Tag: writing

One Year Without Him…

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[Trigger warning: Death and grief]

I am restless, unfocused, and all over the place. I find that I need to keep myself occupied, and yet I can’t quite. I’m in chaos, cleaning obsessively and yet haphazardly. 

I think to myself nonstop that last year, he fell asleep on June 4, never realizing that he’d never sleep another night. That in 24 hours, he would suffer for an hour before he took a deep breath, never letting it out. 

It’s traumatizing. Heartbreaking. I wasn’t there, but I remember every detail the way my Mom described it to me. I visualized it, and now the images in my head are so clear. I called the doctor two days later, asking about his last minutes, unconscious and almost gone when he arrived at the emergency. I needed to know. 

It was fate when we walked into the emergency room for my Mom a few days later. I saw the bed he died in. I put my hand on the foot of it, and I could see it all happen all over again in front of me. The night of horror she described was right there. I could feel it if I put my hand out.  

They say he looked peaceful. Like he was asleep. I constantly feel like nobody knew him at all. Because if they did, they’d know. 

They’d know he wasn’t ready.
They’d know he was worried he didn’t set life up for his younger daughter the way he wanted to.
They’d know he looked grumpy when I walked in 10 hours later.
They’d know what he looked like, peaceful, happy. They’d know what he looked like, grumpy and annoyed.
They’d know.

They’d know, like I did. 

It hurt seeing him dead. It hurt more feeling in my gut, he wasn’t ready.
But maybe it was me. Maybe I wasn’t ready.

I wish he saw how much we loved him. How much I loved him. He shaped everything I was and everything I became. I am so proud to be more like him.
His instincts. His authority. His insight. The things I am sometimes resented for, but I am proud of.

I wish I could’ve learned more from him. More about his thoughts. More about the world.

I often tell Mom, I don’t miss his presence in the big things. It’s not the massive emotional phone calls. It’s not life updates. It’s not those things that seem to matter to the world.

I miss him in the little things. The news cycle I can’t rant about. The movie I can’t describe. The philosophies and entirely overthought ideas about the world that nobody else will relate to. 

He was my person. 

Yes, my husband’s my person too. He and I talk about so much under the moon. My Mom is incredible. My sister is the shoulder every time I need one. But it’s never the same.

Because they didn’t watch me develop these thoughts. They weren’t there when I said God doesn’t exist. They weren’t the ones who told me to wait until I became an adult. They won’t understand the transition between “Why a temple?” to “I felt goosebumps in front of God.” 

But it’s beyond that. It’s the alignment. He understood everything I said and everything I didn’t say. He knew me better than I knew myself.

The conversations I had with him about me, my world, the world in general, him, his thoughts, culture, religion, politics, career, life, relationships – these were so unique and aligned. I have moments when I have a rush of thoughts and I realize I’ve got nobody to share it with. Not because they won’t listen but because they’ll never get it like he did. 

It’s a lot to lose a parent. It’s a lot more to lose your favorite one. It’s worse to lose the only one who’ll ever truly know you. 

He loved that I never changed my name. I told him my husband showing up doesn’t erase the fact that I am my father’s daughter. 

He loved that I called him for advise. “Your husband’s going to think, what is this wife, calling her Dad for life decisions while I’m here.” I told him I could be 60 and I’d still need my Dad for life decisions. My husband’s only my age. Can’t expect him to have the wisdom my Dad does. 

I remember I got a temporary tattoo early last year and called to tell him, “I don’t like it. I don’t think I’ll get a tattoo.” He said he was proud of me. Not for my book. Not for my career. For finally admitting what he hoped I would. 

He said he named me Poornima because I was round-faced like a full moon, and he hoped I’d have a full life. My last call with him was June 4. I sent him a photo from my trip to Bondi Beach in Sydney. He said, “Wow. Round face. Happy smiles. Good.”

I’ll regret hanging up that phone that day. My adult life needed me and I didn’t know I would never speak to him again. But I wish I hadn’t hung up that phone. I remember thinking to myself, “I should buy him something nice when I go home next month.”

I was home in a van on the way to a cremation room 48 hours later. 

