Little Things

Not the one direction “little things”, I mean life’s little things. You know what, that’s an inappropriate title cause I actually want to talk about the big things in life that grow to be little. Just keep reading. I promise I am not going insane! J

 When I was in first grade we used to live opposite this grocery store. It was the typical 1990s Indian store with a metal box that had a glass lid and loads of chocolates in it. At that point of time the costliest chocolate there cost about 20 rupees. And it was something that only the most affluent people could buy or at least that’s how it seemed. I remember feeling a sharp pang of envy every time I saw someone buy a box of it and I promised myself that someday I’ll grow big enough to buy a truck load of them. [That day is yet to come ;) Let’s just move on.] But today my life’s different. We are better off and so now all I check is the expiry date. Albeit that is a good turn of events, it just isn’t the same anymore. An aisle full of chocolates no longer excites a girl who yearned for a tiny box of it. And that to me is really, really sad.

It’s unfair for that to happen, for you to stop appreciating those seemingly big things, for them to become trivial. I know it’s a cycle, that there will always be something else that you want but why is life twisted enough to make little of our big things? Why is it that we forget our promises of being eternally grateful for our first pair of good sneakers? Why is the fulfillment of wishes also the end of them?

It’s only logical for us to fight to be better, to forget past victories and look for new ones. But I often wonder, wouldn’t life be so much easier if we could relish the past and seek the future side by side?

I know it’s hard to look at the bright side when you hit a wall but at the very least look back; look at the last wall you scaled or broke through or something! And remember doubting yourself then; remember making it through and believe you are capable of doing the same, even now.

At the end of the day the little things do matter, they make the biggest differences. Don’t let your new goals usurp the positions of the ones you achieved, just find new places for them.

 So never ever forget how it felt when the first plant (you didn’t kill) flowered, how it felt the first time you swam the whole lap, how it felt to spend your first salary on that mint conditioned action figure, how it felt when you found the perfect hair product, how it felt when your biggest wishes came true. Cause these are the things that are truly worth remembering even with retrograde amnesia.

So, I’d like to give a shout out to Tejashree, the first person to follow my blog. I hope that I never forget the joy you gave me! I hope that I break the curse, that someday if I have pool in my house I actually use it and when its warmth comforts me I hope I remember how chilly the community pool water felt in the winter. I hope to be thankful; eternally.

                

Plans & Plans & More Plans

Bad day, horrible day actually and I am tired of bottling it all up. “It’s just your hormones, a rational you would not react this way”, I am tired of telling myself that, so I decided I would rant.

Nah! Just kidding.      

         

“What will you do when the two of you go off to different colleges?”, she asked smirking.

We just smiled. We had decided that we’ll only go to the same place. The joke was on her; or so we thought. She knew better cause she had been handling hormonal bffs for most of her career.

Fast forward 5 months and here we are. I am whiling away my gap year and my bestie is in a college miles and miles away. It seems like a life time ago that we were discussing about how we’ll share our closet in college. As you can see that is not a problem anymore……………

So why do we plan? Why do we try to contain the unpredictable within our predictions? Why not ‘not want things’ rather than ‘not get things’?

We plan because that’s all you can do about it. You prep the best you can for the next moment so you have a contingency plan. It is like performing a controlled experiment in unknown conditions and hoping that your hypothesis is right. And it’s almost always wrong, but it’s better to be wrong than to not know what to do. It’s better to be heartbroken than have nothing to live for. It’s like learning to cycle, the first time you fall off you promise yourself that you will never get on that death machine again. But the shiny two wheeler is too hard to resist. You get the analogy right? Your plans mostly keep failing you, hurting you but you make them any way so that someday you get better at it.

My bestie and I have now planned to be business associates in the future. Who knows if that will work out? However the plan gives us solace and for now, that’s all that matters.

The next and the only thing to do is cross your fingers and wish for the right thing to happen. Your fate no matter where, will lead you to the right place. Or so we pray.

That’s how all of our lives are going to be. Screw the fact that you are perennially putting off that guitar class. The important thing is that you plan to do it. So you’ll never run out of things to do. Cause that would be truly frightening.