I have been told over and over that I should be prepared for major life changes once I turn 30, a crisis of sorts. Turning 30 can change everything, apparently, from your character, to your personality, to your interest in makeup. You turn into a completely different person that everyone who knows you can no longer recognize!

I turned 30 two years ago, and the crisis is yet to arrive.

But I have been learning a lot; mostly that it's okay to be a little selfish. I've learnt that I want to live alone. I worry for my mother and the risks to her well-being when I'm no longer around, but I also know that I need to do this for myself. That I cannot put my needs and desires on hold forever, even for her. I want to inhabit spaces that are my own.

I've learnt that I also want to live with friends. I want to revel in the joy of truly experiencing adulthood with my lobster. I want to know what it's like to furnish a house by myself. Do I want art on the walls? Do I want blue curtains because they're soothing, or orange because they'll look pretty in the light of the setting sun? I want to feel the random everyday happiness of making pancakes for dinner.

I've learnt that it's okay to be in a long-term relationship but not want to commit to a shared future just yet, and maybe not even ever. That it's okay to commit only for now. That it's okay to prioritize my needs when it comes to what I want from a partner.

I've learnt not to worry when life speeds past timelines that society expects us to worry about. Best laid plans for doing all I wanted to were thrown out the window when my mother was diagnosed with cancer and when my father returned home to live with us again. But I have more patience when it comes to dealing with derailment than I realized.

I've learnt that life will take its own time to give me what I need. That I should allow myself to evolve organically, and trust that I will eventually get to where I need to be.

Promises

When you allow your wounds to heal
When you grow larger than your fears

When your doubts drift too far away
for you to see

I hope the woman by your side
is me

Lobster

You are worth every second, every step
Every defence, every effort

When you are here, I am complete
The piece of me that shadows you
returns, thriving and whole

Very little is good enough
(especially this)
because you are pure gold

And here I will be, always,
To help you see your shimmer

Skin

In my hair, in the undecided curls and waves
I see the women before me, their own forgotten

From my hands come forth
All I can do and all I choose to not

In my breasts are housed my fears, my joy, my desires
And regret and longing, below

From you I receive and to you I give
Pride and skin and lust and peace

Give your body to me, and mine is yours

I want more for you than he can offer you, if he can offer anything at all.

I want more for you than you can imagine for yourself.

I wish you would move beyond what you think is possible, convenient, too much, too little too late.

I wish you wanted to dismiss this hand you've been dealt.

I wish you would remember how it used to be, how you used to be, how we all used to be.

I hope you remember that there is life beyond him. 

I hope you'll be all right without me and with only him.

Everything about you is oblivious. Your blinkered, narrow ambition. The sounds you utter with your mouth and mind all day, every day. Your perspective on the everyday and on the future. Your love for the immediate. Your lack of consideration for those near, but maybe not dear, to you.

Everything about you is oblivious. It shows in the way you choose convenience over truth. In the way you circumvent, not face. In the way you embrace denial, not answers.

Everything about you is oblivious. And yet, you cannot flee awareness in the end. That is inevitable.

Flight

You, pecking at me,
my insides crumble piece by piece.

You, sitting there,
oblivious, denying, uncaring.

Me, isolated,
shut in,
waiting.

Me, wishing I was whole,
wishing I was brave,
wishing I wasn't begging for more.

Inevitability

Like puffs of warm breath against the chill,
Like waves returning to shores,
Like the end of days,
Like death,
You were inevitable.

Umma

I have a favourite grandparent. My apologies to my maternal grandmother (my only surviving grandparent), but it's not her, I'm afraid. It's her counterpart, my father's mother. She was, by all accounts, and from what I can remember of her, a wonderful human being.

I wish I knew more about her life from before she was married. Her husband was born with a congenital heart defect, and doctors declared later that it was a miracle he managed to have four perfectly healthy children. I think they had a good life together, but he died when their children were young enough to still be unmarried, and then the care of all of them fell to my grandmother. She took to the task with strength of mind, and not a small amount of creativity.

My earliest memories of her are a haze of childhood moments from when she lived with us in Oman. I couldn't have been older than six or seven then. She used to sit by me and peel green grapes, tear them in half, and then feed them to me by hand. She spoilt us silly, and I took particular joy in it, I think. I've been told I was her favourite. I suspect now that's an exaggeration, but I refuse to believe otherwise anyway. I've also been told that I look like her, and this I do genuinely believe. It's my favourite feature of my appearance, and one that I will always find joy in.

