Reading my medical file feels like a nostalgia trip & a mystery both in one. Sherlock Holmes & the case of falling blood pressure. Nancy Drew & the mystery of the hammers in the head. The Three Investigators & the missed period. Famous Five go on a sonography. When I…
There’s a name for my generation. The children of Baby Boomers who arrived a few calendar pages too early to be Millenial. We’re Generation X. Or perhaps Xennial. X marks the spot of cluelessness in the Information Age. Apparently I’m attractive now. After years of Gori&Chitti, this skin colour &…
I was a high functioning workaholic in my 20s. It took me to stress health issues, abusive relationships, bad decisions. A frenzied mind does not have room for joy or the capacity to relax. It’s hard to answer the question, Are You Happy? It’s called workaholism because it is an…
Chasing Sunrises – Are you?
I wrote this post at the start of this year. What a year 2020 is turning out to be. ~O~O~O~O~O~ This is the decade where I lost all control of the plan I made at 17. This was the decade I found myself in a life so strange, I could…
We are so many feelings and experiences and memories and conversations. We refine what fits into a label called an identity, the way our travels fit into a little cardboard book called a passport. Just like a passport, that identity only contains the details of things the world deems most…
I’m forty this year. I’m told I don’t look that age (though I know other people who look similarly so). But I’ll take the compliment because I understand that’s what is meant, under the assumed ageism. Because 40 is when I’m liking the way my world looks. It hasn’t been…
I crossed a birthday last month. Being born near a decade switch, my every ten years seem to align in personally with the defining traits of the decade. At 20, I was a newly minted adult in a newly minted millenium, a forerunner of the generation that would come to…
Let’s think about regret. Decisive people rarely seem to have regrets. As a decisive person myself, I weigh what a situation is worth & if dithering will help. Regret seems to not be worth it. Who has time to regret the past when a lesson can be gleaned for the…
Today is the last day of The Thirty Diaries, a series I started a little over a decade ago. Tomorrow, I turn 40, a number that brings its share of weight in the form of platitudes and stereotypes, some of which I’ve already encountered and battled. I am not sure…
A classmate called. He said he missed true friends. I said, “It’s early mid-life crisis after the disillusionment of the 20s. We are all in it.” The 20s are a maniac’s dream. Everything is available & possible. There is an unrealistic shine on everything. It takes a few knocks to realise…
Minimalism. Colour pops. Office beanbags and gym balls. Ironic teeshirts & cause-stickers for formal wear. Technology slimmer than our desired waistlines. Value systems bigger than paychecks. The planet. The economy. Endangered species. Endangered morals. Flexible schedules & flexible boundaries. We survived Y2K (of which an entire generation exists in blissful…
When was the last time you saw a 30- something look like this? That’s a 30-something pretending to be 20 and you bought it. We have a mental picture next to each age number till 25. ‘Kid’ gets bigger till it hits ‘Grownup’. ‘OLD’ is a white-bearded, balding man or…
View this post on Instagram A post shared by IdeaSmith 💄🌱📚❓✍️ (@ideasmithy) Today I didn’t feel cool, collected or in control. I left home less put together than usual (hair still wet, no lipstick). I impulsively changed my Saturday plans. I stumbled into things, upturned a glass of water into…
So I did the #10YearChallenge. And this is what I figured out about myself. View this post on Instagram A post shared by IdeaSmith 💄🌱📚❓✍️ (@ideasmithy) I’ve not gained a lot of kilos in ten years. But I have accumulated memories that give me a certain jaded, wary, not-much-impresses-me-anymore look….
Birthday month came and passed. The birthday was sweet. I’m now officially in my last year of being able to write The Thirty Diaries. Soon to be officially middle-aged. Yesterday I asked a friend if he’d let me know when I started looking old. He paused and said, “Uh okay,…
The last time I wrote here, I was on the other side of a birthday. And it just struck me that I’m now in the last leg of The Thirty Diaries. Appropriately, I’ve had an article published on Arre titled ‘My Tinder Bio: Not Here To Mother 20-Somethings‘. My overall…
I spoke to her today. It wasn’t as unthinkable as I imagined, over a year ago. She told me the email I sent her a fortnight ago sounded like I did not want to hear from her. I said, that was probably true. “When things happen, I deal with them…
The Idea-smithy | The Lone Runner On The Treadmill
I sang today. Actually it’s the second time this week. Earlier this week, I met a friend visiting from out of town at what turned out to be a karaoke event. I sat through an hour of people rollicking in songs I did not recognize, trying hard not to feel…
