Life's Too Short For Chess

There is never a big thing that complicates anything. It’s always something very small, the little nail that gets stuck in the tyre and punctures it, the little tremor that goes on to cause an earthquake, the one word that changes the course of history.

Complications are like jenga blocks... building slowly, bearing and unsaying until someday when the tipping point comes, crumble as if they never existed. And you never remember what lead it to fall in the first place.

Why does it happen that sometimes words fall so short that whatever comes out of the mouth is always not the right thing?

Why does it happen that it’s never meant a certain way but presumptions lead it to being exactly the way we presume? 

Why after one hiccup there are a series that follow?

Life’s too short for chess (I read that somewhere today) ....

Life’s too short for playing games, you never know when they will start playing you.

Celebrating February #2 - Weekend Getaways

To celebrate my happy month we took a little getaway. This is not a review (it might sound like that) but just a memoir of a wonderful weekend spent at Fujairah.

It changes suddenly, the terrain, from a busy highway to miles and miles of lonely red dessert and on the horizon an outline of mountains at a distance growing closer and emerging right in front of you. You hold your breath and gasp ‘Wow’ when after thirty minutes of driving in the mountains you take a slight turn and for the first time you see the bluest sea spreading till eternity, calm and collected, reflecting the bright sun like a million stars. With the mountain on one side and the sea on the other, you don’t really breathe till you soak in the beauty you are mystically right in the middle of.

I had heard a lot about Fujairah but quite honestly didn’t expect much. We were pleasantly surprised that a city we considered to be just buildings and sand could have something so close to heaven just an hour and a half away.

We set off on a Friday morning. I don’t understand why hotels have to have a check in time of 3PM because it’s almost evening by the time you settle in. Therefore we decided to reach early, have lunch and just laze around till they finally give us our room.

The Jal Fujairah resort can be quite deceiving by its looks on the outside. But one should not judge a book by its cover they say. As you drive into the resort you wonder if it’s worth paying AED 650 a night (taxes and breakfast included) for something that looks like a sea side motel.

So before you wonder what kind of a place this is, I must tell you that as you walk into the lobby the first thing you see is the sea! Yes, it’s right at the beach. And this makes the resort totally worth the money you spend. The staff is efficient and sweet (they upgraded our room from a standard to a superior :- ) )

Each room is sea facing with a large balcony that’s perfect for sipping tea. The bathroom is huge with separate shower and bath units. The bathtub opens with a window in the room (very romantic if you are there with your better half) so even if you don’t get out to the beach or the pool the room is quite nice and spacious by itself.

Sadly it was very chilly and the water was freezing so we couldn’t swim much and do any water sports which we have scheduled for the next visit. The resort has three pools and one of them (not the one with the bar) is heated. The food is strictly OK. I strongly suggest the buffet barbeque and not the Indian dishes. The breakfast spread is wide and no one should miss the waffles. Make sure you get a table at the patio overlooking the sea, it just wakes you up!

Milan from Srilanka and Mohsin from Pakistan, sweet and chatty servers at the pool side were extremely helpful. They remembered our orders from the previous day which is quite impressive. How can you not have a good time when everyone around you is smiling!

You don’t do much in a resort but be lazy and that’s exactly what we did. Time moves so slow when you are doing nothing but staring into the horizon. We ate, drank, laughed and soaked in a lot of sun. I am sure everyone who goes to the resort goes through a depression when having to come back. So we checked out and stayed at the beach till evening before heading back completely rejuvenated and relaxed to Dubai.

For those wondering of my plight of beach wear. There is an amazing thing called swimming shorts (awesome ones available at Billabong) which is perfect for women like me.

I couldn’t have asked for more in my happy month. A perfect, short getaway I strongly recommend for anyone living in the UAE.

Here are some pictures from our visit.

The drive - When the mountains start

Just staring into the sea.... calm and serene

The view from the room - All rooms have a view like this

Beach chair

Sun and Shade :)

Celebrating February #1 - One piece, two piece … F@#$ whatever!!!

