Daily 2020

2020 Chapter I Section 13

Ideas vs. Laziness

I am lazy! OH YES! Sometimes I am too lazy for my own good.

I have great ideas (at least I think so) and they can be very ambitious at times. I am hard working as well. I will work hard and smart and will try to get something done.

Now, when these two meet, my lazy side wins. (Almost all the time)

That’s not great. I used to go through a lot of guilt because of that. I would feel bad that instead of working on my ‘amazing’ ideas, I just to lie on my bed and binge watch stuff (oh we will talk about that some other day, we just have to). I do not feel as guilty anymore. I mean ‘meh’ the world isn’t really missing out on much!

Today was one of those days. I woke up feeling great. I was ready to go out there (not literally, I was in my room most of the time, and before anyone says anything I work from home so I do not really need to leave my room much) and win the world.

The day even started off well. Wrote a lot. Working on a personal project and it is a lot of writing. I was feeling like “this is it man, today is my day”.

Then lunch happened. Mom had made ‘Posto Maach’. It translates to Fish cooked with poppy seeds. Yup, poppy seeds. Bengalis eat that a lot. And, it makes one sleepy. Sometimes super sleepy.

So, obviously being a good ‘bangali’ I decided to take a nap. The nap was supposed to be for an hour. Just an hour. Honestly I could have just walked it off but I decided that a nap would make more sense. Oh, so naive of me!

I wake up 4 hours later, frantically trying to remember where I am and what time it is. I had the most realistic and weirdest dreams ever. Half of the time I kept thinking I forgot to finish my work (no I haven’t). It was just plain weird.

Anyway, I wake up and realise I have lost the time I had allocated for my personal project. Bummer.

Anyway, the point is this is not the first time it has happened. I mean okay I can say today was due to ‘em poppy seeds. But, sometimes I just sit and stare, and do nothing.

I almost always have plans chalked out. I love to plan and have to-do lists. I love to chalk out the different steps. I love to do my research and make sure I am ready to go when the time comes. But nope, when the time does come, I sit there and stare.I have had ideas for years that I have all the steps ready for but have done nothing with them.

Why? Why why why? I mean planning or the work is work as well. Maybe my brain thinks “oh you have worked so much, now chill.” Maybe that’s the problem. Sigh!

I know I am not the only one who does that and that this is quite common. But, my ambitious side with the 100001 ideas gets very annoyed with the lazy one. I try to stay neutral. I mean I want to work on amazing things and also do nothing at all.

2020 Chapter I Section 8

I am grateful.

I realise every single day how lucky I am to be born to a family like mine. They are not perfect by any means, but they let me thrive in whatever ways I want to. I also think I have been able to make good friends who make my life happier.

I used to be very pessimistic. I used to blame my “bad luck” for everything. Anything and everything that happened to me was never good enough. Not that I compared my life to others or got jealous if others had anything I wanted, but I just felt my life was not good enough.

“Why does this happen to me all the time?”

For the past few years, I have been trying to see the positive in everything and I feel every day has something that makes me stop and think “I am lucky to be here right now”.

At the beginning of 2019, I decided to start posting daily Instagram stories where one of the things I want to mention is about things I am grateful for, on that specific day. Now, I will be honest with you some days were rough and I did not post for a good chunk of time in the middle of the year.

I had a very rough patch in 2019 with my health and that really affected me psychologically. (Chronic pain can really affect the mind negatively.)

Even though I didn’t share it on a social media site, even though not a single soul got to know what I felt deep down in my heart, I felt grateful to be alive every single day.

I am privileged in my own way and I am very aware of that. I am grateful for the shelter that I have, the food I get, the education I was given and most of all the opportunity to follow my dreams.

I think there are too many negative things happening all over the world. I know it’s easy to think the world is coming to an end (maybe it is, who knows!) and we have more villains than heroes. But, I truly think even with the world figuratively and literally burning right now, there is so much beauty and good left in all of us. I always try and think of that.

I think it’s easy to see the bad in things but it takes a lot to see the ‘inner beauty’.

The political atmosphere in my country is wild right now and I think seeing how much venom and hatred people have for each right now, I guess I just wanted to take out some time and think about what I am truly grateful for.

