled, to spot a wild animal.

All in all, it was a good trip, but was more of an active/ adventure trip and not a vacation/relaxation type of a trip. But, hey I am not complaining – I got to go to the hot springs and I saw the moose AND we saw the Northern lights and we went by the arctic circle!

Bad days don't need an invite

Bad days don't need an invite, they come without invitation.

Not every day, I think of making an effort to stop somewhere buy something for breakfast and go to the office, but today I did..because I was craving a croissant, craving a flaky brown croissant, though I knew I won’t get a best one near me, I went to a super market near me, they pride themselves for selling European stuff, when I went inside I saw only three croissants and they didn’t look fresh, so I asked the baker where are the croissants she told me, ‘Can you wait for 15 minutes?’

In my mind: No, I cannot wait for 15 minutes, I don’t have all the time in my life to wait for you to buy a tiny croissant which doesn’t even taste perfect. But I just showed her the clock and told her ‘its 9:38, what time do you think people eat breakfast? Why is it not ready?’ then she told me that they’re busy baking Paczki’s. I didn’t stop, because this was not happening for the first time, I went to meet the manager, manager was the old lady who told me - let me ask the baker. I just yelled few fiery lines as if I was buying dozens of croissants and walked out. My intention was not to be mad at them but to tell them that there’s a time to bake certain things and not be like ‘I am putting it in the oven now,’ where as right across the bakery section they had samples of sushi out, at 9:30 AM in the morning, believe it!

If the first thing in the morning goes wrong, I don’t get what I want, I get a hint that the day is not going to be very productive and there will be disappointments and things that I will not get. For example, I went to the restroom – the first stall read ‘out of service’ and when I went to the second one it didn’t have the safety guard seat covers. Sorry for the unnecessary details, but every tiny disappointment counts in making your day shitty. I went and sat at my desk, I received a ‘Meeting Cancelled’ notification. Usually, I am happy seeing such notifications, but not when I am expecting something from someone.

Being positive ^ 

It doesn’t end here, I wouldn’t be writing if it did..half way through the day I went to warm up my lunch and ten seconds later the microwave’s fuse tripped off, I can’t express how fucked up things around me felt. I just followed another person who was going to the nearest microwave, waited for her to finish heating her food and opened the microwave and there it was the most antique microwave I saw, which did not look like it’s been cleaned since the time I was BORN! I then went to a hidden microwave spot and warmed my lunch and by the time I came back to my desk it was cold like it never went in the microwave.

Sometimes I don’t know if I am too picky or if things are not just how they’re supposed to be.

It is a kind of a day when I can write pages of bad reviews and I did, a day when I won’t hesitate posting nasty sticky notes – I wanted to, but I stopped. On such days I have a straight face and you can see it on my face that something is wrong. I keep doubting if something wrong is going to happen next, maybe when I am driving or maybe I will get into a verbal argument with someone, so I just stay calm and not tend to talk much and vent it out on my blog here.

I hope nothing else happens till the day ends, I go to volunteer and teach sweet innocent refugee kids in few hours who can be bratty at times..so..you never know.

Now, I hear you saying be positive Nameera..

Unwinding

Sometimes it feels awesome by just not sticking to the plan doing something just because you did it or you started doing it, something out of your regular routine. It unwinds you, gives you  a break, puts your mind to peace and let it put a period to other worldly things, which by not doing them nothing is going to  change , numbers in your bank account won't change, you won't become dumb, to come to reality veggies in your fridge won't stale, they will still be there tomorrow, the inches on your body won't increase in a day  if you skip the gym or eat whatever you want, you will still go to work tomorrow and complain about the job you do if you sleep a little late. Today was such day!

After struggling more than half an hour  to park my car at a local busy Indian Pakistani

neighborhood to pick a to go dinner (rarely happens in my case, very rare- say once or twice in a year)..I drove home thinking I will hog on the biryani I got and crash on my bed, after such a tiresome day, I can't put myself to go to Gym or cook. We limit ourselves so much on weekdays isn't it? In short bore ourselves to death and routine. 

Today I came back and did my prayers, waited for husband to come back from gym, so that we can eat dinner together. I put things in my plate and heated up my food. I can't eat my food a degree less hotter than I need. The next thing I usually do is put on office and watch it while I eat till husband is around and then switch to game of thrones or some Asian drama. Today, I didn't play office, I played a Bollywood movie 'highway,' i watched this one long back, few years ago at a friends place..in a bachelor pad watched it projecting on a wall from our dear enthusan Bollywood movie streaming website. I thought I will switch to GOT once husband leaves but I got so much into the movie that I kept watching it. It's about a   girl (Alia Bhatt) getting kidnapped and she finds more freedom with the when she's kidnapped than in her own house..sounds very dramatic but it was nice, the story took turns slowly, not like the girl falls in love with the kidnapper at first sight.

The movie takes you through different towns in India..and the girl in the movie see's the towns and alway wonders if places like that existed really. She travels through farms, forts, hills and mountains. It reminded me of my tiny wild adventures I had back home when I was in college, me and 3-4 friends of mine would just sit in the bus and travel till the last stop, which is outskirts of the city, just to see some farm land, some small roadside shops. The fun and experience is very different when you have a 20 rupees note in your pocket as Compared to the trips you make in an air conditioned car.

As the songs on the movie played, because the girl was kidnapped they just kept going on highway in a truck, as they passed each place I missed India every time a new scene came, I wondered why did I come from such a culturally rich country to something so plain and white. Ahem Ahem! Then I thought, maybe I wouldn't appreciate what I am seeing today so much if I was not where I am. It's all a mystery. But I kept telling myself throughout the movie that one day I will go back, I will go back to my land, I will go back to where I started off. 

I hope I will...one day...