My happy month is here. I am a February baby and I absolutely love everything about this month. Apart from the fact that this month meant the most number of birthday cakes when I was growing up, I love this month for the hope of spring that it brings along.


February in Dubai doesn’t bring a hope for spring but the scare of terrible summer. However the weather in February is perfect for an outdoor brunch or sipping wine on a patio overlooking the beach. It’s the time when you make the most of the weather, plan last minute holidays and try to hold on to whatever cold wind you can capture in one breath.

To honor my happy month I am going to write a few posts about the things on my mind this month. Stay tuned :-) Here is the first in the series -

One piece, two piece … F@#$ whatever!!!

Amazing weather, a crazy month and lots of stress has made us plan a teeny weeny weekend getaway next week. The getaway demands the purchase of a certain item which has made me going nuts now. I had some time ago written about my angst in finding the right pair of jeans (read here, here and here), thankfully I did find them after months of searching and trying out probably thousands of pairs. I haven’t had to go through that torture again, thankfully. This time however it’s the fight between me and the bikini.

I have owned some really pretty swimming attire since I was a child and that’s all thanks to the very sweet aunties and uncles who would travel abroad and bring back gifts for us poor souls who never went further than Nepal (and one foot into Pakistan, thanks to some army connections)

Anyhow, the last pretty one got eaten up by Coffee (May her soul rest in peace) in my attempt to save it from her it got torn badly. So that’s when the fight begun and is now a full fledged battle.

What does a normal Indian (read Punjabi) woman naturally blessed with thunder thighs (which we politely refer to as – ‘khate peete ghar ki nishani’) do when she has to find a decent yet nice looking swimming attire. Now you might tell me there is a choice in the market of the funny suits that come with frills and skirts at the bottom and I will give you a very dirty look. No normal bred swimmer would wear something that resembles a cross between a bad cheerleader uniform and a little girl’s birthday dress in LYCRA.

So I search and I search and all I see around me are skimpy little two piece thingis seeing which I wonder – who the hell really fits into these minuscule pieces of cloth? Being blessed with thunderous baseball bats is one thing but the beauty of the Indian woman doesn’t stop there and also settles in the lovely love handles that ummmm kind of look only nice when you wear a saree and pretend to be all sexy and coy at the same time.

Anyway, you take them in the trial room, struggle to fit in… look right, left, front and back, cringe at the thought of added cellulite since the last time you were in a trial room, make a sad face and fantasize about a morning when you would wake up and all that fat would have been mysteriously been sliced off in the night and you would be the new Kareena Kapoor.

You are so depressed after the trial room that you pick up a few shoes (that always fit right) and drown your sorrows in a nice big blueberry muffin (not always low fat)

I fail to understand when more than 70 percept of the population in this country is Asian how come not one piece of swim wear is apt for the Indian / Asian woman (one piece, nice cut, makes you look good and thin :P ?) I have searched almost all malls and walked endlessly till my feet are dead yet all in vain. The eternal search for the perfect swim wear remains unfulfilled. This is not Baywatch and I am not a Pamela Anderson, still is it a crime to ask for this?!!

So, until I find you, my perfect swim attire,

The average, stout and short Punjabi woman.

Dive

I had completely forgotten that there existed something like Facebook notes and I have quite a few on them there on Facebook. I happened to dig out something I wrote in 2009. Have tweaked parts of it... reading this I realise how much I miss writing poetry.

Dive.

You wouldn’t hear today even if spoken right into your ears, the randomness of thoughts.

The subjectivity of reasoning to your own convenience wraps your soul in layers uncountable.
You wouldn’t feel today if your toes touched, the uncertainty of the touch.
The wall you build shields you from a passion lying dormant.