What are you grateful for today?

P.S. I am aware I am privileged to be sitting and writing about getting the opportunity to look at the bright side of things and be grateful for it. Many do not have that. I try not to just be aware of it but help out in whatever ways I think makes sense to me. I am not perfect and I definitely am not doing enough and yes that bothers me. I feel guilty about that 24/7, so let’s not get there.

2020 Chapter I Section 7

I think about food. A lot.

Well, to be fair I am a Bengali human person. As the stereotype goes, we love to eat, think about what we eat and talk about what we eat. Food is a big part of our identity. At least I can say it is definitely part of mine. I am a foodie through and through. (My dream is to be able to travel as much as possible and experience local cuisines all over the world. I believe food says a lot about who we are.)

However, I had always had a love-hate relationship with food. That is, I love food but it doesn’t seem to love me back. There are so many things that I cannot eat without breaking into hives or falling sick. Why food why? Why do you not love me as I love thee?

And, of course, we have to talk about food and my weight. As a kid, I was extremely underweight. So, of course, everyone assumed I didn’t eat enough. Now, I am overweight so obviously I must be stuffing my face with ‘junk food’ all the time. That’s how it works, didn’t you know?

I will not lie, these weird assumptions and being told to either gain or lose weight affected me a lot. As if my identity relied on that one thing: Am I thin or fat? (I am happy to report I do not care about any of it anymore. My priority is to be healthy, fit and happy. Unless you are directly involved in enriching my life, your opinion matters to me, as much as the foods I am allergic to do; I will look at you, see you but instantly ignore you.)

I think the biggest culprits are our relatives. No matter if they are seeing me after a decade or for the first time since I was born, the first thing they would say “Ebaba ki mota hoe gachis? Ektu kom kha ar gym kor.” (“Oh my, look how fat you have gotten? Eat a little less and go to the gym.”)

Umm…how do these aunts and uncles always seem to know how much I am eating or if I go to the gym or not without actually being in my life? Wow, they must have the sixth sense that M. Night Shyamalan was talking about and something I do not possess. They see fat people and know exactly what they eat and how much activity they get.

I can actually talk about this for days, even months. But, the point is that these unwarranted comments affected me and I developed weird eating habits. I like many others, villanised food. I thought thinking about food means I have an addiction to food. For a while, I truly believed that I had an eating disorder. I even got professional help for it just to be told, “there is absolutely nothing wrong with you, don’t cut out the foods, cut out the toxic people from your life.”

Being a good patient, I followed my doctor’s orders and did as was I told. I am happy to report I am currently missing a few relatives and old friends from my life but I gained a true love and appreciation for food and all its beauty.

I will be honest, I am not a person who can go on ‘diets’. I cannot do ‘calorie deficit’ and all the jazzy things out there. I need to feel satisfied with what I am having.

The one thing I can do is follow easy and simple rules. If I am told not to do something, I can easily do that. It has taken me years but now I understand which foods make me happy and are also healthy for me. I cannot just eat to sustain, I need to love what I am eating. But, I also do not want to eat and make myself sick either

I like to think about what I eat, I like to meal prep and I love to cook. (It pays off that I am a decent cook, well I like my own food and for now that all that matters.) I love to learn about the ingredients I am using and I like to be aware of the foods I am putting in my body.

I have noticed I love to plan out what I will eat in a day before the day starts. I do not always follow them perfectly but it helps me to make sure I am getting enough nutrients and also get to eat what I want to.

Maybe to some, it seems restrictive and to others it is discipline. I just know it helps me to enjoy my food.

P.S. I have so many more things I want to talk about, on the topic of food, maybe I will do so in the coming days. As I said I do think about food a lot and the impact it has on me, my health and even the world, because of course what we eat does affect everything around us as well. But, maybe that’s a topic for another day.

2020 Chapter I Section 6

Let’s be lazy today.

I wish I could do nothing and just enjoy the warmth of my bed. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

I saw an Instagram post which described how this person wants to stay in bed but must get up and get moving. I related to it a lot. The post was had a comic book feel to it and I loved it.

