A boy's journey through words and the mixtapes. I write every Thursday.
Jump right in, or wade in slowly.
Advantage to one, it’s over quickly.
Advantage to the other, it isn’t.
~ Maira Kalman
2020 was just a number.
So is 2021.
All you have is that ‘one day‘;
This moment;
Today.
And, Never. Forget. That!
Happy New Year Shit is merely to say — straighten up your shoulders, get your acts together again! And do something gravely useful with your time.
Namaste.
“We suffer more in our imagination more often than in reality.” ~ Seneca
From how I understand Breakups —
Breakup is always a choice.
Better if mutual.
Best if one of the two fucks up. Because you see, that holy fucker is merely an opportunistic scavenger; and undoubtedly a ‘would-have-been’ lifelong baggage of regrets. An imbecile pathogen per se.
My friend, Breakups bends but mends.
Rationally weighing over it — there’s no ugly side.
p.s. learned the word ‘imbecile’ from a netflix movie ‘Serious Men’.
Comments closedI tried to hold it in, but tears tear up anyway. I let it be.
~Musicpervs
It’s better I confess and move on.
I cry almost, … almost every other night despite this perfect ‘all is well’ cosmetic I put on.
Solitude. Loneliness. I swing in-between. Killingly.
‘Could haves’ clutters up my headspace. Blindfolds me. Squeezes me on my neck and hammers nail right through my literal heart.
Tears tear up.
And, I let it sway me.
And, I wonder after a while,… matter of fact, I wonder after every whiles that perhaps this is called ‘cleansing memories‘ of my grandmother’s final days.
Thence.
Understanding life.
Contemplating death.
Embracing fragility.
Steadily healing.
Namaste.
Comments closedI hate fake people. You know what I’m talking about. Mannequins.
~ Jarod Kintz
RIP.
Rest in Peace.
Really!?
I’ve seen enough of these three words thrown away just like that without weighing on them at all.
What a disgrace.
In all sincerity, if we’re taking about real grief; If only, we are talking about sense of real loss, real sympathy, real emotions, or feelings, or even real last words for the deceased — what .. what a terrible waste of words these seem for real.
With due honesty, I say what an awful expression to mourn the departed!
Never do that!
It’s like wishing stale ‘Happy Birthday‘ or rotten ‘Happy anything’ to your fake friends, colleague, relatives, whatever — and sure enough, pretty entirely out of pure formality you see.
Because, One — you fucking sure are not ‘Happy’ by any metric … any — when you typed them and sent them away. And Two — you have fucking no clue what does wishing anyone ‘Happy Birthday’ truly mean if all you do is fucking text.
Please don’t give ‘Rest in Peace’ ever. You can always do better than that.
For, we sure don’t know what Resting in Peace is — after death.
At least I don’t, even when I am fully alive.
Comments closedEverything is in your heart and in your hands.
What is the world’s most expensive bed? The hospital bed.
You, if you have money, you can hire someone to drive your car, but you cannot hire someone to take your illness that is killing you.
Material things lost can be found. But one thing you can never find when you lose: life.
Whatever stage of life where we are right now, at the end we will have to face the day when the curtain falls.
Please treasure your family love, love for your spouse, love for your friends…
Steve Jobs
Last Thursday, I felt all the weight of the world on my shoulder. Again, I watched flames eat up flesh minutes by minutes.
Last Thursday, I couldn’t write.
Last Thursday, on September 24, 2020, 2:35PM; My grandmother passed away right in front of my eyes as I tried fixing her bed positioning.
I was with her as she was recovering gracefully; Once again, playful, smiling, upbeat and eating; Once again, trying her best to be herself.
But then —
We saw her heartbeat go up to 240-253 from 90-100, as the monitor beeped red and worried.
We saw her tearful, swollen, painful eyeballs; saw every parts of the body swollen with water.
I’d feed her every meal (breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner, … water), every day, until the day she couldn’t eat or drink anymore.
Laughed with her, cried helpless tears without anybody noticing, slept-a-little but in chilling, unfamiliar fear; googled every shit possible, in hopes that I can bring her back to her normal self.
Honest to god (if there’s one), It’s inexplicably painful to be remembering her finest and the final days with me, with us.
Because, I’ve seen her failing heartbeats over a monitor from 135 to 115 to 65 to 51 to 0.
Because, I held her cold, swollen, white hands and watched her oxygen saturation(SpO2) drop from 96 to 81 to 75 to 0.
Because, I saw her blood pressure get radically low despite continuous Dobutamine IV administration.
Because, I saw her lungs RPM go nil from 24 and 18 and 8.
I know how fortunately vulnerable we human are — than we’d ever know.
I vividly remember, one fine day, we walked her to the hospital on an ambulance. I will never forget her swollen, tired, trying feet.
A week after, I was trying to open her mouth by pressing her tongue downward just so that she can breathe.
Reebhusha sobbing her heart out would rub her hands as we were losing her quickly.
In tears, we had tried everything we could’ve. She did too.
We failed!
Failed!
However, there’s a second part to this story.
P.S. Ours was not merely a grandparent-grandson relationship.
Ours is a relationship of a lifetime.
Eme’ … … I wish I wasn’t writing this.
Sorry!
