How difficult is it to take things easy? (Week two - post one)

Friday has always been a mystery to me. Every week, I decide to do most of my weekend chores on the Friday evening itself before going to bed. Like doing the laundry, the dishes, grocery shopping for the week, cleaning etc. You think it’s impossible? But we hardly party Friday evenings so in my world that’s very much possible. But no matter how hard my resolve is, it just blows out of the window – like every Friday. Because, with it, Friday brings the mysterious energy to enjoy and relax at the same time. And before I know it, Saturday morning welcomes me with a sink full of dishes.   

But this Saturday, I chose to ignore it – just procrastinate it. With a book at hand, some “That’s 70s show “episodes running on the TV, I tried my best to relax in my recliner.

But I just couldn’t. I had to get up and clean all the mess before I could focus back on my book. The immaculate kitchen makes me feel better.

And this is, trust me, a very relaxed me. Yes, the summer break I talked about in my previous posts – was also about “taking things easy”!!

But I wasn’t always like this. If you saw me in most of my 20s, I was probably the laziest person you could have met – in a way. I could sit in a pile of clothes and study for my exam the next day, or not take shower for 2-3 days in a row – so that I get those extra 10 minutes of studies. In fact even during my Masters, it was no different. And the Chicago winters and a student life in the US did not help either. I mean you really don’t want to know how we survived. With always some or the other assignments to submit or midterms to study for, we hardly cooked, or did our dishes...or our laundry for that matter. You can just forget about how clean our comforters and the sleeping bags were.

I wonder where I got this “now” irritating habit of keeping things clean all the time – irritating because, I just CANNOT do anything else before cleaning the mess. I mean this is a transition from being Rachel to yes being Monica L !

In hindsight, I have stayed with so many roomies.. (I know, I have already mentioned it before in my posts  ...) and I have picked something or the other – good and bad - from all of them. I know though this must be a “good” habit in your dictionary, it’s really coming in my way of “taking things easy... “!

As a digression, I came across an article about the law of averages which said that we are actually the average of five people we most spend our time with. Do you think it’s possible? Are you? I think I am – to a great extent.

But then I believe we all spend different phases of our lives with different sets of people – so that means , at a given phase in life , we are an average of the five people we are most hanging out with then – at that particular time ! So at a different age, we could be an average of a whole lot of varied people. So when we say we are growing up or changing, is it actually because of the people around us – who are a different set now?

But then shouldn’t we also be the average of our own personality over the years? Ahh .. Maybe some fodder to chew on...

Just Another Day (Week one Post Two)

Just sometimes, on those rare mornings,I get up with a “not so good” feeling – for no rhyme or reason. And today’s wasone such morning… a very gloomy one at that. And I knew it wasn’t going to be avery good day either.

I had overslept through all the alarms and the snoozes.  Spilled almost half of the tea when I was away just for a split second - talk about that! Other small things like these piled on which added more to the irritation - for the lack of a better word.

Preoccupied with the thoughts associated to that unsettling feeling, while driving, I almost skipped a pedestrian signal – only to realize that an elderly woman gave me a scornful look while crossing the road on her electric wheelchair giving me a sting of guilt.

Reminding myself to focus, I reached office with a disheartened spirit.

If “not feeling good or happy”was a good enough reason to call a day off, today would have been mine.

Alas, that’s not possible in thereal world!!

Early morning hours are sometimes unusually quiet at my workplace. Usually that haunts me, but today it felt calming.As I settled myself at my desk, in no time work took charge of me. Lots of emails suggesting a lot more work at hand. And as I started working, focusing on each transistor that I was placing, I could not help but listen to the rhythmic clicking of mouse and the tapping of my own keyboard. And to my surprise, the more I focused on the work at hand, the more peaceful and cathartic I felt.

It worked like pranayam on me.Strange but true!!

And now when I look back, it dawns upon me that in all the trying times and the insanity around, it was this work in some or the other form that kept me sane.

 I wish we all could always get to do the work that we really enjoy doing!!!

  

Week one - post one !!

Ever since I got Iphone over 2 years back now, the one thing that I religiously checked every 10 minutes was – tada – Facebook, no prize for guessing that!I checked the news feed from friends, commented on their photos and status messages or posted some pics myself and commented on the comments that I got – so basically I was on FB – all.the.time!! So this summer, when I took my blog break, I also tried to stay away from facebook as much as I could. To my surprise, it was such a big relief. I started getting so much time to do other things than checking my FB page every 10 minutes. Obviously - it’s simple Math right?? But staying away from FB was not that simple.These are some of the things that I did instead :  
1. Learnt how to swim: Yes, at the ripe age of 30. Nope. I did not know how to swim until now. It’s such a shame to not know it for where I live. As a kid, I failed to learn every time I tried to.