My sister, Umma and me, sometime in the '90s

Whenever I look back on those times, the first thing I remember is the warmth and wisdom she radiated. The warmth was easy, what with her ever-present smile and her twinkling eyes behind those large, old-fashioned glasses. Her wisdom came from her hands, from the careful and practiced way they would move around any task, be it smoothing our clothes over or feeding me those grapes. Such an indulgent thing to do. But I only remember feeling joy and peace, not greed (a convenient perspective, of course). Even now, remembering her as an adult, I feel love - pure, whole, and unconditional. She was everything you typically wanted in a grandma, the quintessence of all of the fun with none of the rules.

I don't remember her moving away from Muscat to return to India. I do remember, though, visiting her when we moved to India ourselves. By then, she was nearing the end of her life. She passed away within three years of our reunion. Her dementia was both heart-breaking and adorable. She would forget where and when she was, and would talk to us as if it was decades ago. There were times she would fail to recognize one of us, but I don't think she ever forgot another one of her grandchildren on whom she doted, and me. Maybe she saw her own image in my face. I hope she liked that.

She died on New Year's Eve, 2001. Nearly all of her children, and her children's children, were with her at the time. I heard my mum and aunt say later that it was a blessed death; it was relatively painless, and she died surrounded by her legacy of love. We spent a long time just huddled around her bed, passing around a small bowl of Zamzam water, each of us feeding it to her by hand.

Umma with one of her grandchildren, 2001

Hers was the first death I witnessed. One moment, she was struggling to breathe, and the next, she exhaled one final time and stilled. My mother closed Umma's eyes, and kissed her cheek and continued crying, like all of us around her.

Her funeral the next day was a blur; I only remember pieces. Being hushed away so Umma's body could be moved out of the house. All of us grandchildren drawing water from the well in the backyard to be used for the ritual of cleaning Umma's body. The haunted expression of tiredness and sorrow on my mum's face as she returned from that ritual. Taking part in funeral prayers even though, even at that age, I sensed that Islam was not for me, and praying anyway for Umma and her journey onward. My father's face when he questioned why something as festive as ghee rice was served that day for lunch, and my mother's and aunt's exhaustion as they explained their decision, that it was the easiest thing to prepare.

I remember returning to my grandma's room in that house after her death. I haven't felt the same about it since, and her absence is conspicuous.

Ma loved Umma more than her own mother, I suspect, though I'm sure she wouldn't agree with me. I don't blame her for it. But that's not to say that my maternal grandmother was unloving or unpleasant, not at all. But there was something about Umma that drew you in. When my mum waxes nostalgic, her stories always involve Umma. She credits Umma for most of her skills as a cook, for the joy she takes in feeding and taking care of people. She credits her also for being able to find strength to get through times so tough that nothing could have trained you for it.

Me, Umma and Ma, around 1993

I wish she was alive today so I could talk to her as an adult, so I could get to actually know her as a person, and have more than just the memories of a child and a self-involved teenager. I wish I could have endless conversations with her about what her life was like, what she regretted, what she loved, what advice she might have had for me, what her guilty pleasures were, what she would never tire of. I have nothing concrete of hers with me, no heirlooms or gifts that she left behind to remember her by and to pass down from one generation to the next. We have photographs and memories, all of which are cherished and precious. I can only hope she's at peace, wherever she is.

My family and I recently reminisced about Umma, and those stories made me want to write about her. I don't know why the need arose so suddenly, but it was a persistent, nagging urge that didn't fade until I wrote this post. I won't question it. If anything is worth dusting off this blog, it's her.

Last Will and Testament

A friend's father passed away a few days ago. It was very sudden and no one was prepared for what was to come after. And it got me thinking: everyone important in my life, the kind of important that would mean they're in charge of my affairs after I'm gone ("my affairs," ha - it makes me sound so important) -- do they know of my wishes? Do they know how I'd like them to proceed? 

Let me first say that I'm not afraid of death. Why should I, why should anyone? After all, you will be dead. You won't care. It's the thought of the cause that frightens me. I don't want a long illness; nothing drawn out, please. I'd prefer it to be painless, obviously. But if there was to be any pain involved, I'd rather it was something so severe that death would be instant. It's pain I'm scared of.