I don’t know how we get over this. How we move on from losing a parent. 

They say grief is permanent. The heartbreak comes in waves. A part of our soul lost and never to return again.

It’s been a year. I’m in grief therapy. Every session, I remember more and more about him. About growing up with him. Memories long forgotten.

The person I want to reminisce with after each session is him. 

I want to call and ask if he remembers. Hear him tell me one more story that I used to roll my eyes at. About my childhood. About his life. About what it was like to be a dad.

Every little part of him feels precious. His phone. His clothes. His scent. 

Maybe in a year, it won’t feel so raw. I won’t feel the cuts my heart is struggling to heal. 

Maybe in a year, I’ll be able to smile when I think of him and not hurt. I’ll be able to throw the small pieces of paper his wallet held, which have no significance except the fact that he held them at one point.

Maybe in a year, I will finally change the fading strap on his watch. The one I smile, and hold close every time I wear it. Maybe it won’t feel like him holding my hand. 

I don’t really know how this ends. This post. These emotions. This moment in time that feels so excruciatingly painful to process, but life has left me with no choice but to endure. I don’t know how I continue to grow my family, my career, switch jobs and never ask him if I’m doing it right. Never hear him talk me through my fears.

But I also know I hear him in my thoughts. He’s there in the decisions I make. My instincts are shaped entirely by his words, his advice, his slow push that has taken me through this life for 32 years.

When I negotiate salaries, I hear him say, “There is nothing wrong in asking for what you deserve. Don’t undervalue yourself.”

When I second guess myself, I hear him say, “You’ve made the decision, that’s it. Move on. Don’t go back and forth once you’ve decided.”

When I cry from how this hurts, I hear him say, it hurts him too. “I don’t want to see you cry. You’re my happy child.”

He prepared us for this. A lifetime of telling us, “All those who are born must one day die.” Yet, I feel more unprepared than I ever have for anything ever.

Maybe I’ll be okay. In a year. In ten. In fifteen or twenty. Maybe all these emotions will subdue, and I won’t remember ever feeling this way. Maybe his voice will fade, the instincts more experience than him. But I know that no matter what, no matter when, no matter how life takes on, I will never stop knowing in every inch of my existence and being in every second of my life, a daddy’s daughter.

Forever his first daughter,
P.

TO THE GIRL IN HER MID-30’S

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I said girl, not woman. Because it doesn’t quite fit, does it? The mom jeans and the extra weight and the heaviness of the world on your shoulder. But somehow, none of it makes the word woman quite right just yet.

And still, our lives are nothing like when we were just girls. There’s so much pressure. Of life. Of love. Of living. Travel, friends, health, and babies. Marriage, if you’re married. Marriage, if you’re not. The people that never stop telling you how you’ve failed them. The disappointment of not living up to someone else’s imagination. The disappointment of not living up to our own.

Realizing earning a few million isn’t as easy as we thought. The house they had us draw as kids comes with a cost. You can have the house, or you can be close to home. It’s exhausting. And don’t even get me started on loss. That’s a thing now. We’re old enough. It happens and it just feels so rushed, doesn’t it?

I remember playing Barbies and running around the apartment like it was a few years ago. I’m a 90s baby. Wasn’t it just 2005?

I hear you. I feel what you feel. I am you in so many ways. And when people tell me, “Stay positive, it’s gonna be alright,” I want to grab a glass of wine and roll my eyes.

So this letter’s a little different. This isn’t a ‘don’t lose hope’ or ‘life gets better’ letter. Because let me be real – I don’t know jackshit about what life gets. But here’s what I do know – “fuck it, what can you control?”

Your client is driving you insane? Fuck it. You can’t make stupid people smarter.

The “elders” troubling you for a kid? Fuck it. They don’t know how good wine tastes in the middle of the day.

Society asking you why you’re not married? Fuck it. Why would you repeat one dish when you can order from the entire menu?

Career not quite there? Shitty boss? Shitty work? Shitty pay? Fuck it. The system, it’s problematic.

