They say writing heals.
I have been thinking of getting healed somehow for quite a while.
Came across the term, pandemic brain this morning. May be it is that troubling me over.
Though the lockdown has been kind in so many ways like being with the family, been able to spend some time (read a month+) with my parents (this never happened in last 20 years), been able to manage the show at work front etc., still it started to turn overwhelming.
Bottled-up emotions because there are no real conversations happening, everyone is dealing with the nuisance of work from home, zooming-in and out of the living room couches and made shift workstations.
Productivity hacks are all time roaring high. The women are discovering unexplained strengths in multi-tasking and shuffling between their work from home and home work of kids and the men are re-discovering the rules of parenting and of course being ‘the family man’.
Goodness! Sounds like we all winners already.
For all this time, I have really missed my coffee, my writings from
the hustle of a café. For almost a year before the pandemic I have been a regular at Starbucks, Saket. And it was writing that kept me sane most of the times, even when I was going through emotional & professional doldrums in the hindsight.
Though I have been working on content all throughout but I remember my last wow piece (a heartfelt) note was a result of café hopping in January, weeks before the devastating 2nd wave that shook many of us.
It did shook me off completely. Not only did I deal with the fears thinking about the safety of my loved ones, irrational and illogical reasoning of people around me who were busy disqualifying the existence of anything like Covid and at the same time hearing about the shattering worlds of my near and dear ones.
I had developed a brain fog. Amidst the pain I also heard the news of my cousins getting blessed with babies. I remember the exact words while expressing my confusions to my mom, “Life and Death remains the only constant”. Actually, nothing else is permanent.
That was the time when I shared the mental state I was going through with my mentor and he too shared about losing a dear friend and how he told me to not worry too much about work, the lag and just not be too serious about life. (Note to reader: As a mentor he knows I have this habit of self-doubt)
A dearest friend lost her spouse to covid and when I wondered about their child, I was like why him, I have been such a waste on this planet! Got to know about losing an uncle and the news came to us a month after his demise, someone told me his son had updated about the loss on his Facebook timeline, crying in despair (as I am quite a night owl to work, write, read and surf) I went to check his profile and realized how ardently during his last days at hospital he has been dutifully sharing my works, few featured interviews that happened during that month etc., I busted and cried my heart away.
The sense of loss was deep, I was hurt and I wasn’t sharing my pain. I was shuffling between emotions, zooming in and zooming out and putting myself into work – office or home chores.
I needed a friend, coffee shots, few captivating conversations and most importantly I needed to heal. Because all this time I was also absorbing the pain of my friends who I always lend an ear to, their weariness, the frustration, the missing my life and even missing me stuff as I have been remote for quite a while now, the pangs of meeting my friend and be around her to hug her and to tell her that I will be always there for her, #nomatterwhat.
After bottling up and trying to be a fighter for really long time, I decided to move places. Somehow it works I feel, the energy needs to change and when we move our energy moves to.
The move brought me among millennials, I was connected and talking to this energetic bunch who takes pride in following their hearts, believe in the art and doing their own thing. The hustle is good, the clarity and momentum is infectious.
They are not like us, not ready to drown deep in the quest of a career. They are better at life, they speak up, they share and express. They aren’t afraid of the worldly rules of a perfect life.
Caution, they are messed up, they freak out, demanding but see the flow of energy. It adds to the perspectives, it brings you back to life, the changes the way you approach life and most importantly it helps you take it easy.
The energy moved me from a world of corporate goers to a world of artistes, from the world of ‘social animals’ to the world of global artistes and I could see my positivity make a comeback.
An amazing radio jockey doing her bit for the love of her mother tongue as an NRI. An architect by profession but art enthusiast doing hours of meeting, exploring the options to make their event a digital success. (Will update the details once it is live)
The young university grad trying to bring some change through his observations, viewpoint. Shouting hard about humanity, using humor and pictures to express his angst around the system, the mentality and rapidly increasing divide in humanity due to the fast progressing social media wave around religious disparity. How the youth is jumping to conclusions, suppressing the energy in procrastination and giving up real quick. It is sad but I wonder if times would change real quick!
The ever expressive young girls (read young guns) who are expressive, believers and dreamers. Sometimes they surprise me, we were too much of living by the rules generation.
And my decisive bunch of friends who dropped the hustle of Mumbai and Delhi and moved to small towns to play their post-pandemic innings.
The reflections became deep, because we are in a world that is looking at the great divide and I found myself stuck (call me an overthinker), reflecting, absorbing and losing it all.
I found myself amidst an ocean of happenings and mis-happenings, I found myself:
– Living a dream, setting my goals and working for it.
– Being stuck, can’t move, can’t meet and cannot be around those who need.
– Looking at the non-sensical prevailing divide, which to me looks like a game of politics.
– Illogical waves of social shares, memes and what not.
– Life and Death occurring at the same place.
– Looking at 2-3 CVs of people asking for jobs as they suffered during the pandemic.
– Passionate entrepreneurs exploring the possibility of becoming unicorns
– People struggling with home shifts, rents and storages
– People moving to karmabhoomi and parental bhoomi and thinking vice-versa
– Humanity lying dead in the form of unclaimed bodies
– People hoarding at wine shops and people serving self-lessly
– Old getting stuck in the old age and in the homes
– Wondering about the future, the goals taking a u-turn
– The increasing ambiguity with covid versions surfacing as the i-phone models
Gosh! Did you feel it too? Was it overwhelming. I hope you start flowing towards the positive energy too, embrace the chaos and shut the cacophony.
All this and much more, made me wonder about the energies be healed, mindfulness be achieved and self-care be made the goal. I have yearned for long talks, long walks, taking a break and not taking a break (because I am grateful of being able to run the show when I have been pained to see so many CVs, tags of people asking for help – for work and references).
There is a plethora of emotions, confusions and ricochets. But then there is HOPE, that keeps us all alive. That helps us believe in the goodness of people #nomatterwhat.
So if you are feeling stuck, finding it hard to deal with the pandemic brain, Move your energy and heal. You have got this, buckle up.