In summer of 2010, M’s cousin’s wife gave me some introductory lessons on how to float. And I guess that was a huge learning step.

Let me give you a small example during our trip to Catalina Islands last year . Along with its lovely beaches, it’s also quite famous for the water sports activities. It was then, when I and M voluntarily decided to go snorkeling with a guided tour. We paid the fee, changed into the snorkeling gear after which I posed happily for the pictures and then – swoosh – everybody was in the waters exploring the marine life except me. I sun burnt myself waiting on the shores for M who came back but only with a rich experience. Not only did I repent wasting my bucks to see nothing but later it took almost 2 months for all that uneven tan to recede.

I tried my luck again this summer. But this time I was determined. Under M and Dad’s supervision, I took that first plunge, and only after few sessions was able to progress from floating to a few strokes holding my breath with my head inside the waters. And now I can swim the entire breadth (width) of the pool.  I know I have a long way to go , and I am not at my gracious best , but who cares , I can “officially” swim now *wink !!

2.      Beaches and more beaches: I hated going to beaches until this summer. I mean I liked to go and see the sunsets or take a stroll in the sand but that was about it. I never liked jumping with excitement with every wave in the sea and getting drenched. Last year, when we visited Laguna Beach, M was having a ball of time in the deep waters, while I stayed far away (again), on the other side of waters, clicking his pictures trying to read a book.

And by the way why wasn’t I in the waters? I hated getting wet, changing, and all the sand that sticks to your feet and wouldn’t go away.

So basically, I was left with no choice but watch the people around me having fun.

But this summer changed things. With my parents and sister here, we hit the beaches like crazy. And this time all prepared. The beach umbrella for the shade, the tarpaulin, the folding chairs the non-comodegenic sunscreen, big hats and itsy-bitsy clothing! With the swimming lessons on full swing, I have also started enjoying getting swamped by the waves. Malibu, Laguna, Newport, Aliso Veijo were just some of the beaches / waters we tested!!!!

We are officially the beach people now!! On a sunny day in California what more do you really need?

3.      Food :

For the past entire year and a half now, I have been watching out what I eat. With the help of running, zhumba and yoga and with strict portion control, I had finally lost all the weight that I wanted to. But after following this regimen quite religiously, this summer I finally gave in –for what you ask?

For the pure bliss that’s called “ma ke haath ka khana” (home made Mom cooked food). And for once, I did not think twice before gobbling down that extra puranpoli with a spoonful of homemade ghee.

Well, as much as I enjoyed hogging all the food, I have begun to regret it. Yes, all the food is showing up on me and I begin my workout routine again from today J

With coming back to blogging, I will be back to FB too and I will try my best not to check it every 10 min … ;)

Let's wait and watch !!

After bidding a teary eyed adieu to my parents at the airport last night, we drove back home.  Usually, I don’t cry that easy but last night, I sobbed heavily until a little over midnight. M put up with me quite patiently. He probably heaved a sigh of relief when I was finally asleep. 
So yes, that was that. My parents visited us this summer and for me, yesterday was officially the last day of summer obviously marking the onset of winter starting today. No, we don’t have fall in this part of the world L !
 This summer, I was consciously away from this space. When I first started blogging about four years ago, I was in a very different mind space. Struggling through the climatic extremes, geographical barriers and equally complex coursework (ha-ha! Even though I can laugh at it now, but then it was the most significant aspect of my life)   , I took this place to vent out everything that I went through at that point in time.
This blog took a back seat when I had to find an internship or a job later, when I got married and had to commute every weekend to see M. Through changing jobs and places and struggling through the hectic schedules, I am guilty of ignoring this space. 
After posting intermittently for some time now, and then feeling bad over not posting regular enough, this time, I decided to stay away, on purpose, asking myself what is it now  that I really want to write about. 
Because, there’s going to be something, good or bad - always, that will keep us busy. Question is how much of this do I want to write and share about? I know I have tried keeping this a personal blog – sharing it with only a few readers.  
But moving on , if I choose to keep this blog alive , I want to grow it , post as often as I can , at least twice a week and if I cannot commit this much , then probably the best thing is to quit.
That being said, it’s not easy for me to just go ahead and delete this blog, so what I am going to do is give it a fair chance.
So let’s see how well I behave for the next four weeks – in terms of posting.  All I am aiming for is at least 2 posts a week. 
Let the trial run begin!!