The Year That It Was. Uff! Pretty Too Much.

Another year sets in and as it gives way to the newness in life, the illusion created over the years, in fact ever since we knew works well even today. While every new day is a beginning, the New Year thing has a defined charm attached to it, which refuses to fade away. What changes is the paradigm shift in our perspectives and aspirations. So without raising any further questions on the lineage of another upcoming year as I gaze on it from the sill of the soon slipping 2016, there’s a lot to brood about like always. Lessons learnt, drama unfolded, the parts we played, moments of sheer joy, pride, ecstasy and yes of course despair. My year going by holds bag of mixed emotions and madness like every year. I feel I am getting off a roller coaster ride which was fun to start with but very soon turned into the most terrible experience ever but culminating with a terrific swing. The blast of mix flavours in my mouth is still afresh and I can distinctively differentiate between them all. I shifted my anchor finding my strength within but at the same time found many new grounds to hook on, learn and lean on. Relating to the quotable quotes on life which define our present moment and emotional status is quite common on the social media platforms. We throw our life bare open like a book which we used to preserve earlier. Dawdling over our moments of despair and helplessness, philosophy becomes an easy subject to approach. But much easier said than done, their application is subject to Buddhahood whenever it strikes us all. And I had my share of sainthood too, preaching the wise words. It is so amazing. We grew up suppressing our deepest feeling and emotions but now we are so vocal about them and the popular sites keep providing us with more and more tools to express ourselves explicitly with a variety of emoticons. Although I never believed in connecting with someone in the virtual world but it happened this year and I lived a significant part of my year interacting with new friends, fellow artists online, competing with them and achieving a feat like NaNoWriMo.

The year started with a 12 week online workshop which was about unleashing our inner artist, an adaptation of this amazing book by Julia Cameron, ‘The Artist’s Way of Life’. This was one of the major events of this year which has not been talked about here. A lot of goodness came my way while being part of this amazing workshop where I connected with many fellow artists from different genres of artwork. We undertook this incredible journey of 12 weeks which spilled over to 16 weeks and we rediscovered the lost self as potent creators. Following the instructions of the author, we went through grilling session of numerous exercises and tasks but personally what did the magic was the concept of ‘morning pages’ which made us write at least 3 pages everyday like a journal. I have been a on and off diarist since my childhood but sitting down consistently to scribble 3 pages every single day was too much in the beginning. I felt blocked almost every day but slowly the spirit started flowing on those morning pages. It helped in many ways but the most effective part was the way it helped in declutter of thoughts. It effectively rested the chattering of mind. The changes were quite significant and another part which I completely loved was the idea of artist dates where I explored my interest in other forms of art work other than writing. And of course this workshop helped me connect with artists cross the globe.

But as soon as I flagged in after the workshop and also somewhere in between, life kept acting nasty and finally threw me into one of the most treacherous and tumultuous phases. It was almost life shattering. A little too personal to be shared here but it threw my life completely out of gear and I landed up on that chair from ‘Dear Zindagi’. There were days devoid of any joy. Life was filled with darkness, despair, loneliness and constant sadness. Losing someone dear in life can be painful but have you ever lost yourself amidst the wrecking of a personal loss? If you have, you will relate to it. It is as if you lose the very purpose of your life. I think as humans, leaning on to our loved ones comes naturally to us … at least to me it does and in the process I forget myself and make the other person the centre of my world, in fact all my world. But tonight I don’t want to write the saddest lines. In fact I want to rejoice at where the wave of this emotional tsunami has brought me … where I just want to bask in the glory of this newness in life and be grateful to the universe for shaking me up from a false dream. Life henceforth won’t be just about moving on but it has to get better and better every single day, every single moment.

And yes this is what I have been trying to stick on. Pulling myself up, making myself face new challenges, chasing them and winning. And the journey for past 4 months has been incredible and really exciting. I have spoken about them enough here. Like my successful blogathon, annual half marathon and of course my NaNoWriMo win. But apart from this I have quit the job which was not appealing me enough. One fine day I just got up with that feeling, ‘What are you doing? Why are you wasting your time and effort on something which you are not enjoying?’ and I called it quits with my job as a content writer and have started a journey which is at a nascent stage to share with you all but will do so as soon as I progress with it. The culminating days of this year have been a blast and I want to kiss the New Year with its passing energy.

There was a blogging prompt very recently which asked us to write about our most unpredictable life defining moment and I was even tempted to write but couldn’t find one. Once in school days I won the title of ‘The best sports girl of the year’ and that stays till date as the most unpredictable moment as I wasn’t expecting it that year but was of course not life defining.  Life has been a dreamy affair for me and about chasing them hard. Making every moment an unpredictable moment and I wish to continue doing that. I want to stay that incorrigible dreamer and a potent creator. So yes! Cheers to life and the New Year and a new me. Also wishing you all a very Happy and blessed New Year. Stay blessed… Stay Happy.