You are blinded by tears you cry at your own failures,
The ones you use as a measure for what lies in the Pandora’s Box.
I’ve been inside and it’s full of hopes, fears, risks and irrationality.
It’s the Mecca of senselessness and absurdity.
Raw, unrefined and crude,
Full of surprises, heartbreaks & passion,
Unconventionally beautiful.

What stops you to unlock and peep?
To soak and savor...
The saneness in irrationality,
The logic in everything you consider illogical,
The safety in the risks you don’t take.

You wouldn’t smell the lilies today, the ones kept at your window sill.

But someday, with a different key,
You might unlock the Pandora’s Box.

And then baby, I will welcome you to my world.

- Aanchal 2009

Memoirs Of A Lost Home

I’m sitting by my window and it’s raining outside. I can hear the pitter patter of raindrops on the window sill. It’s gloomy and romantic, which makes it quite ironically lovely weather. 

My earliest memory of the rain is a birthday party that went kaput because it rained! I think it was my 5^th birthday and all the kids from Little Folks KG 2 were invited. I haven’t had the chance to celebrate many birthdays because my birthday fell right before the exams started on March 1^st (Damn you ICSE board) maybe at the age of 5 I pre-empted the lack of many future parties and was really looking forward to cut a cake, play pin the donkey and at the end of the evening open gifts. 

I sat there in the veranda sad because it was raining and no one would show up. But someone did... a little girl in a dark purple dress and purple stockings with a gift in her hand. She was at that point of time my bestest friend, it is sad I don’t remember her name anymore... but that snap shot of her walking in the drive way is ingrained in my mind as a happy memory. I am split between the cause of happiness at that point of the 5 year old me – was it the fact that ‘someone’ showed up .. or that I did get at least one gift. I do think it must be the latter.

Kanpur used to have a proper monsoon. Two months of solid rain and sometimes sporadic rain in the winter (mostly on my birthday) which meant lots of rainy day holidays and lots of flies. The earth used to smell with the first rain .. the same kinds that we tried to replicate when we watered the plants and the drive way in scorching summer. 

I have been trying to scratch my head to dig deep into my memories of Kanpur lately. I did stay there for 16 years of my life but now most memories are a snap shot or relate to a smell or just get a deep sinking feeling in the gut. 

The house that I grew up in, the veranda where we sat and watched the rain and the drive way where we climbed trees is now gone. 

The day my Dad called me to tell me he is finally leaving the city, I really tried hard to feel bad but I knew he was sad (and as I understand now, as we grow up and our parents age there is a subtle role reversal) so I told him not to worry because home is where the heart is.

Sitting and watching the rain today and flooded with the memory of my 5^th birthday party I start thinking of the house I grew up in. 

I remember the numerous times I bruised myself, the place where we buried Fluffy and then the place where we buried Snoopy. 

How I never wanted to get out so while playing with the servants kids so I always had a kachi turn. The million lizards, snakes and bats we lived with. How that house seemed so big and now when I look into the picture my Dad sends me on BBM it looks so small. 

I remember the little kitchen and the goody cupboard, how on the first of each month my Mom would go ration shopping and come back with Pure Magic and Jim Jam biscuits for us. How we would gobble the packet the same day and yearn for them for the next 29 days. The smell of the old wooden furniture and coolers... On every Saturday after a lunch of Kadi Chawal how we would in the evenings to take relief from the heat go and have ThumsUp with ice cream and buy flowers from little kids. We would come back to hours of load shedding and sit in the garden and sing songs.

We lived isolated from the world but Murray Cottage had its share of gossip. 

Our friends and neighbours, the maids, dhobis and workers who were more family than anyone else stayed stuck in Technicolor while we moved on. 

We grew up and left. I went back a few times after I left the city I grew up in, after I made a home in another city and then another but what I left at Murray Cottage was my childhood, my innocence.

My cupboard stands alone today in a ghost house with scribbles – Amir Khan, Tom Cruise, Rahul Dravid, Bryan Adams.... the stickers I put on my now empty desk stare at blank walls...

