Making sense of it all

The last couple of months have been surreal for most of us - and nightmare to many others. People have lost loved ones, lost their livelihood, lost companionship and many joy and cheer. In recent times the most common words I have heard are "unprecedented," "crisis," "global," and of course the name of the virus which I just don't want to use. Life will never be the same for many of us but what we take from this crisis and how we handle it is what is going to define our character.

It's been a few days since we have been allowed to expand our social bubble and meet our friends and families again. An anecdote about how a 6 year old was aghast when a loved one tried to invade his social distance space by more than the defined 6ft , made me wonder if this is how we will be living in the coming years. I never realized how much I miss a friends' warm hug.

If there is one lesson that I have learnt in this pandemic, it is to be kind. Kindness is the foundation of human nature. We cannot be kind selectively, based on community, religion, or nationality. Kindness needs to be universal and unbiased . One thing that the pandemic has taught us as human beings, is that we are all one. A virus that infected someone thousand of miles away can have an impact on your life here. We are all connected and can no longer ignore tragedies happening continents away.

Life as we know it is on pause for now. We have all lost something - jobs, loved ones, freedom, and maybe hope. Some have lost more than others and some will take longer to recover from the grief of losing. Losses, especially when they are unexpected can make the best of us bitter and even fearful. And this is where we all come in together. It is our primary duty as human beings to help each other. To give when we can, a smile, kind words and money. 

I find that every time I focus on my problems, my problems become monsters that distorts the reality and creates anxiety. Not to undermine my problems, I do find that when I focus on others, try and empathize and be kind, I am filled with gratitude, starting with just being thankful to be alive and breathing.

I worry - have spent sleepless nights too - worry about the uncertain times, worry about whether I will still be working in the coming weeks, and worry about the health of my family, physical and mental. Yet, I also find that in this time of introspection, I have come to realize what my priorities are in life, my core group of loved ones, the one I rely on emotionally has become more defined and so have the need to just live a simple life. I have started to value my evening walks, technology that keeps me connected and sane, and the people that I am still able to interact with on day to day basis. I dread that I might never see my family and friends back home, dread that I won't be able to cope with all the new rules of living a normal life, yet I am optimistic that we will come out stronger as a species and one day will be able to hug and have human contact without fear.

I had read somewhere on the social media that we are not all sailing the same boat although it is the same storm. And this is the biggest lesson that I have learnt. Don't judge and be kind. In today's world of self-promotion and easy access to media albeit social, it is very easy to be swayed into arguments and opinions that are not based on facts. 

Forgive to move on

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”
― Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

For some people forgiveness comes easily, and for some like me it is struggle to let go. I have a tendency to hold grudge, nothing that I am proud of,  but it is something that I am aware of and conciously try to rectify. I am not a bitter or angry person, far from it. I learnt early on not to let negative experiences harden me or make me a cynic, although I am not sure how  far I have succeeded. We all have our drawbacks and mine is finding within me the courage to just let go. Let go not because I am a good person, which incidently I would like to believe I am, but because I find that holding on to negative experiences can be all-consuming and logically thinking, a real waste of time. But letting go needs a closure, it needs forgiving. I find at times in long term relationships, we have these perceived slights that if left unattended can grow into monstrous proportions. We all see a situation contaminated by our preconceived notions, and it is impossible for us to either not hurt anyone or be hurt by someone over the period  of our lifetime. Add to it a dose of ego and you have the perfect recipe for a disaster waiting to happen. 

Although I am not quick to forgive, I am quick to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness, constant forgivness is an important aspect of a loving relationship. Recently I found myself waiting for someone to apologize, till I realized that what I perceived to be wrongdoing might not be perceived the same way by the other person. Everyday as I waited for the perfect apology -I was reliving the negative experience and helping it grow into something toxic. After a few weeks, it struck me that waiting for an apology from someone who thought they were never in the wrong in the first place was fooliness personified. I was the only one getting hurt. The longer I waited for the imaginary apology, the more I was torturing myself. I had to forgive and move on.  

 But is forgivness possible without genuine apology? It is not easy but definitely possible. Give yourself permission to forgive to move on. And honestly if you are quick to forget, you are definitely in for some luck. Life is too short to hang on to matters that don't actually add value to your life. Learn the art of forgiving without getting an apology and your heart will thank you for it. Now forgiving yourself for your shortcomings is a whole different story.. 

Being just Enough

We go through our daily motions in frenzy, trying everything within our means to ensure that we don't just live but feel alive. The primary difference between humans and other animals is that we have the capacity to think, and be self-aware that this one life that we have is precious. We can introspect, analzye and strategize to make our life more meaningful.We need a reason to live. We need to be needed.

Lately life has been on an auto mode. You know the daily grind mode - alarm, work, home and repeat. Don't get me wrong, life is good but.... This is a stage of life that no one warns you of - the cynical middle ages -the stage when your idealist notions about life has been crushed and after spending more than 20 years on raising little humans, you are faced with a void.

