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Saturday, December 31, 2016

10 Things 2016 Taught Me That No Other Year Ever Did

It is not just another new year’s eve for me. I don’t say it because I am in a different city, away from mote papa and moti momma, not indulging in our new year’s eve staple dinner of pav bhaji and gajar ka halwa and watching Victoria Secret annual show at midnight (although I will do it anyway). I say it because this year broke me emotionally but I am writing about it on the last afternoon of the year means I survived. 

Believe me I drove so many people away because I wasn’t my best this year. But it wasn’t in me really. What is left of me now is a fragile, vulnerable, sensitive mess but I can’t wait for a brand new year to start and feel better and stronger.

What this year taught me will take me sometime to absorb but I wanted to pen down what all I could to look back at it next new year’s eve and smile that I survived. 

1.  That I am not that good with people like I believed myself to be when this year began.

2.  That falling in and then falling out of love is my thing. No, seriously. Don’t believe me? Let’s meet over coffee and I’ll take you through my year’s love snippets. And yes, I still call it all love. 

3.  That money is important. Be it your higher-level dreams of quitting your job, go location neutral, travel and work from wherever you can to middle-class dreams to buy yourself a beer or a coffee whenever you want, load your bookshelf with all the classics you have been meaning to read, fill your closet with beautiful clothes, you need money. If your heart melts looking at kids on the roadside or old people begging and you want to do something about them, which too needs money. This year taught me that having some money in the bank account is a textbook rule to be followed to the T.

4.  That there is no one other than family who will stand by you, maybe because they are supposed to but also because they wish your best in every way. They aren’t and shouldn’t be taken for granted. I could write friends too but they are human and your incessant nagging and sulking can make them lose their shit sometimes and then you will realize you should have had some filter to not burden them with your entire emotional trauma. 

5.  That love is confusing. That sex is underrated. That being friendzoned is a real shit.

6.  That I can stay quiet, without social media apps for as long as I desire. This handicap that I had for being social 24X7 was just in my head. And I broke it. Twice this year. I am on one such detox right now too.

7.  That two people can be good on paper (or in bed) but can still not be together emotionally in the real world.

8.  That I can cook, if it comes to that. And no, not just Maggi.  

9.  That I have spent so many days and nights crying this year, I think I am done and bored with it for life. Next scene please.

10.That I love Bombay more than I ever thought. Even when I am stuck in a traffic jam for a while, the very thought that I am in Bombay is enough to thrill me (yes, I am crazy that way). My new year’s eve is by myself in my favorite city and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. 

Now I have to wrap this up, I have learnt enough lessons this year. Time to lace up the shoes, go to south Bombay, roam the streets, eat lot of street food (because salary isn’t in yet and I am broke, ya tell me about it), sit at Marine Drive and ring in the new year. A new year in a new city, with new hopes (don’t kill me for the clichés, that’s my current state of mind).

Happy 2017 to all of you! Eat, drink, make love not war, and do some yoga too! :)