When I think of home today I think of where my loved ones are. I think of Ahmedabad and I think of the warmth that comes from them to that house. 

All things eventually go away ... a childhood or a home .... what matters is what you carry with you as you grow up and walk away. 

To Murray Cottage, You gave me enough experiences and stories to relate to my unborn children. There will always be a part of you in me.

The Dubai BlackBerry Chronicles

I started writing the Dubai chronicles when I moved here and somewhere along the way Dubai became home and the chronicles went kaput.  Familiarity breeds contempt and it also breeds complacency (and not in the good way).  While I was searching a nice profile picture for my Face book profile, I stumbled on my BlackBerry picture folder.

Now the strange thing about clicking pictures from a mobile phone is that it’s so in the moment and then its forgotten...

Looking at the pictures today I felt a story unfold in front of me, I saw a me, so different just 11 months ago.

Therefore, I decided to do a little photo story, some memories captured in extreme low mega pixel but remain very close to my heart. Each one a step forward into today. 

The night when I took the flight to Dubai, hours spent with people I love, two small bottles of wine and a box of After Eights...

 It was small but it was this view that bowled me over and still does. 1205, Dome 1 will always be so special...

 There were numerous evenings spent looking at sunsets with endless cups of coffee while I was searching for my place in this city...

 The joys of having your own place are the joys of stocking alcohol ... I discovered the joy of 'a drink by myself '

 The little things that make a house a home... my twinkly lights have become synonymous to home.

 Rare occasions with fresh flowers (an everyday feature back in India) lots of idle weekends with no television that helped to re-discover the joys of reading, writing and FB stalking!

 Numerous, frantic calls made to mom asking how 'this in the photograph' is cooked! I learned to somewhat enjoy cooking ... (though still not extremely fond of it)

 Dressing up, dressing down...

 Lots of girl night outs, bonding and gossiping .... This one particular night has fond memories... and lots of empty wine bottles!

Dubai has such awesome sunsets and it has a beach ... could I ask for more?

 Right opposite from where I work, always an amazing dream.. an amazing inspiration

 Happiness comes in small doses, to me it will always come in a Cold Stone cup cake..

The joys of doing nothing ... a weekend getaway to Abu Dhabi that was perfect

 Building furniture ... now that's a job, but taught me something simple... I didn't need a man (or a carpenter) to form a new life!

 Spending time and getting to know my nephew, so much a child can teach you that all adults put together cannot..

 A place that will always be close to my heart for a lot of reasons -  Nasimi beach @ The Atlantis ...

 A dream came true - I watched Bryan Adams live! I sang, cried and smiled. This was a moment when I realized the fruit of my hard work.. a day comes when you are in a perfect moment, you are where you once dreamed to be ... and yes, that's 'heaven'

My newly discovered hide out in Dubai - Cafe mOre .... the sunsets are to die for, love the all day breakfast and fat, fat pancakes!

There's always light.... it sometimes just hides and we cant see it. Dubai taught me a lot more... 

We make new friends, not easily but we do and at times.. we discover friends in people we just knew...

You have to give in a little to get a little...a city never becomes home unless you allow it to.

And in the end it has taught me that there is always a reason and a season for things to happen... there is always hope.. and as someone very close to me blogged - 'Someday someone will walk into your life, and make you realize why it never worked out with anyone else'.

Here's to hope, dreams and a lot more memories we still need to make...

With love and light!

And Then There Was 2011

A long break and I’m back (not my best piece of writing but getting back from a writer’s block is never easy) There is so much I want to tell you all, but all in good time.


A beautiful song by Jason Mraz urged me to write some of what has been on my mind.

Here’s wishing everyone a year full of love and light. As for my own self (as will be obvious from the post below) I hope I embrace the beautiful changes 2010 bought me, I pray I am able to take a few more leaps of faith and I urge life to surprise me more and more…

Before the cool done run out
I'll be giving it my bestest
And nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some…..