It inspired me to be less lazy today. (Yet I found time to be lazy)

I did all I had to do. Finish my work. Take care of my responsibilities. Then, once all that needed attention was attended to, I just plopped on my bed and lazed. I lazed and lazed and lazed.

Sometimes, you have to do what you have to do but you then one must laze.

Okay, that’s all for today. :)

2020 Chapter I Section 5

I miss good conversations. About books.

One of my earliest memories is of vivid conversations about books. My paternal grandmother was a teacher and an avid reader. She was the one who made me fall in love with the art of reading. One thing I remember she told me, “don’t just read, talk about it”. Discussions and conversations about what we were reading were always encouraged.

At school, I always found someone who loved to read and talk about what they read. Of course, at the time I didn’t know, the cooler name for such activity was called a “Book Club”. I just knew I liked to read and I liked to talk about it.

I think the Harry Potter series was a blessing. More people started reading and discussing. During my 11th and 12th standards I used to have competitions with a friend, who can finish the new books first. Because, spoilers! I mean, of course!

I still have this particular friend in my life and we still talk about books and I am so grateful for that.

College was the time when I think I finally found people who truly appreciated conversations about books. I was pursuing my bachelor’s in English Literature and of course reading books was part of the requirement. I mean it was not really a rule but it was assumed a literature student would read.

I had a friend at the time who loved to read. I mean LOVED. We would spend hours discussing every mundane detail of life and what we read, what we felt when we read it and dissect every element of it. Ahh, those were the good old days.

My professors were also a big reason why I spent all my free time reading. They opened up my mind to new genres and new writers, names which were unknown to me before. I think I read a lot more in those 3 years of college than I have in the past 5 years.

This brings me to the current times. I still read. I still have a few conversations with friends or colleagues here and there. But, none satisfy the bookworm in me.

Work-life and laziness have taken over the adult life. A friend and I are admins to a Facebook book club where we are supposed to have many dialogues on books. But, we both are so engrossed with life and its many twists and turns, we barely make our presence felt there. (hey, at least we make sure the annual secret Santa gift exchange happens where gifts are exclusively only books)

I miss those days when I could simply sit with my grandmother or a friend and talk about why a certain character did what it did and what the writer must have been thinking when they used a certain word.

2020 Chapter I Section 4

Spend some time with yourself.

I love to do this. I think I have always been someone who liked spending time indoors, reading or listening to music or be in my own little world. I used to think I was a ‘loner’, but now I feel like I just like to spend time with myself.

I wouldn’t say I am the most fascinating person on earth, but I am, to me.

I know a lot of people find it hard to go for a meal or a movie alone. Some find it plain weird. I know many who complain that people at restaurants stare and sometimes even ridicule them because they are eating there alone. I believe them. I have been on the receiving end of all of that. But, to be honest it doesn’t affect me much. It never has.

In the current world, we are almost always so connected. Social media has made it so easy for us to stay connected. Even, when you are alone, you are not. I mean unless you switch everything off.

So this brings me to today, my parents suddenly decided to go to a movie in the evening. They do that a lot. I am a little more particular about what I like to watch and spend my money on so I decided to skip it. But, I also did not feel like staying at home. (I mean it’s a Saturday, one must go out on a Saturday, right?) I asked around to see if anyone was available. None were.

Well, then it’s a date. With me!

As usual, the first thing I love to do is shop for groceries. Yes, I love to go grocery shopping. Be it at malls or the farmers’ markets. I like to make a list, read the labels and look at the ingredients. I like to see which fruits and vegetables “call to me” and I love to roam around the aisles. I usually enjoy walking around with my earphones plugged in. Today I was listening to a book, “The early cases of Hercule Poirot” by Agatha Christie. It is a collection of short stories and it was simply perfect for the occasion.

Once, I was satisfied with everything I got, I decided it was time to walk around the mall. I love to walk. But thanks to my recent aggravated allergies I can hardly step outside without coughing myself to near death. So, now I love walking for hours inside enclosed malls. (And it doesn’t involve window shopping, sometimes I do not even notice what shops are there) This one is pretty big and luckily it wasn’t crowded that day.

