self preservation vs. self destruction

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When I took Jonny’s text asking me if I was free, in the middle of my sleep, I didn’t think it was going to spark off a major debate in my head. Amongst all the gossip exchange and ranting that usually goes into our meetings, we started talking about behaviour that can be described as self destructive. I, you see, am a victim of the snow globe effect. What’s that you ask? Well every time the snow globe settles I feel the need to shake it up so that the ‘’snow’’ is unsettled again and unashamedly, I treat my life the same way. No no I’m not the depressed-with-life-and-hence-must-spice-it-up sort of person, god forbid. I’m more the lets-unsettle-things-only-to-see-if-I-can-make-them-fall-back-in-place sort of person. In short, I unsettle things, for fuck sake, just because I can. At times the behaviour has only led to some pained feelings and a lot of bad karma for me (and rarely but sometimes the want to give a couple of numb nuts a major ass whooping). And that’s where my self destruction comes in. I don’t do it with an intention to hurt but well what’s life without a lil bit of this and a lil bit of that? But through this all, I can’t help but have the scene from Love Actually play in my head where Mark tells Juliet that it’s a self preservation thing. Is it really?! Ever so often do we cross the fine line between preservation and destruction? When will it be ok to justify destruction as an act of preservation? And do we actually justify our destructive acts as preservation and find comfort in knowing that somewhere it might make sense... in some twisted little way? Am I just preserving my sanity by trying to prove that I don’t destruct things? But then again... when did I ever think I needed to have all the answers. For what its worth, the snow globe DOES look prettier with the ‘’snow’’ fluttering about than not... right?! *wink*

Snogging couples and all that...

After a completely exhausting day, which can happily be summed up as mind numbingly boring, I headed out to go home from the lecture theatre and as if right out of Santana’s video, Game of Love, there was a parade of kissing couples around me. If I thought my day was exhausting, that my friends, was my WTF moment. Alright don’t get me wrong. Yes I am single but I’m not the OMG - the - world - is - coming - to - an - end - and - I’m - going - to - die - alone - with - my - cat - because - I - don’t - have - a - guy - to - hang - onto - like - an - appendage kinda single… I'm more the I'm - single - hence - I - can - have - fun kind of single. As an international student at the uni, the last one and a half year has taught me that any place in uni – lecture halls included – is perfectly acceptable for random displays of affection. Part of me screams waaheeyyy for the couples… I mean why the hell not right… bully for you! But then this other part of me screams (the Indian part I reckon) is it absolutely necessary?!!? I mean seriously… what's the urgency that it cant wait for a while? So while I walked in the cold, my arms wrapped tightly around me (to keep the cold at bay you sickos) and waited for the Santana video to end in the background I tried to imagine what it would be like back in the day when what happened behind closed doors remained there… sadly enough for me… I was brought up in a century where closed doors are replaced by transparent windows and couples intertwined seem to be as normal as ‘horn ok please’ behind trucks in india is.

To the girls...

“All my girls stand in a circle and clap your hand… this is for you”

It's funny how many emotions a song can spark off! Through my 14-15 years in school, my 3 years of BA in Sophia's and my masters in Manchester, I've had the opportunity of meeting some of the most amazing women, women I proudly call my girl friends. These are the women who’ve changed my life in some way or the other, touched my life and made me a better person. They’re smart, funny and confident and they were there to hold me and help me up when I fell, to support me when I thought I stood alone, to scold me when I was stupid, to tease me, to bug me, to listen to me rant endlessly and rant to me forever, and hug and tell me it will be ok when I thought I had hit rock bottom.

So this is for all my girlfriends as a thank you for being such an important part of my life. All I really want to say is you all are exceptional women. I don’t think anyone can ever question who you all are or what decisions you’ve taken. Everyone will have an opinion about a situation but you were the one dealing with it and you have handled it to the best of your ability and no one should be able to tell you otherwise. You are who you are and you cannot be pleasing the world, it’s all right to let yourself come first sometimes and those who know and love you will understand this. Those who don’t understand this maybe aren’t worth your efforts anyway and in the end they’ll learn to live with it, even if they don’t agree with it. There isn't much option is there? :)

In the past few years I've seen a lot of my girlfriends question themselves, their abilities because someone else didn’t see how brilliant they were and it broke my heart to see that because I wish they’d see how brilliant I think they are. I hope I've at least managed to let some of them know how I feel today. So to all my girlfriends, we may have had our differences, we may have totally frustrated each other at some points in our life but one thing that won't change is that you will always be special to me because you really are…

Love you all
Loads of hugs and kisses.