Silver linings

Ok…so it hasn’t been a good year! Contrary to whatever my facebook account or my “status” might pronounce, it hasn’t felt like a good year. It has had its highs, things that I discovered about myself, limits that I have pushed which I didn’t think I had it in me to overcome. Despite all of that, the way it looks like to me right now, it hasn’t been a good year.  That’s the weird thing about life right, it’s the bad things, things that get you down which leave an indelible mark on your memory, coming back to make you cringe and flinch when you are at your most vulnerable. In contrast, the best and happiest moments of your life are a struggle to hold on to, so fleeting and ethereal that you can’t really relive that experience try as you may. 

I’ve spent a greater part of this year, trying to take the sting off of many such negative memories and incidents in my life. To my credit, I’ve made enough progress to now know that these memories have power over me only because I choose to give it to them. They’ve lost their unchanging, doomsday quality, or atleast when I think logically I know they don’t have it. But it can get tiresome to keep reminding yourself that. Keeping them at bay can take a lot out of you and its no wonder then that the barrier gets weak and cracked once in a while. Finding myself at a crossroads in life right now, really makes the time ripe for all such time and energy consuming, but pretty often, pointless introspection. Its hard to live 30 years of your life and then have to confront the idea that you might have chosen a path that you never really liked or rather you only thought you liked because you were good at it. Being good at something and being passionate about something are two very different things and its scary as hell to realize that at 30 (almost 30) you are at best an amateur at what you think is your true passion. It might well happen that you might choose to pursue it and fail miserably! For someone who has always been good at studies and the like, dealing constructively with failure is something I have no practice with whatsoever. A fact that I have recently realized given the way my PhD has been going. Sometimes you get so busy keeping your options open and ensuring that there’s always a Plan B, that you lose sight of the fact that you never really did justice to Plan A in the first place. Backup plans become choices and before you know it, you get set on a comfortable and safe path. It’s a very well-disguised rut, a pattern that I am finding difficult to break out of. 

If I think about it a bit, I know that I am really fortunate in my circumstances. I have no real responsibilities, no one who is dependent on me, whose life gets affected by the choices I make. In fact, I am super lucky to have a superbly supportive family and friends who all are ready to even fight against me to ensure that I do what makes me happy. My head knows all these things, is grateful for all of these things. And yet, it does get difficult sometimes. I find myself going about my days a bit robotically, watching movies and serials to get my dose of that happy feeling. It’s not really apparent, no one outside my innermost circle would know of any of this internal struggle, but it’s there nonetheless. I know I’ll get out of it, but right now I have no idea of when or how that’s gonna happen. 

In the middle of all of this “introspection”, I was zapped out of my reverie the other day by a greeting on the road by someone I just knew by face. Despite the bad mood, I found myself automatically responding to that greeting with a smile on my face, a genuine smile. It wasn’t until after, that I fully appreciated what happened. I’ve been reading a lot of articles and hearing from people I know, their accounts of dealing depression, bipolar and other disorders. How difficult it can be for them to even have the will to get out of bed and sometimes at its very worst, what a struggle it can be just to keep from harming yourself bodily. Bad times and depression are something everyone encounters at particular stages in their life, there’s no getting around it. But being able to find it in you to smile, no matter what, is truly a blessing that I never fully appreciated.  It’s not something I can take credit for, its not a carefully cultivated habit or anything like that. It is just my default setting, something that I’ll always be able to do and for that reason, I am truly lucky. No matter what happens in the future, I know that as long as I can hold on to that smile, I’ll always make it through. And who knows, maybe our smile is just what that stranger on that road might need to get them through their day. So for all of you, who have this ability to smile, be grateful for it, cherish it and please share it wholeheartedly…..there is no gift more priceless!