discovering ourselves, and others
shades of grey, space, silliness, being us, memories, and the lull of the river.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for joining me. I hope you are having a great weekend.
I have three thoughts for today.
1. Not everything is right or wrong. Black is black and white is white because I see it so.
All my life, I have tried hard to be perfect. I don’t want to wake up late, watch La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) over and over again, or fight with my partner. I would love to write all day long. Apart from writing, I travel and meet new people, go out into the sun under the open sky, cook, read, play, and spend time with my loved ones.
But many times I find myself doing everything I said I wouldn’t do. Some days are perfect, like I had envisioned them to be. But many are not. Most are not. Earlier, when a day turned out to be different from how I had planned it to be, I used to chide myself. I would say I have done something wrong and won’t repeat it. But I would again lose myself in activities I didn’t want to carve out the time for.
Now the cycle has repeated enough number of times, and I know that irrespective of how perfect I want to be, I am who I am. I cannot always be better than who I am.
Despite all personal growth practices I follow and discover every day, I cannot change certain things about me. That some nights I lose myself in a book and so I don’t get up early morning. Or that I love watching a passionate story on the principles I admire. Or that I take on face value what people tell me. Though I didn’t think I would be able to, but I have started to accept these nuisances about me.
I don’t want to be angry at myself, not anymore. I want to love myself, until the end.
When the dawn scares away the night, and when the sun sets and leaves with the light, neither is it dark nor is it bright. And that is most of our lives.
In the knowledge and surrender that I’m imperfect, I find solace.
2. Happy Relationships are made of two things, Space and Silliness.
I used to take everything personally. As if people were not living their lives, but either getting away from me or coming closer to me. Either pleasing me or annoying me. So either everything was right or wrong.
But how naive was I, for they were just being themselves. Their quirks were less about me and more about them. The more I stopped assessing someone’s every little action, the more I could see who that person was, much like how one splashes away the floating grime to see the clear water below. So she didn’t ask me for lunch. Over time I realised she was casual with everyone. She wanted them to feel at home.
When I introduced space between them and me, space in which we could both move around freely, stretching as much as we needed to, neither did I lose the relationship nor did I lose control. I grew closer to people because they could now run to me freely.
But space wasn’t enough. Sometimes, unintentionally, people still do end up hurting us.
He ate all the mangoes? I bought them, peeled them, cut them, stored them, and now they are gone? My first reaction was as if someone had committed blasphemy. How could he do this to me? But he wasn’t doing anything to anyone. After a few sad lonely aftermaths, I decided to end the melancholy and chose silliness over ego. I am going to send him back to the market to get mangoes, and he will cut them and feed me. In no time were we laughing.
Silliness can swell into the void inviting in fun, laughter, and ease. And when we allow other to be, when we stop judging people harshly, but rather laugh at them and ourselves for the bizarre things we all do, that is when we really grow, not just individually, but together, too.
3. Loneliness will get to us no matter where we are.
Loneliness has been playing this game of hide and seek for much longer than us. No matter how hard we try to hide behind friends, family, work, play, and a calendar overspilling appointments, it finds us. When loneliness finally locates us and says, “Boo, got you,” the best thing we can do is surrender. For if we resist, it won’t say, “You are invincible.” It will wait for us in corners at hours when we seldom expected it could be. If not sooner, later it would get to us, it gets to most of us. And that’s alright.
When I see loneliness sitting in the same room as me, I acknowledge her, smile at her, and tell her she is welcome. I know she doesn’t stay permanently, she has many places to go, and fun, happiness, togetherness, content, calm, they visit me too. Sometimes a couple of them see me together. They never knock, I just find them on an evening or early morning settled already, all unpacked, their things strewn around, as if they have come to stay forever. But I know, like everything else, they are temporary, too.
Then why to worry about something whose nature is to come uninvited and leave without closing the door behind? I have things to do.
What do you think is right? How do you handle your relationships and loneliness?
For this week’s letter,
Some of my writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
travel tips.
Past Articles Relevant For This Week
3 Secrets of a Happy Relationship I’m Learning the Hard Way
Three things that I discovered and try to remember every day to sail through the ocean of love smoothly.
Read the secrets now. Or Pocket for later.
You Judge Me. I Judge You. And Then What?
Our judgments are about us not about the people we judge. Those who judge us are also reflecting on their life, not ours.
Get to the narrative now. Or Pocket it for later.
Quotes I Love
I would put my arms around her neck and hug her. We would stand in this quiet loving embrace for hours, just hugging and breathing. I settled happily for that sweetness. As is so often the case with me. I know I won't get most things exactly right, so I seek the parts I can't do, and love, and enjoy those, in the full knowledge that someone is doing the other, perfect stuff confidently elsewhere. Just not me. Hey-ho.
Dawn French
We don’t just treasure our memories; we are our memories. And yet, research reveals that memory is less like a collection of photographs than it is like a collection of impressionist paintings rendered by an artist who takes considerable license with his subject. The more ambiguous the subject is, the more license the artist takes, and few subjects are more ambiguous than an emotional experience. Our memory for emotional episodes is overly influenced by unusual instances, closing moments and theories about how we must have felt way back then, all of which gravely compromise our ability to learn from our own experience.
Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness
“Right here in this moment I am capable of everything.” — Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
I’ve been reading short stories, books, articles, and so much more. I can’t possibly list all what I have read in the past week so I’m putting down the things I found most relevant and worthwhile.
Beautiful reads from the week,
Hippo Campus: Two Fishing Women by Ryan Odinak (and so much more) — I have recently discovered the non-fiction journal Hippo Campus, and I am lost in reading people’s experiences about almost everything in life. What a well-written collection! Sharing one of my favourite pieces on the website, Two Fishing Women, to get you started.
Uncornered Market — One of my favourite travel blogs Uncornered Market belongs to the sweet Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott. They take every reader along on their journey, telling them not only about the landscapes they saw and activities they did, but also about the local culture, the people who impacted them, and what they learned. Their stories are personal, entertaining, and educational, always perfect like a fresh, delicious fruit punch on a hot summer day. I am sure all kinds of readers will find value in their blog.
Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri — It is an autobiographical novel by one of my favourite realistic writers, Jhumpa Lahiri. As always, she takes us on a journey, exploring identity, past, present, and relationships not only with others, but with the self. Whereabouts is a great read about loneliness and how a human thinks. The book has inspired many of my thoughts this week.
The Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam by Quang Nhuong Huynh (Writer) and Vo Dinh Mai (Illustrator) — Though I purchased a hard copy of this book before I went to Vietnam in September, I got to read it just last week. The stories are from the writer’s childhood, before the war, of growing up in the country full of domestic and dangerous animals, the friends the boy made, and that lost time and space. It is a children’s book but I suggest it to all who love reading about nature and how our childhood shapes us.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
that’s worth mentioning
La Casa de Papel, on repeat. In between this heavy creative writing project, I don’t choose comedy or laughter. I choose one of the most thrilling series I have ever seen. The ideas of liberty, fighting the system, the real value of money, losers winning, and vulnerability, imperfection, and love ruling the day, all together in a language that is now my own, I find fun, energy, and inspiration.
And for all my Wanderlusters.
A photograph and a memory.
I asked her to take me away from the light,
into the lull of the river and the lap of the night.
Vietnam, September 2022.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you have a great weekend and that you stay mindful in the upcoming week. Take good care of yourselves :)
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Yours,
Priyanka
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