No hate to the girl who wrote a letter full of hope to the girls in their mid-20s. She needed that to get through that decade. But that’s not this decade. No, this decade is not for hope and stars and glitter falling from the sky – if it does, please hide as it may be hazardous.

But no, this decade is for us dreamers. Actually – This decade is for those of us who’re realizing the dreams they fed us isn’t quite how the world works anymore. I think the word for it is…. bullshit? So we’re really the anti-dreamers? I can’t tell, but you catch my drift.

This decade, that’s still got a few good years to go, is for those of us who want to laugh out loud, think out loud, speak out loud. It’s for us to be ourselves, messy buns and a messy home. Or if you’re like me, messy buns and an extremely clean home. Whatever works for you.

But really, it’s for us to learn to come into ourselves. To embrace the quirks, the little nuances that makes us who we are. To let toxic people, relationships, and things go – Unless it’s paying you good money to fund your life. This decade is for us to be unapologetically ourselves. Bold, abrasive, silent, introverted – whatever the heck makes you feel like you’ve come home to yourself.

So let the noise drown out. Let people with loud opinions be who they are, wherever they are, in their own ignorance. Coz you know what? Fuck it.

Put on your favorite clothes. Turn on your favorite show. Read your smutty books. Get on OnlyFans. Roll your eyes at the Karen at work and fake-smile until it hurts. And every now and then, treat yourself to something a little nice. A dinner. A bag. A great bottle of wine as you tell Karen to go fuck herself? Actually, no, don’t do that.

Because here’s what I’ve learnt as I’ve found love, doggos and a home away from home while dealing with loss, anxiety, depression and a permanent state of existential crisis – Fuck it. What can I control?

Losing you, losing me

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Death is such a funny thing.
One second someone’s here and suddenly they’re not.

I’ve learned a lot about death in the last year.
From dogs to humans. I see them.
Breathing alive humans. I know them. I love them.
And then they’re not them anymore.
There’s a body, a vessel, a person long forgotten.

I think to myself, the one I loved is still out there.
In a soul.
In a feeling.
In a spirit.
In the air.
Around me, thinking of me, blessing me.
Cursing me, perhaps.

For moments I didn’t spend with them. I could have, I didn’t.
I made choices for me and today I wish I’d made those choices for them.
I tell myself every day to not judge myself.
For yesterday’s actions
With today’s knowledge.
But is life ever that simple?

Is anything ever that simple?
The complicated concept of existence vexes me.
So their soul lives on?
They will follow me around?
The people I lost? The pets I want back?
Does that mean they never existed or does that mean they never leave?

Do I process the grief then?
Or did I not really lose them?
Just their bodies? Their vessels for their soul?

But then, what am I really missing?
Because their voice belongs to the vessel and I miss their voice.
I miss phone calls.
I miss silent groans.
I miss the smell of cigarettes and soap.
The stink of grass and mud and thick fur.

So did I never love the person?
Was it a marketing thing,
Loving the packaging?

When do you stop missing it?
When does it stop hurting?
When do they come back?
When do you stop hoping they would?
When do you no longer look at the door, aching
Wishing.
Praying.
For one more sight.
One more hug.
One more conversation.
One more puppy lick.
One last bark you can admonish lovingly?

Death is a funny thing
Because there is nothing quite as painful as it.
And if you don’t learn to laugh at the pain
And the loss it causes deep within,
In your vessel, perhaps your soul,
It will laugh at you.
At the power it has over you.
How it wrecks you.

A little bit every day
Until suddenly
You’re only the vessel.
There’s no soul left.
None that will haunt those who love you after you leave.
Your body will exist.
It will function.
Your spirit won’t.

So you put on a smile and you go on
Like death didn’t matter.
Like all of it was a blip in your moment.
Like you never loved.
You never lost.
It never happened.

Because – if you don’t
And you start to let these things become real
You’ll have to start living.
And goodness gracious,
who wants to do that?

A Year That Was

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I wrapped up my 2018 on an emotional note. I am struggling with the resurfacing of suppressed emotions. I’m grieving a loss eight months after it happened. Or maybe, it’s just the feeling of such an overwhelming year coming to an end. But I’ve been emotional and always two minutes from tears.