 Life without any purpose has no meaning. Most people assume that purpose needs to be something grandeur . It can be as simple as raising kids,  having a loving family or just to ensure that you are able to put a smile on somebody's face. I have always regretted to a certain extent at the ordinariness of my life. It is as ordinary as it can be. No stories of adventure, no glamour, no great love story and no extraordinary achievement. I am as ordinary as can be and I have struggled with the fact that maybe I could have done more. The need for more, to be better, is immense. The pressure we put ourselves in to be our better than our versions can skew our view of life.

I want to be enough. Just be enough as a wife, a mother as a worker and friend . The niggling doubt of not being enough, not having enough is the bane of my life. I keep on reminding myself that it is okay if the house is untidy, it is okay to not want to cook for a day, for wanting to lose my temper at times, to feel frustrated. The picture of my life in mind and myself is driven by perfection. Life is beautiful and ugly - but definitely not perfect.  I am realizing that this competition with the image of how my life is and how I should behave has shackled me to an unrealistic expectation of life and happiness.

The feeling of inadequacy will always be part of my life - it is who I am.We all tackle our inadequacies in our own way - putting on a mask to camouflage our vulnerability. I hide my intensity by projecting a " I don't care attitude" which can be interpreted by some as being a snob, indifferent or proud. A wise friend told me once, self-preservation is the key to survival . Our masks, our personas that we cultivate are just tools for the same. I don't think I will ever feel adequate, but with age, I am learning to live my life around it, accepting my imperfections, and shortcomings .It is a struggle not to admonish myself for every small mistake, to let go of  a habit that has become a part of me, but I do realize now that the eternal truth is  that,  in the end, it doesn't matter - nothing matters. Enjoy this ride, take a splash in the mucky puddle and although imperfect, we are all unique.

A Good Life

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Time and again we are told stories of people who strive to live an extraordinary life. Stories that stir up our imagination and build up our hopes to have a "better life". A life that when we are old and waiting for our end, we can look back and say that yes I have led a good life. Yet what qualifies as a good life?  For the longest time I  been fascinated by people who go on adventures - people who are complex and live an "enriched life", till I met our neighour Joe.  Joe and Sonya moved into our neighbourhood 4 years ago. and knowing him has changed my attitude about how I want to grow old and how I want my story to end.  Now to just give you a backstory, Joe and Sonya moved  next door around 4 years ago.  There are some people who leave a mark on you, they teach you to live life. Joe is one of those people.

I have been meaning to write about him for a while now. Joe moved here in his early youth from Portugal, and like many of the new immigrants moving to Canada, didn't know a single word of English. To give you the gist, he till date barely knows how to read and write, and his English even after years in Canada, is so heavily accented that at times you take a guess at what he is saying. What sets him apart from the other people I have known, is that he is love personified. He loves his plants - gardening all the way into his mid eighties, and every time you meet him , a bit of his optimisitic attitude rubs off on you. Small things like remembering my birthday,along with all the members of my family,  staying up till late so that he wouldn't miss out on giving me my card and flowers, taking care of our garden as if it were his own and of course his hugs and joyful" Hey Avy," whenever he sees me.He is the type of guy who waits with cans of pop for the guys who come to pick up garbage, the guy who will bring his homemade wine when he sees that we have guests over, the guy who changed my mind about what legacy I wanted to leave behind.  His kids and grandkids come to visit frequently - they still have Halloween and Christmas parties at home and believe me he parties more than we do. And he still takes homemade lunch for his kids every Wednesday at work.

Recently he had a health scare, yet when we went to meet him, he was cheerful like always. By all means Joe has led an ordinary life - nothing exciting, no adventures, no travels, but what he and his wife have now, is what I want. I want to be surrounded by people to love and in return hopefully be loved. Joe has taught me to appreciate smaller things in life, to make the ordinary life extraoridnary by just adding a dose of love and kindness.  That in my opinion is a "good life " amd if I can emulate even 10% of his attitude and personality, I would consider my life to be successful. 

Dispensable me

“Which of us can resist the temptation of being thought indispensable?” 

― Margaret Atwood

Last couple of months, I have been in a reflective mood -in plain words, been over-thinking, analyzing and in general trying to make sense of who I am. Now, this would be interesting and perfectly normal if I was a teenager but even for an introvert like me, this was a long stretch of time spent in introspection.You need to be by yourself, to quieten your thoughts to face the truths that you always knew to  be true but chose to ignore. Universal truths - facts - that we all know, accept yet somewhere in our subconsciousness hope that it is not true. For instance, Death is certain, yet we live like we are going to live for ever.

 On the same note, we might give the lip service of understanding that we are dispensable, but in our hearts hope that it is not the truth.

We are replaceable, in our jobs, in our relationships. Life goes on and will go on and as much as it hurts to accept this fact, it is the truth. Every time we are in relationship, every time we connect, we give a piece of ourselves, unknowingly hoping that it would make a lasting difference. Maybe the piece lives on as a fleeting memory, or a throbbing heartache or an inspiration. But that is the optimistic in me speaking.

