Welcome one and all to the annual birthday post (that was missed in my previous birthday due to personal reasons such as existential crisis). Much has happened over the course of the last year, so let’s get started without further ado.

life updates

To be honest much of it has been quite a blur as we are still globally navigating through the pandemic that is Covid-19. Borders are still mostly closed with the exception of selected countries with low cases. Singapore just hit over 5k cases in one day, while simultaneously announcing that they want to open up travel to more countries by the end of the year. But who is even keeping track anymore.

For the entirety of the last year or so most of the restaurants were only allowed to have two people dining in at any one point in time. And while more than 90% of the country has already been fully vaccinated, the cases have continued to climb.

I have not travelled out of the country since Jan 2020, which was quite important in the timeline of events as Singapore had its first case while I was out of the country. And since then things have only gone downhill. I missed three weddings of people close to me. One of my best friend’s wedding got cancelled. So many people lost their close ones to the virus, thankfully the ones I care for are still safe and alive.

But somehow amidst such a gloomy global outlook, I find myself most at peace right now.

So much has evolved, within and without, and I feel at a much better place mentally and spiritually than I have ever been in the last 5 years.

meditate, don’t medicate

Sometime in the mid of last year I went through a drastic mental breakdown. I had just lost my job as my previous company did not wish to renew my contract amidst the concerns of the pandemic. On top of that, the worries of the pandemic and having to stay at home 24/7 amidst a lockdown with a family that drained at my mental health day to day put me in a state of despair and depression, absolutely stripped of my identity and any ounce of understanding of who I am.

I had decided to quit learning Carnatic music, which prior to that something that I placed at the utmost top of my priority list. I had prioritised it over family, work, relationships and what not. And I came to a point where I saw no point in pursuing it any more. So yea you can understand the kind of drastic mental change I was going through. Conveying this to my Guru felt like a full blown breakup scenario, with unhappiness and voices being raised on both sides.

That wasn’t the only bridge I burnt. So many others I started cutting off from my life. Any ounce of negativity…BLOCK. Any vibe that didn’t sit with me…FUCK OFF. I was drinking quite regularly as well, while locked in my room, my only place of solace and solitude. I had started smoking again after two years of quitting cigarettes. Of course I couldn’t become a full blown alcoholic while living with my parents, but even I got concerned with the way I had started dealing with things.

So I took the bold step to book an appointment with a psychiatrist, to get myself in check.

Coming to terms with myself and taking action on my mental health was huge for me. From my past posts you would have seen how much I believed that the mental health industry was a sham and people were just whining about issues that they didn’t want to deal with.

But it took me 28 years to realise what a terrible mental state I was in for most of my life. I must have been depressed and anxious for a large part of my childhood cause honestly I feel so dissociated from it I have barely any recollection of it. I have felt isolated and anti-social for a large part of any scenario that I can recall deep into my childhood. Parts of me learnt to put on a persona that was sociable but it mostly drained me and took a lot of external substances to keep me going. My self esteem and confidence have been kept at bare minimum regardless of anything that I had achieved in my life. After years of trying to live with these monsters in my head, thinking I will outgrow them, I finally did something to fight them.

Obviously a single 45 minute session was not enough to outline my entire life history but the doctor immediately prescribed me some anti depressants after the first visit. To be honest I don’t think he did much of a deep analysis of my mental condition (these government hospital based mental health professionals are known to be pretty shit) but I kind of went in open to the option of trying out medication.

It felt like a huge step to take given I was going to start taking daily medication that will be affecting my already unstable mental state. But at the same time I felt maybe this was an option I haven’t considered amidst all the other means of self medication I had tried in the past. At least this is legal and prescribed by a doctor so if anything goes wrong I have someone to blame (lol).

Looking back I think it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I probably will have to write another post going into the detailed journey with anti depressants, but in short I had never felt better in my entire life. In some ways I started discovering what I am guessing normal people would feel like on a day to day basis, without crippling anxiety and a constant stream of negativity running through their minds. My moods were a lot more regulated, I was better in social situations, my dating life got better, work life got better, relationship with family got better. Overall mostly pros and quite minimal cons. Of course this was not achieved purely through meds.

i’m coming home again

Sometime early this year, I also made the massive decision of moving out from my parents’ place.

Yea I know it sounds crazy. Leaving aside the social stigma of moving out in an Indian household, why would I be willingly spending close to 1k every month, money that could easily be saved for future investments? Why would I be fracturing my already fractured relationship with my family by distancing myself from them? And more importantly how am I going to deal with the 1001 questions that my friends and relatives are going to be asking me about this?

Well I had my reasons. Personal space is something important to me, and I felt that even though my parents have gotten much more chill over the years, I didn’t feel comfortable entirely being with them. In some ways I felt like I needed to constantly put up this front with them in order not to upset or disappoint them for the person that I am. And as I mentioned earlier, amidst the pressures of the pandemic this started taking a real toll on my mental health. Moreover I wanted to have the experience of living independently. I wanted to start doing laundry and cleaning and cooking and doing dishes and all the things I would need to do to live on my own, as I have been so dependent on my parents for most of this even at my age. And I wanted to do this before the reality of marriage and a cohabitation lifestyle kicks in.

