This and that

Life is speeding by. I don’t think this space of mine is ever going to capture the intricacies of my life the way it used to. But I feel the urge to pop in every now and then. Just that I have to make do with the very limited time I have and not bother about structure, comprehension and order. But then, when did I ever focus on those?

– Life is really busy. I have a lot of friends that give me that needed dose of daily sunshine. In the midst of our busy lives, we meet for coffees and dinners. I am so very thankful for these people and for the genuine support we give each other. Navigating life is so much easier when you have people to lean on.

– And there are other people who I chose to cut out of my life. They are good people and some of them were really there for me in my time of need. So I continued to take the effort to stay in touch with them. Effort that was never reciprocated. They were always busy. I continued to push myself to take more effort from my side. I felt I owed it to them for all the help they rendered.

Until I realised that there is only so much I can do. I didn’t enjoy the permanent burden of initiating contact. Life was busy for me too. So I decided to stop trying. And I felt a huge load was taken away from me. As for those people, they disappeared. If I call out for help, maybe they will turn up again. Like I said, they are good people. But I don’t think they have enough space in their life for this friendship. And that is fine.

Because there are so many people who are over enthusiastic to make us a part of their everyday. I am thankful for this clarity and wisdom I have to choose the people I want in my life and to know whom to classify as unworthy.  Really, nobody has excess time.

– Fear. This has been a constant part of my life. I live in fear of my mom having a relapse of her cancer. I have reasoned with myself, calculated and recalculated the probability and the odds of it happening again, been rational and told myself to not think of things that aren’t in my control, but none of it has worked. I have now learnt to live my life with fear, and it is okay. I continue to go out, play with my kids, have fun with my friends, work, cook, shop, read, all while being fearful. It took some work to be able to operate under the dark shadow of fear, but I have learnt the skill by now. For now, I am thankful for each day, where all is well.

– Cotton and Candy. They don’t get any spotlight on this blog, but I think that’s the choice I have made. They turned two, two months ago. And now we are living with two, two year olds. Life is colourful and entertaining, to say the least.

– I think my favourite part about having kids is that I am finally given a chance to be in my element. I am living the life that I relate to the most. I love attending kiddie birthday parties and feasting on cake and playing games. I can finally go to a park and blow bubbles. I can get in and jump in a bouncy house (on the pretext of taking care of my kids), without seeming like a lone, lunatic adult engaging in the above activities.

– I noticed I was spending a lot of time on Instagram following a lot of food bloggers, which was only resulting in me being unnecessarily preoccupied by thoughts of food. I believe we as a generation our fairly obsessed with food anyway. And to have my feed bombarded with pictures of other people’s lunches and dinners was very unhelpful.

I originally started following these accounts to gain inspiration to cook all those wonderful looking things, to learn new recipes and to be aware of the current food trends. But I got fed up of every plate of food being called a ‘simple meal’. Well, most of those meals aren’t considered simple in my world.

I was spending time thinking of the food others were eating and not really feeling motivated enough to cook it. Because what they termed simple was labour intensive for me. This visual information was redundant. So I unfollowed a lot of those accounts to free up some headspace.

– A friend of mine has recently gotten me hooked to lipsticks. For the record, I have never been into lip colour. Eye lines and kajal has always been my thing. But I have started noticing and admiring that pop of colour that lipsticks add to your face. And my lipstick addict friend took it upon herself to push me into that colourful world.

All these years, I didn’t use lipsticks regularly because I have set ideas about it in my head. Idea 1 – lipstick only looks good on you when you are not looking like crap with oily hair tied up in a knot. And since I don’t have freshly washed, bouncy and styled hair often, I don’t wear lipstick often.

Idea 2 – Lipsticks do not look good with a casual, zip up, sporty hoodie (that I use everyday in California winters). In my head, lipsticks warrant pretty feminine clothes and jackets.

Idea 3 – You can only wear lipstick when you are going somewhere. You needn’t wear lipstick on an average work day or just to pick up and drop off kids from school, or worse, when you are simply home.

Turns out, I have all these trashy self created ideas in my head that are not doing me any good. Under the guidance of my friend, I bought myself some pretty lip shades and I am resolving to use them on an everyday basis. Even if my hair is pulled back, even if I am only going to the grocery store, even if I am not wearing the perfect attire, even if I have a zit on my face, I think the added dash of colour will only brighten things up.

– The year has almost come to an end. I can safely say I have had a good, happy year. I have some goals for next year but I am still working on drafting them in my head. For now, all of us are gearing up for our upcoming vacation. We are all set for our little holiday in Singapore and then we go onwards to India from there. I can’t wait for the excitement our holiday in S’pore will bring, but more than that, I just can’t wait to hug my mama, papa and my little sister. I know right now that they care more about getting to hold Cotton and Candy in their arms. Oh well..