This year has been all over the place. When I thought it couldn’t get worse, it did. When I thought it couldn’t get better, it did. Sometimes, I can’t believe it all happened in 365 days. But it was filled with lessons for a lifetime.

I started my year with a job offer. The people around me looked excited, but I knew it wasn’t the right one. I knew there was something better waiting for me. I still took it. I traveled 3000 miles for it. I sat in a hotel room with my mother who was there to help me settle in and I knew in my gut I wasn’t supposed to be there. I cried, sobbed and came back home like a kid on the first day of kindergarten. With that, I learnt to trust my instincts and tune out other voices because I was right.

But making that choice meant living off of my father’s money again. I know a lot of people who don’t mind this part. But I do. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY do. My need to live on my money is high. And so I sank. Deeper and deeper into depression. The kind I haven’t known before. The kind where I volunteered to get help against the wishes of the ones near and dear to me. I was prescribed medication. Yet, on a dull afternoon, I picked up a pencil and started to draw anything that made sense. When I finally put the pencil down, a weight had lifted off of me. I was free. I can’t express why. I can’t tell you how. But it was like my emotions had poured itself out and a light had found me. With that, I learnt the importance of art for my mental wellbeing.

And I thought to myself, Well, the worst is behind me. Life sat in a corner and laughed knowingly.

For the first time in my life, I learnt loss. I learnt how to know and love someone and have them be taken away. I learnt pain like nobody can ever teach you. I watched as the light went out from my fur baby’s eyes. The young one. The sweet one. The one I didn’t fear losing because I had another four years older. And I never understood how to process that pain. I never truly felt that loss wash over me. I find myself unable to say her name without breaking inside today. The therapist tells me it’s because I didn’t grieve. But I don’t know how to. I’m so used to not letting myself feel this pain, I don’t know how to just let it take over. This year, I learnt to love and lose, never to see again. I learnt the importance of grieving as I continue to struggle today.

They said she took the evil away. That worse things needed to happen but she took it so we could have it better. I don’t find myself enjoying the better when someone adds that spin to it. Because if I had to be at home depressed out of my mind to still have her with me, I’d do it in a heartbeat. And that is how I learnt that I’m not going to be the hard-ass, heartless and cold entrepreneur that I hoped to be. Because I can’t walk over people I love to get what I want. I need the ones I love around me, always.

A few weeks after my fur baby passed away, I landed the job I knew I would get. The one that feels like a dream.

And so began the better part of the year. We adopted a stray dog. I identified my real friends. I announced my second book. I wrote the first draft of the second book. I ticked off two new countries on my list. I met global leaders, I shook hands with people I hope to one day be and most importantly, I found myself surrounded by women doing all the things the world I came from told me was absolutely impossible. I found myself inspired everyday and after endless months of not knowing why I’m here, I found my reason again. I found the need to move forward. And for the first time in a long time, I found hope.

My job makes me travel. And in October, I went to Paris. I saw the Eiffel Tower in shivering cold! It was magical. I remember standing there with four women who were way high up on the food chain at work laughing with me and teasing me. It was… perfect. Life laughed again. I spent two weeks in France unable to really experience my surrounding, faking laughter and fighting tears. Wanting to leave, knowing I should stay. I can’t ever explain what happened. But those two weeks taught me – I’m stronger than I think I am.

Because now I know. I know how tangible happiness is. How fleeting perfection is. And no, I won’t hide. I won’t be afraid to take bold and bright steps forward. But I’m going to be prepared. I have the ability to say, “I’ll make my plans, you do your worst. I’ll find my way again. I promise.” That was the biggest lesson 2018 taught me.

We all slip and fall. A number change in the date doesn’t change that. Sometimes, we fall harder than ever before. It doesn’t matter as long as you find the courage to rise again.

In 2018, I learnt the meaning of the words, “This too shall pass.” Because the good and the bad, they pass. And every morning is a fresh start. Every minute is a new one. Ride the waves as they come but be prepared to fall off the board. You’re the only one who can get back on it again.

I spent my last week of 2018 in Dubai. With people I love, doing things I enjoy. I created, I worked, I toured and of course, I fell more in love with life again.