So all things considered, I took the decision to find a place of my own. The search in itself was daunting, having to look for rooms and housemates with whom I would be comfortable staying with. Being the idealist that I can be, I was considering so much into making sure that the moving out scenario outweighs the stay home scenario. Thankfully I happened to chance upon a lovely apartment with a spacious room and friendly apartment mates. I was moving in with 3 other girls…yea another “woah” I hear it already. But for some reason my gut instinct told me that it’ll be comfortable and peaceful sharing the living space with these girls. And that gut instinct was spot on.

Very soon after they became like sisters I never had, being able to share and do things together that I’ve not done before. They taught me how to cook and soon after we started cooking meals together. We would watch shows together, talk about life and love, laugh about the silly things we do while navigating through this pandemic as well. And I was also absolutely in awe of how incredibly independent and strong these girls were, working in a foreign country alone, away from family, and doing everything to create the life that they want for themselves. None of them were from any form of privileged backgrounds, and were all not leading life in any way that was considered to be conventional. I guess that could be the reason I fit right into this place that became my home.

caught in a bad romance

I fell in love, once again. Almost from the moment that I met her. The attraction was instantaneous and overwhelming. The rational mind told me to take this slow, but the romantic in me wanted to dive deep into this endless pit.

I’ve come to realise I’m very much a romantic when it comes to relationships. I tend to idealise my partners, overlooking their flaws and red flags that they may exhibit, seeing them to be the perfect fit for the flawed me. I guess we all do that in small ways towards the people that we love and care for.

But in the case of this relationship I was quite pragmatic from the start. I wanted to make sure that I was not repeating the mistakes from the past. I was wary of my own biases and tendencies and decided to consciously take things slow without letting it burn fast and die. In fact, as tempting as it was to get into a committed relationship as soon as we started dating (she very much wanted that as well), I made sure that we would date for at least a month before getting into a relationship.

And man those first few weeks were incredible. I had felt like never before in a long long time, absolutely sucked into it, and constantly just thinking about it. The infatuation stage is something I had thought to have grown out of but clearly it made a comeback in a way bigger than ever before.

And she was incredibly comfortable to be with, as much as a closed book that I am, she made me open up so much and share so much of myself with her. We were both discovering so much about one another and it was becoming so consuming, that I started to see some parallels to a toxic relationship from the past. So I started applying brakes in the relationship, consciously withdrawing myself from time to time, and slowing things down. I wanted something sustainable, that would not just burn out after burning bright for a short while. I was seeing someone after almost 2 years of being single, so it was something long term and serious that I was looking for in a relationship.

But as far as my luck goes, me and long term relationships can never go in the same sentence, so as beautiful and amazing as the relationship was, all the red flags and flaws that I was ignoring started to bubble up over time and explode in the most dramatic of breakups where she erased my entire existence out of her life and left me to rot.

so yes, we are now back to square one. but surprisingly I have been handling the breakup pretty well, at least in a much more healthy way I’d say. I guess it was easy for me to be the “depressed” guy in my past breakups, given how I was already in a depressed state of mind. But given how much better my mental health has been, I think there was a lot more resistance to go back into that depressive state. I guess this too shall pass and maybe one day I would find a love that would last and be by my side as much as I want to be by theirs. No expectations, just living life for everything that it gives me and taking it in to the fullest.

all this bread so yummy

Work had also become a huge part of my life over the last year. So much so that it took away time from everything else that had been a priority in the past.

I have been thinking a lot about what I want my career to be about, given I had switched jobs almost once every year since I graduated. Having worked a multitude of different roles, from user experience design to web development to software engineering to teaching to data engineering, I feel like I have jumped through a variety of skill sets that make my resume look like a Shopee homepage with a whole bunch of unrelated recommendations.

Nevertheless, I have learnt to make the most out of these experiences, never getting particularly comfortable with any of these roles at any point. The goal is to become as adaptive and absorbent as possible, learning to learn things fast and thriving in whatever role that the role requires me to be. At the end of the day I need a job in order to maintain my artistic ventures as they are most definitely not paying the bills.

Somehow I have yet to really consider a married life. Finances and priorities might shift once I am in a committed marriage, particularly an arranged marriage which would not give as much room for a customised lifestyle (not always the case but potentially the case). Let’s cross that bridge when it comes, and till then maximise my skill sets and abilities, and learn maybe a thing or two about running a tech company, and make as much bread as I can.

we’ll see what’s ’bout to happen next, okay? 

I guess that’s pretty much it. Not a very exciting year, but most definitely one that I felt much more grounded and connected with myself in. I definitely wish to create and collaborate more next year, this year had a few exciting collaborative projects but there is room to push for more creative work. I hope to take fitness more seriously as well, and workout more consistently. Just the usual things nothing too major… maybe get married or something who knows?

Till then keep glitching!