Anyway, whatever the cause, when it's all done and some doctor in the ER or OR (if it's the kind where I'm taken to a hospital) has called time of death, know this: I don't want to be buried. I want to be cremated.

First, tell the doctors that I've donated my eyes and organs. They can take whatever they need. I do hope that someone gets my heart, though. I have this romanticized notion that if my heart goes to someone else, I'll live on somehow because a part of me, literally, will still remain after the rest turns into ashes.

After the doctors have done their job and sewn me back up, take me to a crematorium and burn my body. I'm Muslim by inheritance, so there may some dispute about this amongst family (or not; maybe no one will care). But this I insist: you must cremate me. I do not want to be buried. I don't want to take up space when I don't have to. Plus, if I'm cremated, I can be returned to the earth or the seas, which I think is ideal for someone who is pagan by belief.

My possessions, if I have any, you may dispose of as you please. My family can decide. As long as they are given away to people who will take care of and make use of them, it doesn't matter to me so much who gets what. Just keep using whatever it is that you get; don't let it sit in your house -- on your bedside table, in your living room cabinet shelf -- and just be there until it has lost all purpose and is nothing more than ornamental or commemorative.

Finally, hold a little... Wake, I guess? But wakes are usually so sober and serious. I'd like mine to be more light-hearted. Try and remember the good times we had, as clichéd as that sounds. Remember that no matter what the circumstances, if I'm dead, it was meant to happen. And most important: play all the music I cherished. I want everyone to groove and, if they're sad, be distracted for some time. It would be nice, to have the Chili Peppers be the soundtrack for my wake. Maybe Venice Queen. I have loved that song since the moment I first heard it, and have always thought it was one of the best tributes I have ever heard. That would make my day, to pretend that I'm who they're saying farewell to. 

I've discovered that my habits and tendencies as a reader have changed over the last three or four years. I used to be more patient. I used to be more persistent with a book that I set out to read but then couldn't get through as easily as I expected to. I think this has to do with the end of the Harry Potter series. I devoured those seven books like a starved infant, and I'm quite sure that they also spoiled me. Since The Deathly Hallows, I've very rarely felt a sense of urgency with any book, that need to ignore sleep and meals until I know what happens next.

Wait. There was Gone Girl. Which reminds me: if you haven't read it already, do. You must.

If a book was turning out to be more laborious than I had expected, I used to be able to persevere. I didn't, and still don't think that it's right to abandon any book mid-read. If you start reading it, you must finish. It's disrespectful not to. When I was younger, there was only one that I abandoned -- and didn't feel the least bit guilty about it -- Chetan Bhagat's Five Point Someone. I tried to get through it twice, but I found it to be so stupendously boring that I simply couldn't find the will to keep going.

I still read, but not as feverishly as I used to. Everything I've read in the last couple of years, I've read slowly. And it wasn't because I wanted to take my time with it; process whatever I had read, mull it over and then resume reading. I simply don't think my attention span is what it used to be. It worries me. I used to be able to trudge through. I did that with The Fellowship of the Ring, when I realized that I was taking many, many days to get through the first 50 pages. I kept going, and it eventually became one of the books I've most enjoyed. I did that with One Hundred Years of Solitude. Most Marquez books take a while to get through, anyway.

I couldn't do it with One Thousand Chestnut Trees by Mira Stout, which I tried to read recently. I had never read a novel about Korea, and when it was gifted to me I was quite interested in sinking my teeth into it. And while the stories had a great deal of depth and the history that was being presented to me was fascinating, I found the subject matter to be too intense and simply wasn't interested in reading it every night before bed. Korea's history is tragic, and I found that despite how much I was learning as a reader and as a citizen of the world, I simply didn't want to read a book with such upsetting subject matter. So I abandoned it at the halfway point. I've since loaned it to my sister, and I doubt I'll pick it back up again anytime soon.

And yet, I recently finished reading Dan Brown's Inferno in a matter of days. I'm not a fan of the author; I find his writing inconsistent and, sometimes, annoying. But as someone who studied a portion of The Divine Comedy in college and who's generally interested in Dante, I dove into the novel and read all 461 pages in a matter of days.

I read The Cuckoo's Calling with no trouble at all. But then, that was written by J.K. Rowling. Again... I've been ruined.

Next on the list is all five parts of The Hitchhiker's Guide. Wish me luck.

