June Braindump

I just realised that today is the last day of this month. I was honestly going to sit down and answer some of the questions you guys sent in after reading my favourites post and my plan was to do the braindump tomorrow, but what do you know?

30 days has September | April, JUNE, and November.

And just like that, I realised that we're already half-way through this year. Half of 2017 if OVER. Gone. Poof.

I know I say this a lot especially on these braindumps that are scheduled for the end of each month but I can't understand how time is flying by so quickly. It's exactly as they say - The days are long but the years are short.

And I'm convinced by now that there's a connection between the short years and the short people. The years are exceptionally short for us for some reason because my short friends and I have been saying this for the past five years.

Back in the day when Shane and I'd just begun dating, I couldn't wait for the years to fly by. I always lived in anticipation of the future. And not necessarily the far away future but even immediate things that were just a few days or weeks away from the present. I was never happy in the moment although when I look back, I see what a genuinely happy and carefree time that was. I was surrounded by the most amazing set of friends a girl could wish for, I was studying the subject of my dreams and doing quite well at it, I was dating this sweet boy who never made me feel like we were oceans apart, and my life was full of reading, laughing and eating good food.

And yet, like I said, I always spent my days in anticipation of the future. Always making plans for the weekend and then waiting for the weekend to come by or constantly day-dreaming of the life I wanted to have with this sweet boy I mentioned earlier. Not even once did I stop and reflect. Not even once did I tell myself or my equally dreamy friends that we were going to miss this time of our lives. That despite the tiny hostel rooms, the disgusting bathrooms, and the terribly hot summers, life was pretty fucking amazing.

I guess I can say now that things have changed in the sense that I appreciate the small moments. I take a moment to reflect on the small moments. I make a mental note to remember the feeling of joy when it comes and I consciously try to sustain that feeling for some extra time because God knows we all need it.

Over the past three months, you may have gotten used to a kind of constant whining that was shadowing most of what I wrote here. There was a sense of unhappiness and frustration that consumed my soul around that time. "Everything is going wrong", I'd often say. And I'd say it even more often to the people in my life. Things reached a point where the ever-so-happy and the ever-so-positive Meenal and Shane (respectively) began to experience my kind of low in their daily lives. Eventually, "everything is going wrong" started to become something that even they'd repeat with more frequency. It was bad.

What was especially scary was that one tiny human being could bring down the two strong pillars in her life. That this tiny person was capable of crumbling the foundations that were made strong over days, weeks, months and even years. And I realised this for the first time on the first day of this month.

On 1 June 2017, we released the first episode of the third season of our podcast. And everything that could possibly go wrong, went wrong. I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty but let's just say that it was quite terrible. Meenal had a major exam scheduled for three days after that and Shane was putting off a metaphorical fire at work. So while I sat sleep-deprived, hungry, unshowered and cross-legged on my couch, Meenal said, "I wish I could help you fix this but I'm studying with a friend and I cannot take a break and I'm freaking out and I don't know if I'll pass and..." and Shane said, "We're working on this together and we're trying to fix this and I also have other important things to get to so could you just do us all a favour and not make everyone as miserable as you are?".

I deserved that because trust me, I was not calm. Calm was a concept that was so far away from me that it looked like a tiny speck of starlight on a stormy light - nearly invisible. But I held on to that little speck of light and somehow crawled my way out of my own misery. Not immediately because like I said, I almost believed that I'd never get out of this rut. But that fateful morning on the 1st of June was the last day of my self-inflicted misery.

Over the duration of this month, I have been consciously looking at my own tendency to freak out with a giant magnifying glass held over myself. I've been meditating and that has been working wonders, and I've been practicing calm. When people piss me off, I take a deep breath. When others in my life start freaking out, I remember to be the calm one. When things go wrong, I start counting in my head to steady my breath, and then I get to the task of fixing the problem one at a time without dwelling too much on the problem itself. And last week, I found myself telling a happy, cooperative and kind Shane that all my irritabilities with him over the past few months started with me. They started with my incapacity to have a hold on my emotions. They started with my rigidness and unbearable stuck-upness (is that even a word?). And that realization alone has made a hell of a lot of difference.

Sometimes, you, yourself, are your biggest problem.

Now that we have that under control, let's end this post on a positive, upbeat note. There was a promotion for books running on Amazon since May and today is the last day of the offer. So I just ordered three books, each of which cost about £10, for a total of £10. And because my husband works for Amazon, he added his employee benefit to it so basically, I got all three books for just £8.84

AND, I got same day delivery so my precious books will be delivered within a few hours. Also, while I was getting a kick out of this very adventurous activity, I was listening to Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings on Audible which is narrated by the phenomenal woman herself. If you're into this kind of stuff, this is one thing you need to experience before you die.

Basically, I have had the best day so far and I'm really looking forward to this weekend. I hope you have a wonderful time too, wherever you are, doing whatever makes you happy.