We grow, we evolve and we learn. We change, we progress and we discover. Looking back at the year that has gone by (and this post comes way after the New Year frenzy is over) it certainly was a year for change, just as it had promised.

In overt as well as subtle ways came changes directly or indirectly altering my life. Today on the onset of another journey, another year I couldn’t have asked for more.

I start this year with so much more assurance, affirmation and normality. I enter this year with love and happiness. I begin the journey into the next 365 days with a vow to embrace the beautiful changes 2010 bought me.

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find love love love love
Listen to the music of the moment babay sing with me
I love peace for melody
And It's our God-forsaken right to be loved love loved love loved

Often when we love we give so much of our selves to other people, we are drained eventually of our own soul. It is hard but not impossible to get yourself back. It is harder though to keep it that way and worse still to step into even loving again.
Therefore, sometimes you need to take a step back, guard yourself and be in your own company in order to value yourself again. It is then that you look inside and realize all the love of the universe is right there with you.

So one fine day you rise up and demand from the universe your inherent right to be loved.
And slowly, somehow love from everywhere creeps in, just when you don’t need it.

So I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure
There's no need to complicate
Our time is short
This is our fate, I'm yours

You reach a point where you need to surrender and take a leap of faith….. And when you are full of assurance within, it is so much easier…and you do.

I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and laughed

I spent a half of the year fighting with myself and the other half trying to find peace within and when I found it everything seemed apt, set and meant to be. So I smiled and decided to move on ….

I guess what I'm be saying is there ain't no better reason
To rid yourself of vanity and just go with the seasons
It's what we aim to do
Our name is our virtue

What I learned in a short span of the last 365 days is that there is no use in planning where and how you want things in life, yes it is right to strive for your dreams but sometimes you need to let life take over… let it drift you along …

If things were according to plan there wouldn’t be a Dubai, new friends and a new home.

Therefore ….

But I won't hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure…..

With Love and Light,


P.S. Listen to this awesome song here....

Through the looking glass ... From the Kaleidoscope

Through the looking glass ... From the Kaleidoscope

On Patterns

As human beings we love patterns. We like lines, symmetry. Ants following each other in a line, supermarket aisles neatly arranged with hundreds of products kept in orderly rows, paintings hung in straight lines. We yearn for similarity and evenness. Disruption and disorder scares us. We never stop to think what would happen if ants didn’t move in a line or if the sun didn’t rise one day. The mere thought troubles us.

We are trained and conditioned to follow patterns.

When Ivan Pavlov performed the experiments for classical conditioning he formed the basic law of human behavior – we get so used to patterns that we respond to unconditioned stimulus.

A few days ago someone asked me what kind of people I liked being friends with. This person believed that there had to be some kind of similarity amongst the people I have known. The best at that point I could come up with was – people who don’t snore.

But I got thinking, was there a pattern, a similarity in the people we attract into our lives?

Do we time and time again run into the same kind of people, the same situations? Like a never ending merry go round.

The thing with patterns is that good or bad, they become so comforting and familiar that we try and stick to them.

Are we all one of Pavlov’s dogs?

On Change

Disruption is the law of nature – Disruption alters simplicity into extraordinary.

Everyday there is a chance to disrupt the way we live, the way we behave. Everyday there is a chance to disrupt a pattern, to alter a way of life.

Try sitting on a different seat in the bus, taking another route to work, try a different dressing in your salad. – The world looks different from another angle, the world tastes different.
Take the leap of faith at times, risk to try something new – meet people who are just not like you, different in belief and being. 

For once, try walking in the sun.

Changing Pavlov’s theory, twisting and turning the kaleidoscope.

Spring Cleaning Of My Soul

To all the beautiful people on this spiritual journey with me....

There is a process in creative visualization or hypnosis where in one can reach deep into the sub-conscious mind and spiritually connect or disconnect from anything or anyone.


