What gives, what takes

Choose what feels light

I was reading a magnificent Elizabeth Gilbert post on energy yesterday. She introspects on the years spent being low on energy in her 20s and 30s, and how things are different in her 40s.

All she says is magnificent always but there is solace in knowing that one of your favorite people, your soul’s godmother, one of the most emotionally healthy artists I know, used to once be tired too often too, sleeping on park benches and averaging 10 hours of sleep a night and harboring a deep rooted sense of exhaustion that felt like a personality trait and not like a temporary predicament. There is solace for me in knowing she spent time on the wrong people once, and that she turned out okay, and that you can do well for yourself and have a reservoir of spirit restored and still wish some things were different.

I have been wondering about what gives and what takes, because I spent last night falling asleep to the voice of a tarot reader lady analyzing something I was interested in, and then in the 4am crevice that should be REM sleep, I got a vivid, disconcerting dream about watching a harry potter musical in a cave theater while holding hands with someone who was, till that moment, just a friend. I remember how their hand felt, warm and beautiful and interesting. The whole of next day was an emotional hangover.

When I play with Leo (the dog that I accidentally half-adopted and fell thoroughly in love with though that’s a story for another day) I don’t bring my phone out, or check the time, or feel too deeply. I just pet him for lazy stretches of time till it is time to work again, rinse and repeat. I always feel full after petting him, though there is nothing I took from him, and there is nothing I gave him, and there is no promise he will be my pet for the rest of his life. 

These questions rest in a space which does not fully exist for me, it exists in non-consequentiality, and it is not just Leo either, it is my parents and brother and best friend and the netflix show that is genre bending and the book that makes me rethink my life and the same order of paneer paratha with chole and curd.

I feel safe, and it feels like enough, and my heart does not analyze it to death.

I wrote on my alter-blog last week, and it took a lot out of me to broach that particular story, so I thought I will have nothing else left to say for a long time. Perhaps the healing is its own reward, years into the making, but you carry the weight for a while. Whenever I was with that person, my heart was heavy and excited, and the rest of the world was shrouded in ordinariness. 

One wonders: is that ever healthy, ever sustainable, ever happy?

I was a poet once, and then a memoirist, and now I wait for the gods of fiction to let me in.

Once the character appears, it will be time. Till then one paces the corridors frequented by their own ghosts. 

And the things that are good for you, they bring you peace.

I wrote a post about thinking vs feeling once, and while I don’t do the sense check nearly as often as I should, I really think it works. How do I feel while hanging out with them? At the job? Going to do this, that, being on twitter, on instagram? Do I feel better afterwards?

When I am with someone who makes me feel seen, I feel lighter for having been around them, more okay with the bad laughing pictures and good actual candids and the street side dahi puri and theka whiskeys with salted peanuts. When someone adds value and depth to my life, there is an increase in my capacity to give to them, in how cheerful I am around them, and how earnestly I believe in my ability to make something of myself in this life afterwards.

The things that I thought were right for me because they filled me with adrenaline and bated breaths, well they turned out to be monsters disguised as trees. There was always a background feeling of self doubt, and it all sat on my soul and heart and brain like a wet blanket. I would be paranoid, picky, obsessive, mean, dazed, confused, crazy all on the same day and to all the people, and really it would come down to not knowing what love looked like.

The scope has widened a bit now, I find myself talking about it, quick breaths, excitement yes, sometimes, but there is a core of security at the base of it. I am not worried every minute that it will be taken away from me, so I laugh more, and sigh more, and not everything is coated in ten layers of prose and meaning.

Things flow a bit easier. 

The moments of hard work, of being in crowded rooms pouring through second hand British council books because the effort is as exciting as the reward, they choose their own masters. There is comfort in knowing not everything is in my hands, what makes me feel good and whole is not in my hands, but choosing the things that do announce themselves to be good for you when your body and soul whispers it to you, then informs, then screams?

That always is. It always was.