Category: ramblings

ramblings

Hello, 2019

by WajihaLeave a Comment on Hello, 2019
Hello, 2019

It is now my time to finally move on…

Last time I wrote on this blog, it was 2017 and my life was much different from the way it seems right now. 2018 brought with it a lot of changes. Many that I liked, many that I didn’t; but mostly those that were necessary. It was a turbulent year, but it was a year of immense learning. It was the year when finally got up for what I believed in and went ahead with what I thought was right for me.

This was the year when I found out that people’s opinions of you and your actions will always be there regardless of what you say or do. They will say things because that’s what they do. They will say things that will hurt you and make you question your life’s decisions. What truly matters, however, is whether it matters to you or not.

2018 was the year when I learnt that my parents – no matter how much they disagree with me – are my ultimate rock. 

I also realised that my children are my pillar of strength. I may have not been an ideal parent (although what’s ideal is debatable), but it has been one hell of a ride. They have taught me things that only a child can teach you – that is if you’re willing to learn. I realised that where life is cruel, it is forgiving as well. That you don’t have to live according to someone else’s definition of your life. That you can choose. That you should choose. You owe this much to yourself. You have but one life.
 
Cliched as it is, 2018 was the year when I finally realised how difficult it is to be a woman. That, if a woman chooses to go her own way, she will be ridiculed, infantilised, and maligned. I also realised that I have a lot more strength than I have ever given myself credit for.
 
I realised that it is okay to want what you want and to just walk away from what you think suffocates you.
That you will get to know who your real friends are, only in times of adversity. That whatever can happen will eventually happen and no one will be able to do anything about it. 

There will be no New Year’s resolutions this year. 2019 is the year that I may or may not remember for the rest of my life for whatever that may or may not happen in it. But it is now my time to finally move on. To move ahead … to move away from all the things I never was. 

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ramblings

Of writing and love

by WajihaLeave a Comment on Of writing and love

abstract_of_a_child

I haven’t written in quite some time now.

And every time I need to answer that cruel question, “what do you do”, I feel like dying.
I don’t know what to say anymore.
I do not write. How can I call myself a writer?

All I do is sit in front of the screen, scroll a bit, and then retire to bed hoping for a better day.
I may like to revel in the romanticism associated with being a writer.
Truth is, I am a sham. I am not a writer. Or I would’ve found time for it.
You don’t need to make time for a lover.
A lover has your time, and you know it.
You cannot not make time for your lover.
Or he is not one.
A writer writes because she cannot not write.
Because she is in love with the act of writing. Because the very thought of not writing one day is enough for her to stop breathing.
Because to go on without your lover wouldn’t make sense, would it.
No. I am not in love. For had I been in love I wouldn’t have been forced to write this piece of crap that I am at the moment.
I am a crappy writer and I know it.
I am a fake. I am a sham. I call myself a writer. But I am anything but. I am anything but.

I have always been afraid, afraid of being myself.
Afraid of being called a woman.
Weak. Indecisive. Meek.
Afraid to be associated with women.
Always felt this deep-founded desire to prove something to the world- to men.
That I could do whatever a man could..
And so. Just like that.
I stopped being myself.
I pushed myself so far down that it became almost impossible for me to lift myself up again.
In trying not to be who I was, I became who I never wanted to be.
I became weak. Meek and a failure.
I became what I detested the most.
Only because I didn’t want to become who I was.
And I am still trying.
Even after all this, all this fear and doubt and failure and rejection.

Oh but if I’ve learnt anything, it is this.
This fear of mine is not unfounded.
And it is not because of you.
It is because of this absurdity.

And me.

And it will linger.

ramblings, Words

Pretense

by WajihaLeave a Comment on Pretense

That one word to end the meanings of all words; words that do not stand a chance in front of the façade this one word entails. Every truth, all ingenuity, all graciousness is useless when faced with the intricate web of all the shiny mendacities this word so effortlessly weaves.

Such is the cruelty of this one word. Such is the power of it upon the lives of people all around us. Such is its significance for us. Ingenuity is a lost attribute now— or as far as I can perceive (and my perception is just that; perception). It is gone, buried and done away with. No one wants anything to do with it anymore. Why bother listening to the heart when I can follow the herd. Why bother being who I am when I can be someone else. Why be myself when I can be a third rate replica of someone more prosperous/beautiful/thinner/popular out there.

This world has traditionally been easier on the normal (read: ordinary) than the different. Because being different is often tantamount to being a failure; and failure is looked down upon. Failure is a thing to be avoided at all costs. It tends to have the worst of all meanings and it doesn’t matter if you think contrarily. Your opinion simply doesn’t matter. Period. Failures shouldn’t have opinions, because how can they? If the world doesn’t recognize me, how sacrilegious it is of me to acknowledge myself! How dare I think more of myself than what ‘they’ think of me!

I find myself surrounded by pretense. Those who effortlessly adapt to this philosophy, find that they’re better off in this world. Though whether or not it’s happiness that they experience or merely the satisfaction of conformity, I can’t say.

Eventually I will succumb to the pressures of conformity as well.
It is inevitable.
The pressures are too forceful. It is very persuasive. It has survived for centuries.
Or maybe I won’t and hence will just get old… very cranky and very unhappy.
It is all just a matter of time.
But time has never really been on my side.
And I walk alone.

ramblings

About an unbirthday

by WajihaLeave a Comment on About an unbirthday

My whole life, I have been plagued with fears, doubts and delusions of various kinds (mostly of the negative sort). I must confess that I have found most of those to be very unpleasant and haven’t yet quite adjusted to their unwelcome presence in my life and mind (since we’re concerning ourselves mainly with that entity in this particular piece of writing.) But my birthdays tend to be a little more disastrous than the usual days— which typically end before the crisis gets to my head and hence any extremity is reached.