The belief in this concept is simple – we are all connected to each other by a certain power and with certain energies, to put it simply - a cord that joins two people. . With some people and things we are connected via cords from our mind, with some from our hearts or other parts of the body.

Each time we interact with someone we give them our thoughts which are the finest forms of energy and we take in their thoughts or energies. These energies need to be balanced. To give as much as we get; a misbalance in these energies is what either depletes one person or basically screws up a relationship and eventually oneself.

The connection and exchange of energies is with everything and everyone around us

Every relationship in our lives goes through a constant state of flux because of this exchange, yet we remain connected through these cords. Sometimes happily, sometimes not.

The art is to know when and the way to disconnect from what holds no use in life anymore yet somewhere remains attached to our souls.

I would call it - spring cleaning of the soul.

Letting go is hard to do.

Each day you see yourself cross hurdles to get out of things that have depleted everything from you. Sometimes you fall and then you rise up again, maybe, two steps back, but continue to walk ahead.

Moving on is not easy but it is important for self preservation.

There is always a right reason and right time to break free, to cut the cord. You know deep inside that the need to a certain habit is gone or when a certain relationship is over.

And then one fine day somehow you break that cord. You let go with love and light what was once close to your heart. That moment is not painful but beautiful.

When something doesn’t bother you the way it did, when you feel your life is spacious and open to so much more. That is the most amazing feeling, like being born anew.

Whatever you are holding on to today, let go… loosen the grip and open your palms to beauty, feel new energy rush in.

Welcome change and let it flow through your body, regenerate and recreate.

Allow the universe to fill in your world with what is best for you.

And remember, nothing will ever be the same or how it was, lightning never strikes twice and life never gives that many chances.

With love and light...

On 6 Cities & Many More To Come....

The bed in my current house is kept right next to the French windows that go all the way up to the ceiling and overlook bright lights of the city. I have developed a habit of staring out into the night before I sleep; the calmness yet occasional sounds of traffic give me a sense of belonging. As if finally, though slowly I am finding my roots in this city.

When you start identifying with the sounds and colours of a city, you know you are on the right track.....

My bio on twitter goes something like this - 6 cities, several homes, a writer, day dreamer, painter, alternate healer, tarot card reader turned advertising professional or vice versa.

Let me tell you, the 6 cities part is quite a conversation starter. Now that I’m active on Twitter so many people ask me, ‘So, what’s the deal with the bio and the six cities?’

I never quite thought about it and it has been more of a matter of fact for me but now when I don’t see many Indian women my age, single & shuffling cities I presume it might be a little strange for a few people.

The thing about moving cities (and not travelling – which I have been very lucky to have also done, quite a lot) is that you become a person of nowhere but somehow of everywhere. 

You don’t have the one set of friends but every time you leave a city you filter friends and by the time you move into a new one you have a few close ones left behind in the previous city. 

You start slotting your life in stages according to the place you were in at a particular age and when you look back, you seem to yourself like a different person.

Before you sink deep into a city, a city has to take you in. 

Listening to a song today made me realise how connected we become to the places we call home. Strange things link us to places – songs, smells, food...

And then when you leave a city just like an old love affair, a trigger can ignite a memory, a dream and takes you back into the past, you yearn and long to be back into the arms where you once belonged but soon your eyes open and you are in the present trying to embrace it in the best possible way. 

In my series and attempt to cultivate gratitude, after my friends (in the earlier post) I am so grateful for the cities that took me into their arms and allowed me to make a home and to those that are yet to be made into a home.

I might just be the luckiest person alive!

Better Days

I have already posted a few posts on one of my favorite books - Eat Pray Love. This one is about a song from the movie and I love it for two reasons -

1) Amazing Eddie Vedder - The man creates magic once again. I love how he does it especially with movie soundtracks.
2) The lyrics of this song are so inspiring and you can almost feel a light encompassing you and filling you with all the love and gratitude in the world. 