1 Comment“They say behind mountains are more mountains.”
Edwidge Danticat
I dare no one disagrees less — we most certainly are living in one of the best, the most blessed times, from a vantage point of any human who’ve lived before us.
Just from my own personal experience, must I fold just plenty of years backward, I had never in my life imagined a loadshedding-free country.
Plus, this life I’m fortunate to be living at the moment was also far-freaking-cry.
That today, we bill ‘the internet’ like we pay for our most essential utilities such as electricity and water.
That, transport, food, groceries, even love — are just inches away from our eyes and at our fingertips.
Questions!?
W.h.e.r.e the fuck did we fuck up?
How come we’ve allowed our creativity slash genius muscles atrophy slash malnourished and stupidity and narcissism proliferate at their cost?
How are we more restless, more stoned, more asking, more expectant, more inadequate, more whining, more addictive, more out-of-control, more alone, more depressed, more lost … more suicidal?
How come we’re mostly missing our bed to sleep, mostly spilling our goddamn’ time on far-from-real games and facebook and instagram and youtube and tiktoks.
For fuck sake, how come we’re always tired most-of-the-days on this once-in-a-lifetime Life?
Honestly, Wake UP BEFORE YOU DON’T … EVER!
Comments closed“You must be very very careful who you share your best and the bitter news with.” ~ Jordan Peterson
Please raise a glass for our brand new contributor to the blog. This is her story.
Today is a rant day. So bare with me.
Chapter One: Heartbreak...
For the past couple of weeks, my dearest ‘anxiety‘ had sustained longer than it had ever lasted before.
Catalyst?
Well, this story throws back to three weeks from today. I and my boyfriend were engaged in a thought-provoking conversation over an issue that was eating me up for several days and nights. Later, followed by many other bits and pieces of chats here and there, wherein I was again left figuratively alone — even more anxious, even more torn and confused and hurt.
Aftermath: I would wonder if my curiosity over the matter-in-questions were legit? I’d ask myself if he’d feel any more burdened in any ways with my heart-heaving and brain-freezing dilemmas? I’d also wonder what has changed in our chemistry (why does he not listen for fuck sake)? Honestly, I would even doubt if he’d ever care to understand the depth and the breadth of my private, silent battle or that If i feel confidently comfortable to share my plights with him anymore?
In toto, I saw my grip over our awe-cherished relationship slipping,.. suffocating with every dusk!
In consequence, I’d try to console myself with a fucked up cliché announcing “Let go and let god!“
As a consequence, I’d pretend everything’s all right and that the chips will ultimately fall in their place someday!
In a nutshell, I had forced myself to living a beautiful, sophisticated lie; which without my knowledge was piling up mountains and mountains of more doubts, and more worry and fear and withdrawals, and fundamentally anxiety at it supreme best.
Chapter Two: The silver lining...
Today, out of pure coincidence, we both sat face-to-face over a video call. And talked as we walked through all those bugging, crying, numbing, hurting, killing and confusing shit loads of shits.
Today, we did not text.
Today we sat and poured-out, poured-in.
Today, we figured together that the elephant in the room for all my angst and his’s too, for all my agitations and his’s too, for all my fears and his’s too WAS largely because of our choice of choosing to text whenever we’d chew over complicated matters.
Today, we learned; Talk to Text!
p.s. He’s right, Relationships, be it with yourself, your parents, siblings, boyfriend, girl friend, best of the best friends … are not easy shits!
Namaste.
2 CommentsLucky, I have a brother who’s also my soul friend.
He is the reason why I never really cared about wasting energy in forced companionship.
For I was born with one forever friend and that’s him, a worthy heritage to forever flaunt, to forever flare.
Touch wood.
He is the reason why I’d never really care if somebody or anybody disses me, be yesterday, today or tomorrow.
He gave me an utter freedom to happily enjoy my lonesomeness. He is why I can be alone at will and still thrive because his cocoon was ever present whenever I needed one.
He never asked for my attention because he knew in his heart that he has my whole heart.
He was always there through most of my terrible thick and thins — gladly he lived my plights, my stories.
Glad, he still does.
Our humble relationship as twin brothers, or be it as the funniest two bones — will certainly end one day, not today.
I hope not ever.
p.s.We shared the same warmish womb together, didn’t we? And that’s the cutest thing I’ll forever cherish having done that with you.
Lucky to have you.
Lucky to have two.
Always.
Forever.
Comments closedSo much has happened in these past few years,
I am no more the I was, for the I am to become.
Stories like Claire Wineland’s.
Movies based on real life like William Kamkwamba’s
The scent and the spines of reliable books like Tribe of Mentors, and Atomic Habits,
… and wisdom from bad-ass mentors like Krista Tippett and Young Seneca,
… and clarity and queries from podcasts like The Minimalists, and Masters of Scale.
a hard learned humility of knowing that there’s no way I’ll ever be perfect,
that i’ll ever know everything in life,… about life.
However, the persistent curious itch to inquire and pursue most important questions like ‘What fuels my today for better tomorrow? Or, How might I live a more simple, deliberate, meaningful, joyful and fulfilled life?’
… and in the process cleanse my biases and ignorance, slowly, all the more gently in bits and bites.
In truth, so much has happened in these last few years,
I’ll never be the same.
I don’t want to be the same, ever.
Comments closed