My mind is not a pleasant place. I know, since I have to deal with the bizarre tantrums of the bloody thing day in and out. I don’t know what might be the problem here but you can rest assured that this mind of mine will eventually be the death of me.

These past couple of days have been a peculiar sum total of many a comedy of errors. At times, I do feel that my whole life has been in a constant state of comedy ever since I opened my eyes for the first time. And by comedy I most certainly mean the tragic kind; the sort where it becomes almost preposterous to look at the brighter side of things, that is, if there happens to be a side like that. Though I am usually assured by the spiritual types that a thing like that does happen to exist and that one is sure to spot a ray of light or two if only one vehemently persists upon looking long enough.

However owing to my awful concentration span, I tend to lose interest in most of the things after a very short period of time. Hence the likely presence of any ray, or a beam for that matter is more often than not, utterly lost on me.
You must understand that yours truly is in a perpetually annoying place in her mind and that her mind (if it’s bent upon being the all-inclusive asshole that it usually is) can just plainly refuse to function—a prospect that doesn’t appear to be too encouraging for her at the moment.

Yesterday happened to be one of those days; with my birthday being the biggest if not the only factor behind all the blues (and the yellows and the greens and the what nots) that I had to endure. As you may have (correctly) deduced, I have not been terribly fond of my birthdays ever since I can remember. And with each passing year, this aversion of mine is getting more intense; so much so that I now want to erase this date from all calendars. I can’t stand the bloody day.

I must mention however, that regardless of how it begins, (usually me sobbing over the fact that another precious year of my life has gone wasted and that death looms over me since I am now a year closer to it. Not the best of feelings, I tell you!) the 9th of February has always had this penchant of ending rather nicely for me. Mostly due to my friends who, I seem to have discovered, have this unique ability to make even the nastiest day come alive again; and they do happen to have a slightly ridiculous amount of significance in my life.

I’ll spare you all the mundane details which I am too sleepy to narrate here anyway. All in all, by the time I was preparing to hit the sac yesterday, I had a smile on my face and a ray of cheerfulness in my heart (a rare event). Oh and the mind was relatively at ease as well, dubious as it may seem!

Which forces me to conclude that perhaps my life is not that big of a tragic comedy that I think it is, or possibly the comedy isn’t as tragic (or the tragedy as comic?) or perhaps this whole tragedy and comedy thing resides only in my mind?
Hmmm.
Until the next tirade.

ramblings

Introvert (Not?)

by WajihaLeave a Comment on Introvert (Not?)

For as long as I can recall, my mind has been convincing me of my inability to mingle with my peers. I am not known as a warm person, rather an emotionally distant being of sorts. I do happen to be acquainted with a lot of people, few of which I even have had the courage to call my friends. But apart from that very negligible faction, my life has mostly been surrounded by solitude. I prefer to be alone if I can. I draw my energy to go on in this life, by spending time with my own self. You might say it sounds “shady”, for the lack of a better word, and you might be quite right as well. For my life does revolve around my own existence and the few hours I get to allocate to myself happen to be my sanctuary. Now by that I most definitely do not intend to give the impression that I am a vain person, I might be for all I know. But that is not the impression I intend to convey in this particular post. And it is of utmost significance that you understand this fact.

The whole point of my composing this particular piece was to tackle a strange revelation that dawned upon me today. You see, I attended a bridal shower arranged by one of my dear friends today; and it so happened that I managed to enjoy myself to a great extent over there, as I often do in idle festivities like these. However, as I was going through the events of the evening later today, I suddenly realized that I was feeling particularly chirpy at that very moment because I had the fortunate experience of mingling with my friends just a little while back. I am not a very happy person, if you go by the exact definition of the word. Rather I have become rather grumpy of late; owing to the bizarre circumstances my life has conveniently thrown on my face from time to time. This particular evening though, it suddenly became clear to me that the only occasions I find myself in my element are predominantly the ones that involve the presence of my friends!!

Now imagine that you have spent three decades of your life believing yourself to be an introverted creature, shunning away from the society thinking it is not what you need and eventually getting all the more depressed. Essentially it is a loop that you find yourself tangled in since you just can’t comprehend what you’re doing wrong. You think you don’t like people and you’re avoiding them like plague but you still do not feel happy even after you have practically avoided the whole fraternity your life has forced upon you. You feel trapped. And then one fine evening, your whole make-believe world comes crashing down upon this unexpected realization that what you had always believed to be true was anything but. You need to build a new world now around a new thought that you had always thought to be archaic. That is the exact situation I am finding myself in at this moment and don’t know how to tackle it for it does seem like a rather scary concept to entertain.

I’m sorry if these five hundred words did not make much sense to you, I myself am having trouble figuring out the precise purpose of this post. But something as ludicrous as this is bound to happen when a whole life theory gets altered in one day.

Trust me, I will never feel the same again. I might feel bouncier now that I think I know the cause of the never-ending melancholy state of my mind; though even that can be a bit pressurizing for a sensitive soul like myself. I might get more depressed thinking that I shouldn’t be depressed knowing that I think that I know the secret of my being.

I think I should go sleep now.

Good to write after such a long time though. I think it’d be lovely if I were a regular here.