One Lovely Blog Award

Riya, from High Noon Journal was kind enough to nominate me for this fun award. She is a sweetheart in her 20s living life to the fullest and recording her journey as she goes along. She is a sunshine. Read her blog here, High Noon Journal.

Thank you Riya!

7 Random Facts about me

Although I’ve already stated some in the previous post, lemme see if I can bring diversity to it.

1. I thrive on extremes, which is exhausting at times. So I’m trying to practice moderation.
2. I live by all or none.
3. I love having meaningful discussions with other people.
4. I have a massive respect for people who stand their ground and fight their battles.
5. I believe truth is liberating.
6. I’m a quitter and I move on quick. So I like surrounding myself with people who are more persevering than me.
7. I’m a terrible dancer.

My Nominees:

• Scribbled to paper
• Jules april kitty
• Autumn wayfarer 
• This girl’s got curves
• Timbushi World Blog

The rules for the award goes here.

Cheers!

Ghoulish

She wasn’t a frightened soul. Not that the kind of life she had, she could afford to be one. Humans didn’t scare her. So you could tell that she was a fighter. Stronger, fiercer, wiser than most her age.

Image by Paul Garaizar

But there was something about this time of the day, this phenomenon when light finally gives in, and shadows spread everywhere, that made her heart sink. 

It was the time she stood by the window and watched the demons of men rise like a ghoulish league determined to rot their hearts and suck their sanity, while she hid hers. 

Maybe it was this fear of her own demon empowering her that shook her every night. Nonetheless she fought, like a brave lone warrior of an otherwise lost army.

Daily Prompt: Ghoulish

Life after depression

Image by Pablo Orcaray

When I was a teen, I used to fancy a revival. Sinking like the sun sinks in the horizon, disappearing in the ocean and then rising again the next morning like a brand new thing. Little did I know the aspects you’ve to give up in order to live this fantasy. Atleast I got my wish granted. For depression is just that.

Once your mind familiarises itself to the ghettos of depression, you’re never the same person again. I haven’t found a way to completely block the alleys leading to the ghettos, I don’t think you can do that. But I have learnt something:

Life after depression consists of two types of days: good days when you’re conscious of your blessings and bad days when you can’t help but crawl back to the silhouettes or lifelessness. Its a flux. But the silver lining is the shorter refractory period or bad days. You bounce back quickly and effectively. 

What then is the meaning of recovery from depression? In order to explain this, I’m going to quote a dear friend, a fellow blogger Kimberlyf here, who’s used to this transition of good and bad days in her own capacity. She aptly describes: 

Mental health recovery is not about a cure or never having to face it again. Recovery is about better quality of life. Learning to live with the inevitable instead of fighting against it.

While the struggle is constant, what is important is you keep strengthening your mind and willpower on good days. You learn and discover the principles by which you want to spend your life. You find reasons to go on, and people and places that help you return to surface everytime you’re hitting the rock bottom. 

And you will do just fine.

Image by Alexandra Gorn

Listlessness

Achievement is wonderful when you know why you’re doing it. And when you don’t, it can be a terrible trap.

-Natalie Portman

It worries me to think that I might be of the latter kind. The kind that achieves what it strives for, but never really knows what it is that they’re looking for. 

It is like dwelling in a quicksand. Everyday you sink deeper and deeper, but you can’t find the rope to pull yourself out. So instead you spend days with this realisation that you’re submerging in an invincible load. What is this overwhelming load that you carry? 

I don’t know. But I think, one it has to do with a lack of belief, and two being resilient to day to day stimuli that are supposed to influence your activities. Collectively you reach this state where nothing ever bothers you, and concurrently nothing ever breathes energy in you. Lifelessness. So you just steer while being suspended in this obnoxious luminous dimension where monotony is sovereign; voices are feeble, and emotions are distant. Nothing ever dares to stir a ripple. 

B&W Challenge Day 7

I’m challenged by This Girl’s Got Curves to the Seven Days Seven B&W Photos Challenge. This challenge is to post seven black and white photos, no people, no explanation, of everyday life for seven consecutive days. Challenge one new blogger each day.