Our inflated egos and our distorted versions of our importance make us believe that we are indispensable. Our friends, our families, our employers all need us. Yet the truth is that we are easily replaceable and it actually is hurtful to know how easily. Life is fluid, it is limitless. It is like the moving car and we are like that occasional  fly sitting on the glass window - enjoying the free ride, but  utterly insignificant. Fact is that when we are actually able to imbibe the universal truths, when they are not just pop culture positivity quote, we are liberated. All our hang-ups, all our plans, and above all, our egos and the fodder for it - our expectations from others, dissipate into thin air. I find myself oscillating between accepting the fleeting nature of my existence to just ignoring the fact that I am not the centre of universe.

The buddishts contemplate on death, our impermanence.Times when I am overwhelmed or find myself berating myself, I sit down and contemplate on these universal truths.  It is a good exercise if practiced with a good attitude to maintain clarity on the priorities in life.

Stories Galore

We all have a story to tell; a story so unique that the events can only be experienced by you. I am not sure of others, but every time I walk by houses with the lights on seen through their half-drawn blinds allowing for a partial glimpse the TV show playing in the house with an isolated couch, my curious mind runs on overtime, building up stories. Look around you - the number or people, the lives being lived, the lives lived and  the lives that will be lived, and the possibilities of stories seem infinite.

We humans are fascinating. We are resillient, stupid, loving and cruel all at the same time. To think of it, all that we feel is all that we are. Feel anger, love, judgment, or feel fear, you are what you think and perceive.The best part is that no one can make us feel small without our permission.  I have learnt the hard way — in fact I am still learning. 

One big part of my job is meeting people and being privy to their lives. Some tragic, some insipirational and just some that you can relate to. I am privileged to meet the people on the streets, living off welfare, meeting people with money and most of the time, people who are what we call the struggling middle class. I have learnt not to judge, to show kindness and even if someone is reeking in weed, or having a body odour from not taking a bath for days, or smelling of urine — and I am not talking about small kids — it is okay and everyone has a story. 

I get to meet not just the cynical middle aged people that I can relate to, but also the young hopefuls, bright, confused and anxious about stepping  into the big bad world. People in different life stages,a nonagenarian having lived the life to the fullest struggling with a decaying body, or the young expectant parents eagerly waiting to take on new responsibilities.  People who have lost their jobs, changed careers (like from a nurse to a mortician), people who have lost loved ones, some of natural course of events, some tragically young.  

One thing that has stuck with me is that no matter what your financial status, no matter what life stage you are in, we all have the same aspirations. We all want to be loved, to be treated with kindness and most importantly with respect. We all want the human connection. There are some who in a short two minute talk can leave a long lasting impression, or some who without saying a word can belittle you. The former you cherish and the latter teaches you tolerance and forgiveness.

Analyze this

With the advent of Fall, you start to prepare yourself mentally not only to longer nights and gloomy days, but also to the fact that Autumn will inadvertently lead to long and dreary winters. I have always loved cooler and crispier Fall weather, but this year surprisingly I was in love with summer and have been feeling very reluctant to let it go. Human mind can conjure many scenarios - connections that would even put Freud to shame. I am very fond of self-diagnosis, Right from psychoanalyzing my behaviour, using the dubious online quizzes, to searching up on Mayo Clinic website, one the many, to give name to some of imagined and real symptoms. The results as you can guess can be either hilarious or tragic. For instance I have come to the conclusion that as summer represents youth, I am finding it more favourable than the mature Autumn. In short I am in denial.  This theory is just one of the many - some too outrageous when put in black and white. 

I can go from I don't care to do they like me within seconds - yes my brain can shift gears faster than a sports car. At times it does get exhausting to just catch up with the various fictional scenarios that my mind conjures. There are self-talk shows, soap operas, and even detective shows running simultaneously in my head. And before you judge me, no I am not crazy - at least that is what I have self-diagnosed myself as. I like to analyze situations, dissect my emotions and find reasoning in illogical feelings. The only problem is that I am usually left with half-baked theories and oveworked mind. It is as if the concept of professional help is alien to me. 

My self-diagnosis at times leads to self-medication. Websites, blog posts and Dr. Oz are your best friends  and when all else fails, you reach out to friends for help. My weak eyesight  has me buying readers from store - no prescription, my low energy level has me scouring through dozens of posts, only to find that all that research leaves me exhausted. I have read or at least browsed through all the potential self-help books- including how to make friends, how to make money and of course how to be a better parent The results for most parts have been disastrous - apart from some success stories, but the resilient me never gives up. 

I have tried DIY projects at home - and although there isn't much to show in terms of finished products, I do have a collection of memorabilia of incomplete projects.Over the years, you would think that I would have learnt my lesson, but at times I think that it is getting worse.I am unsure if it my basic lack of trust in other people's abilities or the allure of cost-effectiveness of doing it yourself or if it is one of my many idiosyncrasies, but it is definitely a part of who I am. I do wonder at times how far I would take this "I know it all" attitude, but I definitely see myself as a perfect candidate for euthanasia if needed in the future, exiting on my own terms