2019 will change many things for me. Personally and professionally. For better or for worse. I’m going to tell myself what I hope you’ll tell yourself, too, when life gets the better of you – Keep moving. Life doesn’t stagnate, you shouldn’t either.

Have a fantastic 2019! Happy New Year from me and mine to you and yours!!

With lots of love, bright smiles and bear hugs,

Me

In memory of Mika (2016 – 2018)
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When I Gave Up.. It Rained Glitter!

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Can you believe I have six versions of this blog post? Because there are just no words to describe my 2016 to you. It’s been a year of throwing my hands in the air with both frustration and excitement.

I started this year with something that was emotionally important to me.

I began focusing more on what I was doing. This life that had been forced upon me didn’t seem so bad anymore. I made friends I cared about. I met people who seemed out of my world. I identified ways that would make me better at work. I still wished I could have had the life I’d wanted. But I no longer felt like a failure.  So I gave up hope.

My new work and my plan B didn’t give me enough mental energy to blog though. My writing style began to change. I neither had the time nor the ability to write. I considered pulling down my blog. I thought it’s time to give up writing.

The idea only grew stronger with every draft I couldn’t finish, with every thought I couldn’t put into words. I remember that night. I was sitting by the window, staring at my computer. I didn’t want to hit Publish. The article was so cheesy, so romantic and so girly. It seemed like the worst thing I had ever written. Maybe I need to edit it a little, I thought to myself. Maybe I should just delete this article and this blog and admit I can no longer write! After an hour of arguing with myself, I finally published “To The Girl In Her Mid-20’s.”

You know what they say about taking chances? Letting that article stay was the best chance I ever took because “It went viral” is an understatement of what happened to me that week. It wasn’t the platforms that shared it, it wasn’t the BuzzFeed feature. It was that email. The one that gave me goosebumps because I had done this to someone’s life. This…

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That blog wasn’t representative of what I normally write. But it reminded me why I do. The emails, messages, comments and love that poured in were each a reminder of why I started this blog. And I know for a fact that I’ll never forget again.

It was almost the happiest week of my life. Almost.

I was at work, just another day of life, when my phone rang. I knew what was coming. But sometimes, it’s better to not let your heart believe until it happens. And so the moment it came, I broke. With joy I’d never known before. One that made me run to the closest room and sob like a child. Because, so many people in this world continue to live life without one shot at chasing their dreams and I’d just gotten my second.

The moment my dad said, “It’s done. You’re going back.”

I could live to be 100 and never forget how grateful I’d felt in that moment. Grateful for the opportunity. Grateful for another chance. Grateful for a father that never gave up. Because I did. And if he had too, I wouldn’t have the ability to now tell you – After having to quit university half way, struggling through depression, battling suicidal thoughts, watching everyone I’d grown up with graduate, trying to be okay when my sister got closer to her degree – I AM BACK AT UNIVERSITY, FINISHING WHAT I BEGAN.

I am crying when I write this because nothing I ever say will do justice to the feeling that rises within me when I think about it. And I’ll say it a thousand times over – It wouldn’t have been possible without my father. And if we didn’t live in a very dysfunctional family, I’d probably hug him ‘thank you’ everyday of my life.

My classmates, unlike my last ones during degree year, are not rude. They are very nice people. We have fun. We all like cute cat pictures. And besides when criticising my apparently unreadable handwriting (jokes), there is never a dull moment.  But going back and absorbing so much information after a long break is quite difficult. I’m no longer a straight A student. But that’s okay. I know I’ll get there.

And to think, I’d given up on everything that had come back to me, better and happier.

I’ve gotten to know who I am this past year. I’ve had the ability to choose and I’ve made choices that were both logical and also, at times, emotional. Some of the choices were right and some weren’t quite. And I know the consequences of it all will come back to me next year. When every choice I make will define everything my future will be. Work, location, love. But I feel good about it. Because I’m waking up on the 1st day of 2017, exactly as who I am. No hiding, no pretending. Just me. With a smile on my face.

And I’m hoping it’s on yours too…

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