 

 

I nominate Rekha Sahay.

Betrayal

Image by Miroslav Ambrus-Kis

He hid the reports in one of the Kitchen cupboards. It was positive. How long had they waited for this moment, years and years of prayers. They were getting desperate now, she more than him. Recently she had been unusually fidgety. It wasn’t the usual her. She had been patient all these years, but ever since they had come back from their reunion, he could tell that she had left something of her behind. Immediately he could tell that it was a bad to push her to go. She was reluctant, she had been all these years, he could never tell why. She would just complain how it was an opportunity for the high achievers to boast their perfect lives. But was that it? Was it her own failures that compelled her to never go? He could never tell. Maybe he’d never know.
He was an artist, and she had loved that about him. Loved it enough to keep them together all these years. Today their patience had paid off, he was ecstatic. He couldn’t wait to see the reaction on her face. He wanted to make it as special for her as he could. It could be the happiest moment of her life. He made her a puzzle. He wrote down a series of clues which would lead her to the reports.

As he gulped down the last sip of tea, he looked outside the window. The tea and sky had the same orange hue. He sensed a deja vu. He felt a chill run down his spine. He had just finished writing the last clue which was first in the series. He folded the envelope and put it under her pillow.

He glanced over the clock. It was 10. Utterly shocked, he realised that he was so engrossed in planning their perfect happy moment that he didn’t notice the time slipping out of his hands. She was never this late. He checked his cell. No message.

He poured himself some milk and went to bed annoyed. He tossed and turned in bed, adjusted the covers and room temperature, he couldn’t sleep. He slipped his hand under his pillow and felt the crumble of a cold, crinckled paper. He immediately felt a deja vu. Chills went down his spine.

She had left him a goodbye note.

 

 

Daily Prompt: Orange

B&W Challenge Day 6

I’m challenged by This Girl’s Got Curves to the Seven Days Seven B&W Photos Challenge. This challenge is to post seven black and white photos, no people, no explanation, of everyday life for seven consecutive days. Challenge one new blogger each day.

 
I nominate Scribbled to paper.

To Confront or not?

Image by Randy Jacob

What is more important: to be empathetic or to be honest?

You can’t be both at the same time. Because let’s just say we don’t want to hear the truth. We don’t want to confront ourselves. We want to believe that we’re doing the right thing, but right thing is not a leftover mousse cake in your refrigerator that you’re going to go back to and eat. You have to work hard for it. You have to put yourself out there and earn it, discover it for yourself. 

It takes every bit of courage that you can find, every source of inspiration that you’ve access to. And yet you can’t predict the aftermath. You just give it a go and watch for what comes next. 

Empathy on the other hand is healing. But it can be dangerously delusional. Especially if the person gets hooked to the idea of an easy struggle. It is detrimental long term. 

Life is not easy. And it doesn’t get better with time. 

To actually look life in the eye, and to believe that you’re doing that are two separate things.

But what is the right time to accept that? 

What is the right time to hear that?

This seems to be one of the biggest dilemmas of my life. 

To be instinctively honest makes you a little less of an empathetic soul. But a premature truth does more harm than good. It’s like prescribing an antibiotic in underdoses. Even though you’re prescribing the right thing , you just paradoxically end up building the pathogen’s resistance. 

And so an immature truth does that. It desensitises you to reality. 

It is an intricate balance. 

One that is very hard to figure out.

Sun kissed

I will write a love affair

I will call it Autumn 🍂 

It will be wild and unkempt, and warm and fuzzy

When the world is bidding farewell

We will sneak in a quiet corner

Sun kissed, coalesce like two drops of mercury 

B&W Challenge Day 5

I’m challenged by This Girl’s Got Curves to the Seven Days Seven B&W Photos Challenge. This challenge is to post seven black and white photos, no people, no explanation, of everyday life for seven consecutive days. Challenge one new blogger each day.
 

 

I nominate Mindescapes.