On a Sunday evening, I sat by the window of a pub on the fifth floor and stared at the sky as it transformed over the course of three hours. It turned from patches of vibrant pink and blue into a dark and gloomy gray. Clouds gathered to signal the coming of rains that everyone had been hoping for for weeks. And most obvious of all, lightning flashed across the sky. They weren't overpowering flashes; simply bright enough to be unavoidable. Enough to announce its presence politely but firmly, and nothing more. The quiet confidence of a thing that knows that everyone knows that it has arrived.

My friends and I heeded the warning. We packed up and headed home. And for a while during our journey, the skies were kind to us and it only drizzled. Everyone was relieved that it was finally raining; perhaps that would help reduce the levels of humidity that we had been suffering for the last few weeks. But no, it only drizzled for a couple of hours, nothing else.

I got home, I ate dinner with my mother, washed up and shut the house down, and settled into my armchair for a movie. And of course, the heavens opened up. It rained...and then some. But the surprise was that it wasn't just the first rains of the summer; it was a thunderstorm. It was as unexpected as they come. The lightning turned angry and unavoidable, like the gods had found the flash button on a new camera and were insisting on trying it out with every photograph. The thunder was deafening; so loud that you couldn't sleep. Just when you were beginning to doze off, came a sound that felt like a slap in your face to jolt you awake.

I woke up the next morning, looked around and saw the aftermath. And it didn't frighten me. It reaffirmed my faith as a pagan.

This is what I believe in: the power of the soil, the water, the wind, the sun, the moon. When I was born, the religion I inherited was Islam. But as an adult, this is my true faith: my belief in the forces of nature. It is the only thing that makes sense to me. It is the only faith that rings true. I can see their power all around me. I can see the damage we do every day, and I mean all of us. I could sense their fury in the scorching heat that came too early,  their anger burning down on us. I could sense their wrath during the thunderstorm, their retaliation. I can sense the exhaustion they feel, the resigned sorrow. And I can feel them gathering their fading strength, their rampant anger, to punish us one final time so they can save themselves. I fear that inevitable day, but all the same, I know we deserve it.

I've been trying to write, I really have. I observe every day, and I want to share. I feel love and joy at a level of intensity that continues to amaze me, and I want to be self-consciously eloquent about it. I feel fear and panic during new experiences, about wading through waters that feel much deeper than they really are, and I want to share, for the relief of catharsis. But I'm unable to put pen to paper; to place fingers on keys. Lately, whenever I have felt like writing, you have taken over and occupied my entire mind.

It's quite frustrating, really. I think I've made progress, which I actually have, in many healthy ways. But when I peel off the layers and examine the wound, I see it's still a little pink, exposing itself to you and your absence, your presence. I want to ignore it so that it can scab over in its own time and protect my skin. But as always, time moves as slowly as I wish it wouldn't.

And so I try, which, it seems, is all I can do. And I hope that eventually, you'll leave.

"At the end of thy hundredth winter, the sun is more unseen and more spotted; the year, month, and day are shorter; and the earth is more barren; and the crop will not yield the seed. And men become more deceitful and more given to vile practices. They will have no gratitude. Honourable wealth will proceed to those of perverted faith. And a dark cloud makes the whole sky night, and it will rain more noxious creatures than water."

-From the Bahman Yasht.

Words cannot express.

Home and Away

I'm going back to Muscat in November. It's a family holiday that we have planned for two whole years. We'll be returning to our childhood home for the first time since we left in 1999. We're all so unbelievably excited, we can hardly sit still. It's almost only a month away!

We'll be there for three weeks. I hope it's a happy three weeks. We've received unwelcome pieces of news recently: one of our favourite beaches is now accessible only to the guests of the resort it lies next to, and blocking the entrance to the beach is a tall Starbucks building; the wadi we used to go to every other weekend is now almost dried up, probably because of global warming and the rising heat. And these little pieces of news remind us that our former home will not, obviously, be the same as it used to be 13 years ago.

Nevertheless, our excitement is almost unbearable. Muscat was all I knew until we uprooted ourselves and went through quite the culture shock in Kerala. We now have a new home in Bangalore, and right here and right now, I would rather be nowhere but here. But Muscat still calls.

