The heart is a lonely place

Sometimes, the loneliest brand of loneliness is when you are surrounded by a hundred people.

Many battles to fight, all mine to scale. Sometimes, I want to ask for help but sometimes, I have no one to ask.

It's Okay to be Awesome

It’s OK to be awesome.In fact, it’s preferable. Highly-recommended.

Perfect 10s across the board.

It’s OK to be the smartest, the cutest, the sassiest, the brassiest, the best-dressed, the most well-versed AND the most ambitious person in the room.

It’s OK to know exactly what you want and to GO for it — guns a-blazing, Lady Gaga-style.

It’s OK to be an artist, writer or performer, and NOT be poor.

It’s OK to quit your day job.It’s OK to have dreams that make no sense to the casual observer — and to actualize them.

It’s OK to kick everything to the curb and start from scratch.

It’s OK to be a Jack of All Trades, and a Master of ALL.It’s OK to be a supernova.

It’s OK to be sought after.

It’s OK to spend more time packing the perfect bento box lunch than actually eating it.

It’s OK to take more than 2 weeks of vacation per year. Much, much more.

It’s OK to spend a lot of time, energy and money improving your mind, body and soul.I

t’s OK to be the life of the party.It’s OK to love so fiercely it hurts.

It’s OK to be legendary.

It’s OK to surround yourself with people who are just as awesome as you are … and maybe ever awesomer.It’s OK — really, truly, honestly — to be awesome.

What makes you awesome?

XXX

I pinched this from http://www.yesandyes.org/2010/10/its-okay-to-be-awesome.html.

Love,love, love the self affirmation - to remind me that everything's going to be ok on days when it is absolutely raining crap.

A Loss

My aunt passed away last week. A tumour had eaten into her voice box and a heart vessel ruptured during the surgery. My mother collapsed when she collected the butchered body of her sister.

I wasn't particularly close to this Aunt but found that I was affected nevertheless- I had grown up always knowing her so felt some semblance of grief. The thing that struck me was as a family, we needed to cling together in facing our loss.

The communal grieving process was a coping mechanism for us and the Hindu ceremonies that ensued provided some kind of organized system to the inner chaos that we all felt. These were the necessary processes that have helped us manage.

Somedays only a Poem Will Do

The Coming of Light

Even this late it happens:

the coming of love, the coming of light

You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,

stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,

sending up warm bouquets of air.

Even this late the bones of the body shine

and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.

-Mark Strand

Personal Strategic Plan

Having just conceptualized a strategic business plan for the start up centre, I am now going to craft a Personal Strategic Plan 2009-2015.

Why 2015? Because that's when I turn freaking 40.

When I write it this way, 40 seems so close. Not that I am one of those women afraid of getting old and all that brouhaha (though I must go and ask the Msian PM's wife her secret to youth. In every new shot, she looks ever younger, what is it my dear- botox, jamu, other elixirs, hahaha).

Anyway, 6 years isn't a long time and 40 just seems to be an age where you better have it together ie life in general. For me, this will translate into family and MONEY. While I have drifted through most of my 20s and early 30s without much of a plan, I do feel that it's time I come up with a framework towards financial security, esp now that I only have 6 years to go (5 and a half to be exact, yegawds).

I never really thought of financial security- I let M worry about that- but now, with a child, it is increasingly on my mind because I want to ensure that I have done everything possible to ensure that he can explore all chances in life esp in terms of education.

How to go about doing this is where I need to think things through.

six years hence

I seem to be posting only at events/annual landmarks but such is the way things are now....

So, 6 years of marriage, not yet the 7 year itch. We are old marrieds now.

I think back of the time when I first saw you, in the office pantry (I know, how boring). I never knew that I had walked into my destiny as I went for a cup of coffee (cheesy). But what a walk its been.

Running around for new bathroom tiles, the airport fights, the long distance phone calls, burnt lamb curry, afternoon naps under the sun, the moonlit kisses, the star clad dinners, the burping baby. We've done it all.

And I am so glad that we are still doing it together.

Tired

I am so, so tired. Of everything.

XXXXX

When S finished his soy milk today (after some serious struggle), I told him that he is a superbaby. I just wish that I am supermommy who can make his eczema go away.

Blessed (again and again and again)

Last Tuesday, I sat for a while at a pub in Holborn, gathering my thoughts. I watched the shuffling crowd, entangled in the after office rush. A few minutes ago, I had stood on the grey pavement with a giddiness that made me want to slump. I felt emptied out, knackered beyond belief.

When the panel congratulated me, it didn't quite sink in. It still hasn't I think. What is a culmination of a lifetime's work seemed to have pirouetted into this one singular moment. So, I can now sign off as Dr. Sunshine.

Afterwards, surrounded by some of the loveliest of friends who came together to celebrate, I had to ask what is it that I had done to receive such benevolence.

To the universe for conspiring to bring such goodness in one fabulous year. Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars

says Tagore. Writing is a catharsis of sorts.

XXXX

We sit in the half light of dusk. A few birds streak the purple-blue sky, rapidly disappearing from view. The crisp evening air chills the room. Somebody should get up and turn the heating on. But nobody does.

I hold on to my cream cable sweater, not thinking of putting it on. The tea my mother made has gone cold. The liquid that slides down my throat is unpleasant. It tinges my mouth with the slight acidic aftertaste of tea that has been left undrunk for too long.

Grief-numbed silence engraves the room. Opaque, dumb eyes stare at each other momentarily. We are still figures slumped on brown cushion chairs, watching the day sinking away. A few hours ago, a phone call comes through bringing results that breaks each one of us.

I place the phone down the receiver. It takes time for the news to be coherent. A numbness sets. An almost detached, clinical logic to the information. I am familiar with viable research projects. One that wins you grants, funding and jobs. Here, it is a question of a viable pregnancy. Of not being viable that is.

Suddenly, like a burst of molten lava, reality explodes. The tears come in a wrenching profusion.