He Told Me Himself, He's a Gentle Soul

Three years ago today, my grandfather died. 

For a few months before he died, he'd been very ill, in and out of the hospital. I think somewhere that I had begun to realize that we were going to lose him. Every time I went home for the year before my grandfather passed away, I felt like I was seeing him for the last time. 

That last hospital visit, he held on until my birthday. He wished me. He could barely speak. After I got off the phone with him, I sat outside my office and cried for a full minute because I knew, I just knew, that I wouldn't speak with him again. Later that day, he fell unconscious. He never really fully woke up after that. I was one of the last people he spoke to. 

Words cannot express just how much I feel the loss of my grandfather in my life. For someone who has lost, through death or estrangement, a father, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, an uncle and a couple of best friends, it is shocking to me that the loss that has been felt most keenly is that of my grandfather's. My grandfather was 88. He was in declining health. His death was not a shock. I stayed in regular touch with him. I spoke to him often and visited him as often as was physically possible, I didn't feel like there was any unfinished business with him. 

And yet, I feel all the cliches that people talk about when discussing grief - the gaping hole, the void, the sense of permanent, unceasing grief. It makes no sense to me. 

He was a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful man. He was also a good man. He was a caretaker -  his natural tendency was to look after everyone around him. He love food and he loved to feed people. He was a scholar who spoke fluent Sanskrit. He spoke pure Tamil and loved to explain the finer points of religion and philosophy to me. He called me 'Atom Bomb' as a nickname. It seems fitting, all things considered. 

My grandfather loved me, as surely as most grandparents love their grandchildren. More importantly though, my grandfather was delighted by me. I love that word - delight. What an utter treat to be delightful in someone's eyes. He loved my enthusiasm. He was endlessly proud of my writing. He thought I was incredibly funny. He was touched at how thoughtful he believed I was. He was fortified by his belief that I would take great care of his only daughter. He was moved by the odds I had overcome as a child to achieve whatever I did. He was pleased that I was the first member of his family to study and live abroad. 

He was delighted by me. I delighted him. 

And I will never have that again. 

I'm Feeling E-lec-tric Tonight

In three hours, I will turn 31.

On this day, I'm glad I have:
My Mother
My Brother
My Uncle
My Aunts and Cousins
My Friends (All 3 of them)

On this day, I'm sorry because:
I tried very hard not to make it this far.
I'm still trying, to be honest.
I miss those I've lost, especially my grandfather, very much.
I am sad about those relationships that are broken beyond repair now.

On this day, I've learnt:
One day at a time, that's the best I can do.

Tomorrow, I will try to:
Make it one more day.
Smile.
Do something nice for my mother who is trying very hard for very little reward.

This coming year, I am going to:
Continue to try and stay put one day at a time.
Go on holiday.
Read more.
Achieve at least some of the goals I have set up.
Try not to become exhausted and give up.

So, the thing is, it really is, that this is the most hopeful birthday post I've written and it comes in the midst of the absolute saddest I've ever been. I think that's evidence of the fact that I'm trying very, very hard. I think I should feel good about that. In the end, the very best I can do is the very best I can do. And I am; doing that, I mean.

Happy 31 to me. 

The Fall's Gonna Kill You

Aren't you tired of things never working out? People keep saying, it'll work out. Think positive. Keep faith. 

How? How exactly do you stay positive? In the face of overwhelming evidence that clearly demonstrates that the world is a cruel place for the likes of you and that every single person on earth is just one more person to take away from what's left of your soul, how do you believe that anything will work out? 

I had a near panic attack today. And I very badly wanted to lose my shit for once. And then a bunch of things happened:

A plumber came to fix something in my house. 

There were a bunch of people (like 4 extra people) in my house and I had to clean up after them.

A supposed 'friend' who had been using my house as a hotel for the past 3 days decided to just up and leave without even saying goodbye to spend the rest of his time with some other, more interesting friends even though we were supposed to have dinner tonight. 

Another friend who I had asked to dinner just didn't bother returning my call. 

And my plumbing still needed fixing. 

What do you do with a clusterfuck? Everything that reminds you that you are alone, you have no options, your life isn't working, you're depressed, overweight, unhappy and boring, everything that tells you that you have no value as a person and that you should listen to that inner voice that never ever stops telling you that you should kill yourself arrives at once together. What do you do then? 

And realistically, how much longer can you stave off that inner voice with reason and sanity and practicality before you succumb just once? 

In all my life, I'm not sure I've been unhappier with my life than I am now. And that's really saying something for a miserable, misanthropic fucking cunt like me. 

I just want and need some damn support and help but I have literally no one to turn to. I just want something, anything, to work out. Just once. Just this once even. 

A numbness is starting to take over me because I am so very, utterly, bone-deep exhausted. 

Thirties

This is the part of the blog where I type something sincere and morose all at the same time as we head into a new year. 

I don't know if I have the energy for that today. 

Truthfully, 2014 was a transformative year for me. Literally. I transformed from a person in her twenties to one in her thirties. I don't know about you, but to me that's a pretty fucking big change. 

Otherwise, this year has been both significantly different and same from all the ones that came before it. Same because I wasted yet another year. Because I spent much of it in a deep depression. I failed to form new and lasting social connections with anyone. Different because I traveled more this year than I ever have before. I became the godparent to a little boy in whose life I feel a deep investment and commitment. 

I gained more acceptance for my different-ness this year. I am as a good friend of mine put it, 'weird'. I own it. I lean into it. I don't feel the need to struggle against it (not that I felt that before but I did feel discomfited by the knowledge of my otherness). 

It's been both terrible and great. Isn't that what the great writers and poets keep going on about? Isn't this ultimately what life is like for most people? 

So here's the thing. Happy New Year. As much as things change, they stay the same. As much as you transform, something of you always remains. And that's not a bad thing. 

62

Had he been alive, that's how old he would be today.

It's been a time of great excitement but also some strife for my family. My brother is getting engaged and hopefully married soon. In all this time, we have thought of my father exactly not at all. How can someone who should be so important not be a factor at all in the most important event of his son's life? 

It's just all terribly sad. 

I don't think I miss him very much; just the idea of him. There are all these people in my life now that he never met. If I ever meet someone that I choose to marry, he will never meet that person. He will never know the girl his son has decided to spend the rest of his life with. 

Gone and maybe almost forgotten. But not quite. Not yet.