It’s been a long time since the last post in May, though I had promised myself there would be an average four posts a month. Ah, if wishes were horses…etc….Sometime around July 2010 i took up this new assignment that I, and many others in my group, considered a dream assignment. The dream run lasted a month or so, and then, the work piled up; and piled u some more, and then some more….
My martial arts classes were the first casualty. the classes were in the casualty ward anyway, and this was merely the last blow. (hmmm..interestingly apt words or what?) And then, I was staying on in the office later and later, and getting all worked up about the work. The assignment did show me, though, that I could be tenacious and bull headed about getting things done if i cared enough, but I also realised i was a sucker for a pat on the back and a word of praise. So isn’t everyone, you ask? Well, there’s a difference of degree in how sore you feel if the pat or the word is missing. I was gettimg more and more strung up, and even more tense, and snapping at people. And good friends learnt that a safe distance was a long, long distance. As work pressure increased, I was ocassionally workign 25 hours a day. (well, what else do you call it when you wake up at 6 am and sleep only at 7 am the next day?)
Sundays were also spent on duty, checking emails every half an hour or so, and then responding to them. I was slowly becoming a mindless zombie. But through this all, one of the few things that kept me going was the sense of loss. Loss of all the things like my classes and my health and my sleep and the basic feelign of being a decent, civil human being, that I had taken for granted. The loss of waking up in the morning and feeling like a Good Morning; the loss of strength and flexibility in my muscles and joints, and the loss of sleep. After a really big milestone, when the pressure was a bit off, one of the Sundays, there was absolutely nothing to do, and I just spent it zoned out in front of the screen, with something playing. Just being able to sit with nothing to do was such a big relief. It was something i had never done before. something I had never imagined I would do or like doing.
The worst of it was over, but not quite.There were still the late nights, the unreasonable pressure, and a feeling of having lost it all despite having won it all. And the feeling that I had to get back. As a close friend said, after a particularly bad fight, that I seemed to have vacated my own life. Well, it was time to take bac my life. The first thing I needed was a holiday. That i got, by driving down to Pondicherry, without a plan, without an idea, and without a worry.Holed up in a shack near the Auroville beach, and just spent time with aimless wander and sitting on the beach, doing exactly nothing. The difference was, this time I was choosing to do nothing. Evils like the internet and email were forgotten for the five days i was there, and boy, was I glad not to have to bother about anything. I got back to what was still a pressure cooker, but stronger. The realization of how etheral everything is, puts it all in a new light.
And then, quite suddenly, things turned around. I got a chance ot go back to my old department, and I took it. I never thought I would be so glad to be able to leave the office at exactly five thirty, and so glad to open my inbox every morning and see no new emails. I recovered, and the first thing I have put myself into is gettting back into shape. Of course, i resolevd to excercise evryday, but so far, I have been able to jog only three times a week. But it feels good.
And then, there is also the resolve to make up for lost blogging time. Two long, thought out and abandoned posts later, this, off the cuff, in one unedited stretch, is my blogpost after a long time. Again, I promise myself a blog a week. It seems like the promise of old; but then, this time, its a purposeful go at reoccupying the life that I had vacated.