What are the associations you make when you think of the Middle East? You may think of conservative Muslims, covered from head to toe in burkhas. You may think of Dubai, with all of its excess and decadence. Now, Oman? This kingdom walks the rare middle path. Yes, it is Muslim and Middle Eastern, but not conservatively so. That has a lot to do with the large expatriate community there, which includes nationalities from all over the world.
And in terms of how it fares as a holiday/tourist destination, Oman is not for the people who gravitate towards Dubai. Oman is usually thought of as a sleepy place. We don't have shopping festivals like Dubai, nothing overly commercial. But what we have is natural beauty. The beaches. Oh, the beaches. Pristine blue waters and gorgeous sands.

Oman has a lot of historical beauty as well. I remember many weekends spent exploring old forts and souqs, built with care and precision enough to last hundreds of years without needing any renovation. I remember getting up to the highest lookout tower of one fort and standing by the ancient cannon it housed, unable to tear my eyes away from the tree tops of hundreds and hundreds of greenish-brown date palms.

Absence and the yearning to return have probably romanticized my memories of the place and the time we spent there. But now, as an adult, I have even more love for the city. It welcomed me with open arms and granted me a wonderful childhood.

I cannot wait to go back there and explore once again. :)

Let me tell you a little bit about what it's like sometimes to share a family tree with a few of my extended relatives.

I am Malayalee. I am also Muslim, by birth and by inheritance, but not by choice. By conscious choice, I am pagan. But that's unimportant.

A relative visited today. I won't even try to explain how we're related; it's beyond me. I do know, though, that he cannot be more than 45 years old and that he has two young children. The older, a girl, is six.

Today, I am 26 years, one month and one day old. I am also unmarried. Now, this is unacceptable. Not only do I have the gall to remain unmarried and thus childless, but I also dare to work and earn my own living. Financial independence, the most dangerous thing you can give to a "young girl my age."

At lunch, said Concerned Relative asked about my future, rather worried about me continuing to live my life freely and without confinement, like free range cattle. This obviously stemmed from looking at me come back home in the morning after staying over at a friend's place the previous night. "Are you searching for a potential husband, now that your older one is married and taken care of? No? She wants to wait for a few more years? That's fine and everything, but if you wait too long, it will be too late to have children."

The entire conversation was taking place right in front of me, as if I was simply furniture in the background. This self-righteous, presumptuous preacher of an uncle insisted that I not only get married, but that I do it soon because if not, it will be too late to have children. "She is 26 already!"

And he hopes that one of the receptions for my wedding (because there will have to be at least two, of course) will be held in Kerala so that his family, and many of our other relatives, will be able to attend.

It was crystal clear that he had absolutely no concern for what I wanted from my life. It's of no concern to him that I have always refused to agree to an arranged marriage. That I don't care about getting married "late in life" because I don't want to have kids anyway. And most importantly, that I fully intend to stay on this track for as long as I feel this way. No, he simply went on about "today's generation" and how they must learn quickly... or else.

I was obviously quite irritated, and only a little amused. But my mother's presence reminded me of my alleged obligation to treat him with at least respect, if nothing else.

For a few minutes, I seethed as I listened to him chew Ma's ear off. He wasn't talking to me, of course. I didn't need to be spoken to, since this decision about my own future wasn't mine to be made. In the minutes I took to put away the dishes and clear the table, I calmed down. I decided I would blog about this to document the experience. And then, once this post was done, I would move on to other things more worthy of my time during a precious weekend.

Which is exactly what I did. First, a long, luxurious bath. Then a little music, followed by sleep. See, unfortunately, as is typical of my dangerously independent ways, I had had a lot of fun last night with a big gang of friends. It involved quite a bit of alcohol and and not enough sleep. So I slept. And didn't think about anything else, too busy living a happy life to be concerned about others' concerns.

My family always celebrates Onam. We make it a point to all be together, to the extent that we may delay celebrations so that no one will be left out. Which is what happened this year; we postponed the feast from a Wednesday to a Sunday so that my brother-in-law could join us after he returned from a work-related trip.

Every Onam (or any feast, for that matter), my mother painstakingly creates each dish from scratch. She doesn’t use any pre-mixed product of any kind. She cooks all of the ten or twelve dishes by hand, usually taking the entire morning. As her children who have lived and watched her work throughout our lives, we have learnt that she will accept only a limited amount of help. Beyond that line, she will consider your presence in her kitchen as unwelcome. She won’t be mean-spirited about it at all, she will simply suggest that you help in other ways since she’s “got her methods for the cooking.”

