I’m sitting in a café with a glass of
prosecco, the view of the Singapore River and my New Year notebook on one of
those beautiful, rainy days that force you to reminisce. The notebook has
documented my year-end thoughts and resolutions for over ten years. I read what
I have written year after year and finally accept that an exercise regimen
might not be my cup of tea. Travel to far off lands and random things like
working towards fulfilling my dreams are more achievable. It’s just a matter of
when they manifest in my life.
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Four years ago, on the last day of 2013, I
promised myself that 2014 would be the year when I would leave Dubai for a new
city. I spoke to my colleagues, found some contacts and secured an interview in
Singapore at the start of January. As luck would have it, on the 1st
day of 2014, I met a boy. It was love at first sight. Through my trip to
Singapore and Bali later that month, we chatted continuously. I told him how
much I loved this city and could see myself living here and he told me how he
couldn’t wait to have me back so we could start dating. “If I can’t make it
work with you, I can’t make it work with anyone,” he said to me a few weeks
later.
The interview went well and they even made
an offer. But, I was smitten. Everything he did was perfect. The way he called
out my name, how he would cook for me on weekends, his plans to travel the
world, his frown, his smile – everything. I decided to let go of the job
because who needs a job when (you think) you’ve found your soulmate, right?
Many blissful months and an amazing holiday
in Spain later, he suddenly got a job transfer, broke up with me and left Dubai
in a week.
He moved to Singapore.
While my heart was trying to process this,
what pissed the rational part of my brain was that he moved to Singapore.
That was supposed to be my move. He
couldn’t steal that from me.
I stayed on in Dubai, cried for a few
months - first for losing him and then for being silly enough to let go of the
job. Eventually, I dated some nice and some weird people, I learned to drive,
bought a car, climbed a mountain, rode a horse, started speaking Spanish,
danced the tango and took a sabbatical to study art among other silly pursuits
and resolutions in the years that followed.
I started to thank him a little each day
for hurting me. The only way I could recover was to learn that I couldn’t take
my one, precious life for granted.
Every day, my belief that the pieces of the
puzzle would come together became stronger.
I was in Greece when I finally forgave him.
It was early December, a few days before we were supposed to leave the island
to go back to normal life. I was sitting on the rocks next to the beach with my
New Year notebook, ready to document what life had meant to me in the past year.
It was the feeling of coming out of a storm to a place and people who made me
feel complete.
I wanted to write about the new
experiences, the creative process, the family I found, the capacity to love I
discovered, the absence of the need for validation from everyone and the purity
of the island but each time I started, I burst out crying. I had no words to
describe it. I was full gratitude and content but the words wouldn’t come and
the tears wouldn’t stop.
I was happy.
Overjoyed to the brim, there was no room or
reason for pain, hurt and grudge in my heart.
He was just someone who came and left. But
what I felt at that moment and everything that led to it, was forever and truly
mine.
I wrote what I was feeling –
‘Unconditional’
No resolutions or promises. 2017 would
simply be unconditonal.
************************************************************************
I stare at the scribble on my notebook for a
long-time tracing back the past 54 weeks to that time on the rocks in Paros.
I’m not sure if it was letting go, my
conscious effort to embrace everything that came my way, fighting for what I
wanted or the butterfly effect but somewhere, a star was waiting to shine on
me. Life came full circle and there I was a few months into the year, fitting
my life in ten boxes and taking back what was always mine – moving to
Singapore.
This year is special not only because I moved
to a city that I always wanted to live in but it is also a reminder for so much
more -
To relentlessly chase dreams no matter how
hard or far-fetched they may seem.
To take risks.
To believe that there is a better version
of you just waiting to be peeled off.
To not give up when you feel like the
stupidest person in the room or that all your choices were a mistake - To learn
and come back stronger and with faith in who you are.
To ever so often, say, “NO, it’s not good
enough,” – when it isn’t.
To embrace new friendships and find missing
parts of yourself in people you’ve just met.
To have gratitude because everything comes
together when it has to.
Most importantly, a reminder that it is
inevitable that at some point again, doubt and fear could engulf me and I might
feel everything is amiss.
I might end up stuck in a job, relationship
or place where I am not appreciated.
I might become unsure of what I want to do
with my life and who I want to be.
But amidst all this commotion, competition
and things that might happen, I will let go.
There is a place I call home – where the
beach is rocky, the sea has myriad shades of blue, people love without judgment
or conditions, where none of this exists and I carry that unconditional love
with me, all the time.
Here’s to living even more unconditionally
in 2018.
To sharing, spreading, and embracing
absoluteness.
To new cities, friends, experiences, and stars
that are just waiting to shine.
