Letter 1: What the H.

Dear Nivi of 2018,

I know that you’re wondering what you got yourself into, for the nth time in life. You are thinking - all this sublime enthusiasm for the new and unexplored is sweet, but one head duck into deep waters and it feels terrifying! 

Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t tell yourself that you never learn. You are a very fast learner. But with this, there is just no other way but to learn as you do. 

Before S was born, you told yourself you were doing this in case you wanted a child later but couldn’t have one naturally. Now, one look at her sleeping, crying, laughing, curious, screaming face and you wonder why there ever was an ‘in case’. A seconded your opinion at that time. He still does. 

For you, the 30s have been the decade of inflection in terms of experiences. There were so many critical but excellent decisions that you took. I am reaping the benefits of all your hard work until today. 

So don’t doubt yourself. On the bleak days, tell yourself one word - phase. Phase. Come and go. Go and come. 

You know the rest. I have faith in you. 

Lots of love and a giant hug,

Nivi of 2028

My Stroke(s)

I was watching "One Day", the sweet rom-com on TV today, fast forwarding through 1 hour within a span of 15 minutes. When Anne Hathaway asks the newest waiter at the Mexican restaurant she worked at, "What's your stroke? Waiter/Writer, Waiter/Actor?" I realised that I have had more than my share of them, lately. 

Perennially exhausted new mom

/ lamentably absent wife 

/ demanding daughter 

/ surly daughter-in-law 

/ semi productive freelancer 

/ paranoid house cleaner 

/ ex-dreamer of dreams

I have landed smack dab in the exact place I did NOT want to be - biting off more than I can chew. Struggling to join the loose ends and just creating more in the process. 

Family obligations mean that I cannot work as much as I would like. Neither can I finish the unpacking that has been pending since we moved (almost a month now), or run any other errands. I am stuck composing eloquent sentences in my head, reading Seneca on my phone and wishing I could type as fast with my thumb as with all my fingers on a laptop keyboard. Oh, did I forget? All while crooning "ahhh" the little one to sleep. Then I put her down and my eyelids droop. 15 minutes, I tell myself. 

Then she is crying herself awake and I am rushing over with help and comfort. 

A and I make plans to go for a movie but my parents have to go out of town and I am babysitting. A wants his mom home, and I think: can I really take more? 

Really, how much more can I take? How much longer? How much farther? Should I be grateful that she is not crawling yet? That she is not speaking yet? Or walking? That I got what I wanted? That it has to come like this, at this cost, because I cannot not do it perfectly?

When I have eaten last? A cup of lukewarm milk at 11am. It's 4pm now and I have lost my appetite. The little one reads my moods like a book. So she cries and I make funny faces at her, which works. She wants to picked up and I take us both out for a walk. 

Nietzsche gives me company every now and then, telling me that what doesn't kill me only makes me stronger. I suppose I will have the hollowed out eyes, stained clothes and sticky hair to show for it soon enough. Dwindling bank balance - I already have - so that's one item accomplished. 

It's a deep, dark tunnel, this one. Minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. That's how it's done.