And so today, I cut the vegetables. A lot of raw bananas were involved (as I always say, never try to separate a Malayalee from bananas or coconuts -- no pun intended). And a lot of yam was involved, too. I had forgotten how they itch and cause rashes on your hands. I spent about thirty to forty minutes trying to calm my irritated skin.

My brother bought the ten banana leaves: one for each person and then two more, just in case. He set all of the leaves neatly around the dining room floor. Not at the table, since traditional Kerala feasts are eaten sitting on the ground.

Family arrived one at a time, everyone contributing in their own way. Sister brought dessert (paayasam), Brother-in-Law brought his appetite for all of the fish available in the house today. Sister and I served all of the dishes in small quantities to every leaf. Cousin brought his camera to document all of the madness.

The food was perfect. A completely traditional Kerala Sadhya can have as far as thirty-six dishes, but ours was ten in all, not counting the rice and paapad. This was the first year that I managed to finish everything on my leaf. But even with just a spoon of each dish, I nearly didn’t eat all of it. A few people managed to have second helpings of rice. Don’t ask me how they did, I have no idea. I can only tell you that I looked on in bewilderment.

But the best part of it all, over and above everything else, was the fact that this was a family meal. Yes, it was a feast, but it was also just a simple meal. Our family is close-knit, and being together always leads to fun and silliness. There were fights over who could get the last piece of fish, over if we really had to give away the last of the Tamarind-Ginger achaar to my sister, over her stealing the banana chips off my leaf. There was teasing as Brother-in-Law finished his first helping of rice before everyone else did theirs, as Mamma herself sneaked in an extra piece of fish for herself. There were today, as there always are, laughs all around.

As I type this out, not quite out of my food daze yet, I look forward to next Sunday when the family congregates again. No matter what the occasion, even if there is no occasion, I know we’re going to have a wonderful time together.

I don't know why each of my posts takes so long to write itself. I look at people around me, my friends, colleagues and acquaintances, and they churn out posts at an envious pace. They may not be prolific, but they're at least regular. And I write. I consider myself to be a writer. I don't mean that in the sense of "I write/have written for newspapers, magazines and the like, and someday in the future I will make a career out of being a writer." I mean that in the sense of I have always preferred writing to speaking. Every time I want to express myself, my first instinct is to pick up a pen.

And yet, I don't write often. I observe frequently, want to communicate frequently, but rarely am I compelled to share whatever I'm thinking. I don't feel the need, or rather the inclination, to share my thoughts with whoever is out there. I don't know why, since I know that the people who will read this are my friends and loved ones.

Even now, as I type this post out, I'm tempted to shut the window down and abandon the draft. In fact, I did a couple of days ago. As I type this 'word,' I don't know if this post will end up getting published. Is any of this of any value?

But even as I ponder this existential question, I think of things I have wanted to blog about: my teenage cousin, turning 25, the worthless quality of my job, living in Montreal, and so many other little moments. So many sad moments and so many happy moments.

I don't know how to end this. I should write out something profound, shouldn't I? Or can I? This post isn't complete, and yet I know there's nothing more to it. I'm done for a while. At the rate I've been going, I'm done for the next six months. But maybe I'll feel compelled again. Let's see.

Good Riddance

2010 was a shitty year. There's no denying it. No matter how positively I try to look back at it, no matter how much I try to fake the stereotypical bittersweetness, I cannot hide it: it was one hell of a shitty year.

It started off on an interesting enough note, promising to be a year full of surprises. Oh, little did I know.

I went through the mother of all personal lows. Went through heartbreak and sunk into a hole that I didn't know how to crawl out of. I'd never been in one before, see.

I'm not out quite yet, but I will be.

It was a year of personal frustrations, of wanting to stretch my wings and not being able to, of not having the resources to, of not having the choice to. Of being forced by my own conscience to rein myself in.

It was a shitty professional year as well, filled with exasperation, and self-doubt, and realizations of inadequacies.

I'm not out quite yet, but I will be.

I'm so glad the year is over. I'm so glad there's an entirely new year ahead of me to do it right this time, to remember what's important and what's not, to remember who I am and who I'm not. Of what I want to devote my time to and what I want to brush aside without a second thought.

Hello, world. I'm here now, I'm back. Thank you for giving me this chance. :)