This song sums up one of my absolute favorite quotes from the book -

"The expansion of one person,  the magnification of one life - is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time happens to be nobody's but my own" 
 
 Better days - Eddie Vedder 

I feel part of the universe open up to meet me
My emotion so submerged broken down to kneel in
Once listening the voices they came
Had to somehow greet myself read myself
Heard vibrations within my cells in my cells
Singing "Ah-la-ah-ah ah-la-ah-ah

My love is safe for the universe
See me now I'm bursting
On one planet so many turns
Different worlds
Singing Ah-la-ah-ah ah-ah-ah-ah ah

Fill my heart with discipline
Put there for the teaching
In my head see clouds of stairs
Help me as I'm reaching
The future's paved with better days

Not running from something
I'm running towards the day
Wide awake

A whisper once quiet
Now rising to a scream
Right in me

I'm falling free falling
Words calling me
Up off my knees

I'm soaring and darling
You'll be the one that I can need
Still be free
Our future's paved with better days 

Listen to the song HERE

On Heartaches and Heart Warming Friends

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It seems to be the season of pain, I see so many people around me going through hard times and heart aches. This one’s for all of you out there… a little part of my story...

The thing about mending a broken heart (after the first time around) is that you get used to it. You know it's reactions and you recognize the pain. Even though you can’t do anything about the ache that crushes your insides each time around, you submit yourself to it knowing deep down that somewhere, sometime soon in the future, you will be ok.

When my heart broke for the first time, I was a disaster. I didn’t know my heart could actually ache; It ached in places that I didn’t even know existed. Through the months that followed, I thought I would never recover and life as I knew it had ended. Ironically it was the same feeling that I had when I sat on that motorbike and went for my first date. Life, as I knew it had ended.

In the months that passed after my first love left me, I felt pain, anger, hurt, rage and helplessness. Sometimes all of those emotions together. 

Then one fine day, a few months later I woke up and I had no pain. I wasn't hurting. I survived. Somewhere down the line, I fell in love again.

Over the years I have broken a heart and got my heart broken quite a number of times. Every time, with each love, life as I know then has ended.

Heartbreaks and healing became a pattern. Patterns we start understanding over the years. I can comprehend my reactions in pain. However stupid they might be. I am aware that even though I might never stop loving, my love is not enough to make someone stay. So the form of my love changes, not it's extent.

The thing with adulthood is that with the pleasures of relationships is also brings responsibility. The responsibility of dealing with pain.

As you grow older, you are supposed to understand and act on pain as if it's a normal routine. You are supposed to control the things you say and do.
You learn to stop communicating. You assess situations and play mind games. Instead of howling your heart out to get over it, you endure and pretend to be strong. 

Heartaches at any stage of life are not easy.  You learn to accept them and hide the fact that they crush you in parts that haven’t been already crushed before.

But….

With heartaches come heartwarming friends. It’s the balancing act. Nature’s way of telling you that you are never truly alone.

Friends of all shapes and sizes. Some, who know about your pain and some, who don’t. Some, who don’t need to know. But all of them make sure that you are warm when the cold winds blow.
Friends who warn you of potential mistakes which you always end up making anyway. So you go back to them and even with all the foolishness in your kitty, they accept you for who you are.

The ones you can talk to about the same thing again and again and you never hear a sound of complain or boredom.
The ones you don’t need to say a thing to. They just know what to do to make you feel better - a warm cup of tea and your favourite meal.
And the ones who know nothing of what is going on in your life but their inherant warmth always warms up your life.

I am lucky to have a few of them around me. Life would not be this easy without you all around.

For my friends, I am thankful. I am blessed.

For those reading this and going through a heartache - your pain is unique and sadly only you can feel it. But trust me, One day, the sun will rise and you will wake up without the slightest thought of pain. You will laugh and you will learn to love again with all your heart and all the truth in the world. If you are lucky to have friends like mine, be rest assured, that day will come sooner than you think.