The many small questions and the few big answers

I am ushering in the new year on quite a high really. I think it has been quite some time before I felt this childishly happy. There are a few legitimate reasons for the same

1. I had one very good last week of the semester.
Something I have kept referring to for the past few years is about how it feels alien to have a good thing happen to me. I'm almost on guard for a bad thing that I believe, will most definitely follow a good thing. I might have finally given up on that this year. That week, was a week of too many snippets of good news ( which i will now tag as the good-news-week in the post). I passed two of my classes with grades that ensure I don't have to take them again and grades that might have been too good to be true. Yours truly, as usual, was happy to deny she had anything to do with it. But I am learning to give myself credit, so I might have come around to accepting it. This was followed by my flight being delayed and missing my connecting flight and reaching Mumbai 2 days later. But I got to spend the 2 days in my own home and not in a dingy airport gasping for fresh air. I guess I should consider it enough proof that good things can last by themselves after all. :)

2. I am okay with being an adult

It began when about 10 days ago, I wasn't asked for an I.D. while entering this lounge (which is unusual given if you don't look above 40, they do ask for it). And amidst jokes of looking old enough, I realize it didn't matter to me. Mostly people hate the responsibilities that come with it, but I guess it has been long enough that I have come to accept those the way I expect myself to brush my teeth every single morning. I learnt that adulthood comes with its share of turmoil, especially during this phase, where most people are going through their quarter life crises. That I definitely do not have solutions to most problems, that conflicts are unavoidable, and the fewer people, the better.

What has also changed, is my perception of my parents. I now see them as fellow adults, with a little more experience, of course, but nevertheless, stumbling through each day. I see them wondering how to let go of us as adults while we ask to be treated as kids when home. It is so much easier to talk to them, to be understanding. I give them a lot of credit for having transitioned to this mode of being with us, treating us back as fellow adults. In fact, I had this detailed conversation with my dad about love and emotions in a very different capacity, where I found this side of him that I knew existed, but something that never came through before now. That was interesting and a lot easier than I had imagined.

Majorly, I realized I am now in that phase of my life where I see my parents once a year and otherwise, we continue to live individual lives, hoping the other is fine.*sigh* Maybe that slightly hurts.

3. I am home
I won't deny. Coming back home was scary. I know it has only been around a year since I left and I should have been dumb to think that I would remember nothing. But the truth is when you adjust to an extremely foreign place, creating an alternative reality for yourself as a coping mechanism, you often don't remember where you belong, if you belong at all. It was an eye-opener when the typical American politeness in an Indian shop returned embarrassed responses from the employees who felt they were just doing their job. Either way, being welcomed with the smell of bhaturas, being rejected by the autowallahs, and just driving around with my family, was therapeutic, to say the least. I think I had forgotten how good home can actually feel. My sister and I spent time with our parents, and that is pretty much all that we did; making family trips out of tasks to be completed, playing music and eating food.

I came home with ideas about being extremely logical, especially about love and other such emotions. But just being around my family, I realized that maybe, I need to let the feeling of safety and the calmness that is home just sink in, not seek to define or articulate these feelings. Trust that if someone feels like home, maybe that is a relationship to uphold, that is a person to trust. These are very redundant thoughts maybe, but to me, it feels like a lesson I am relearning finally getting out of a few constructs I had built around myself.

4. I now have a U.S. drivers license #good-news-week

   (which is apparently a big deal, I hear)

  

5. I am now a Ph.D. student #good-news-week

I don't even know what to say. I was mostly stupefied, even though it was kinda expected given how things worked out. I know I did work hard for it, it didn't just land in my hands. But I know I got extremely lucky in terms of the work I am getting to do and the people I am getting to work with, from what it seems right now. I think it is finally sinking in, that I am in fact doing what I have wanted to do, for almost 10 years now. Right now, that can actually overwhelm me given my personal expectations of myself, so I am trying to take it as it comes, just focus on work like I always have, and hopefully, that results in good things. I am happy. I jump between extreme calm and extreme excitement for most parts, but I guess it is gonna be a satisfactory 4 years, at least I hope it will be.

I happened to meet Sanaya ( my first ever friend) on New Year's Eve and I think I could not have began 2017 in a better way. Based on our conversation, I think I am done being so serious about everything, I know a lot of my light heartedness came from being home, but I really think I need to start enjoying the good times I have in order to be able to brave through the difficult ones. Maybe something to consider seriously.

My year definitely started out fuzzy and happy. A blissful content happiness I haven't felt in a long while. And the two resolutions, if at all, that I have for myself, is to have faith in the good times and in the good actions of people and to truly be happy when I can. Simple to advise about, difficult to implement. :)

Wishing you a productive and hope-filled new year as well. :)

And here's the happy song I want to share. A song I loved when I could hardly talk and I recently realized, it is definitely a guitar song I have to learn. Big plans for the future, indeed. 

(Mr. Big - To be with you)

P.S. Technically, this post is 10 whole days late. But given that this is the first post of the year, I haven't really missed a "deadline" now, have I? :D