Of course, no date is complete without a meal. I decided to splurge a little. My date is special after all. I noticed a new restaurant had opened up, Indigo Delicatessen. I remembered the name from when I was in Mumbai and remembered having an amazing meal there, so I decided to indulge.

Well, 45 minutes and a plate of lamb chop and sautéd pork later, I felt satisfied. My wallet felt the pinch, hard, very hard but I was happy.

The whole day turned out to be so good. I felt rejuvenated.

I believe in one thing, if you can be comfortable being with yourself, you can be comfortable anywhere. I have learned one thing over the years when I choose to be around others, it is a choice. I don’t need anyone but I want them.

I do not know if this sounds like a psychotic rant of a self-centered human or someone who truly enjoys their own company as much as she does of others. Either way, I am happy!

How about you? Do you like to spend time with yourself? Do you talk to yourself? Do you find it hard to go out for a meal or a movie without someone accompanying you?

2020 Chapter I Section 3

Put some oil in your hair

That’s what my grandmother used to tell me all the time. She thought putting oil helps regulate the body temperature, keeps one calm and make one super intelligent.

Well, I am not so sure oils can be that miraculous but it does help the hair become soft. Today I had a home spa day. I oiled my hair with my mom’s magic oil (remind me to get the recipe, it’s amazing, I see tiny hairlings popping up where once was a tiny bald patch), gave myself a manicure and even put on a face mask.

Wash your face & moisturise

Self-care is so important. I never realised that until I started doing that regularly last year. I mean when I was much younger I used to take a care of myself a lot more, but mostly because my grandmother would make me. But, I fell out of habit. Mostly because I had this weird thought in my head that people who take of self are somehow “hoity-toity”. I do not know even know where I got that thought from, but there it was planted deep in my being that taking care of the self, especially in the form of hair spas and face masks is somehow bad.

It was in 2018, a colleague of mine made me see the light. She made me understand how important it is to take care of the skin especially once you are nearing your 30s or on the other side of it. She made me see that it is not a selfish act but can be a beautiful routine that can only take a few minutes in the day and not only does your skin feel great as a result but you also get some much needed ‘me’ time.

I often thank her for putting this beautiful idea in my head. I love my face masks and skincare products. I used to feel guilty spending on any of it before. I have no idea why. I used to feel it was a waste of money or somehow I am being selfish. A sense of guilt would always creep up as if I am doing something wrong.

Yes, some of the products I now use are on the pricier side but I love each one of them. No, I do not have a 13 step routine. It’s simple and it’s very me.

The strangest thing is I realised my mother had the same thoughts as me. She would put whatever cream (some not even face cream) she found laying around. Only if all the stray ones are over, she would go and buy something new, something meant for her. She would usually go for baby cream, I always found that so adorable. I once asked her the reason and she said she feels her skin is sensitive and she knows baby creams aren’t harsh. So, by her logic that was all she needed. I also realised though she barely had any wrinkles and had moderately clear skin (she is 61 mind you) her skin was always dry and sometimes flaky.

She did moisturise every day but not with what she needed. Having realised that she most probably has been using the wrong products for her skin type, I decided to take the matter in own my hands. I started buying the skin care products that were meant only for her. But, she would refuse, saying she feels guilty that she is wasting my money.

Like mother, like daughter, eh?

Well, I am happy to report both of us now love our daily routines and have healthy skin.

Why do we have to feel guilty when all we want to do is take care of ourselves? If we live within our means, why can self-care be not part of our daily life?

So, many questions…so little time.

2020 Chapter I Section 2

I woke up late today

I didn’t mean to. I just did. I also forgot I was supposed to meet a friend of mine. Luckily she came to my house for lunch or that could have been bad.

The day was quite nice. I think I talked a lot today to a lot of people. I have been buzzing with too many thoughts lately. I really need to put those down somewhere.

I have been thinking a lot about the story I am trying to write. It is not really a secret that I won’t share it here, it’s just I am not sure what the end result looks like.

I am hoping tomorrow I am able to put my thoughts together.

Does that happen to you sometimes, when you know what the bigger picture is and the smaller details yet somehow feel everything is jumbled up and disorganised?

I feel like I am being an oxymoron right now. Well, that is a good note to sleep on, maybe that will help me detangle these knots.