Turning Point

And another one bites the dust. We are one year older, one year wiser and one year uglier than we were last year.

This was an important year. More important than I had imagined earlier. I did so much. I broke my heart twice. I failed and succeed. I wrote obsessively. I scored. I prayed. I hated. I traveled. I got hired. I quit. I infatuated myself with a stranger. I left friends behind. I moved to strange lands. I experimented with my sanity. I gave up on forever.

Would I do it all over again if I get a chance? Probably not. Some seasons should never come back and this was one of those seasons.

But I've learned a lot this year. I learned that things don't always turn out the way you planned, or the way you think they should, and it is not necessarily a bad thing.  And I've learned that there are things that go wrong that don't always get fixed or get put back together the way they were before. I've learned that good people also hurt you - no matter how good they are, at some point they are bound to hurt you too and its alright. I've learned that relationships are fickle. They should not be measured by how long you have known someone, but how deeply you have cared. And if you have truly cared for someone even for a minute, it is worth the thousand lives you are going to live without them. I've learned that some broken things stay broken, and I've learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, even when you don't have people who love you.

 And now I stand here in this strange city, in this awful weather, trying to find a direction. There are no familiar faces around to guide me, no matter how hard I try to look for them, but I know why that is. They are not supposed to be here. Its my time to get up myself and figure it out. Otherwise I will never learn.

But the good news is that once I get up and put myself together, work up the courage to turn the corner of the street I had been looking at for such a long time now, I will bump into a stranger, we will smile at each other and somehow all will be well again. Its only a matter of getting up and turning around that corner. I know I'm still a little bent, a little crooked, but I can't complain. After bearing through all kinds of abuses this year and crashing into dead ends and living through overdoses, I feel better now than I did five years ago. I might have some scar tissue, but that's alright, I'm still making progress. I hope you are too.

So, here's to another year of kicking and struggling and loving, and working up the nerve to take that turn and find out what's around that corner.

Magic

I hope this year's holidays bring Magic your way! :-)

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The Good & Bad.

A 6-year-old knocked on Santa's door a little after midnight. 

She asked the elf who answered the door that she needs to see Santa immediately. When the elf told her that Santa was asleep, the girl insisted that he needs to wake him up because it was about her bike. The girl was upset but she looked so cute upset. Seeing that, the elf smiled and seated her in the living room while he went to get Santa. 

Santa came downstairs after a little while, still sleepy and rubbing his eyes.

The little girl looked at him and crossed her arms. Upon seeing that she was annoyed, Santa sat down, smiled and asked her what was wrong.

"I wished for a bike. You never gave me a bike," she said.

"Oh," replied Santa. "Did you ask for a bike?"

"Yes," she replied.

"What did you get instead?" he asked.

"A Doll."

"Hmm, well lets see that must be a mistake," Santa got up to look at his list.

"What is your name little lady?" He asked.

"Patsy Quinn," she replied.

"Hmm, Patsy Quinn," Santa repeated while going through his list.

The little girl looked at Santa intensely hoping that he would find her name and tell her that he will get her the bike she wished for.

"Yep, there it is," Santa finally spoke, "Pasty Quinn - who wants a pink bike."

"Yes! Yes!," she replied.

"But there is a reason why the Bike wasn't delivered to you," said Santa.

He paused for a moment then asked,

"Have you been a good girl or a bad girl?"

The excitement on her face grew into guilt.

"Umm... well.... its not like that...," she mumbled.

"Have you been a good girl or a bad girl?" he repeated.

She couldn't reply, or it looked like she did not want to answer the question.


"Everyone has to answer this question some time in their lives, dear child," Santa said softly.

She looked up to Santa. She wanted to say something but she couldn't.

"Its alright, you can take your time. But you have to answer that question to yourself and the sooner you do it, the sooner you will know why particular things happen to you in your life."

"Hmm... I see," replied the girl. She got up to leave.

Santa watched her leave and didn't say anything. But as she was about to get out of the door, he said,

"Patsy... Think about it, but know that Santa believes in second chances."

She looked back at him and smiled.

Life is Funny (26)

For your entertainment, here are a few conversations with the wonderful people who are a part of my life... :-)  


“It is pressure sensitive. Try not to touch it. It gets confused. Technology.”
-Customer service lady at Macy's trying to explain how to use the pin pad.
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"Look, you dont have to wear anything you are not comfortable wearing. For all I care, you can wear nothing...
Oh, I mean... you know... I mean nothing that you don't like... I mean... crap!"
-Marvin to Raaji - on the appropriate attire for the party.
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"You dont understand. I have a relationship with my phone, we have a chemistry together, I cant explain it"
-Raaji, about her dieing phone.
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“Why did this office not come with a Margarita machine?”
-during an overworked week
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Lyndsay (White-American): I was told by facebook that I would be the second person to die in a horror movie.
Terry (African American): Thats because you are not black.
---

When asked a friend who went to Paris...
"Eiffel Tower? it looked better on google earth.
---

The curse of the computer scientist is to be off by one; an engineer can be off by ten percent, but we're screwed,
-Prof P.
----

"I'd mate with that."
- Emily upon seeing a white peacock at the zoo

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[For more, click on the 'Funny Quotes" tab in the menu bar above :-)] 

Touch Me.

I was flying with U.S. Airways for third time in a month to go to yet another site for work. I was working around the clock and  hadn't seen family or friends in a while.

I was extremely tired from the lack of sleep and stress of work that as the flight took off, I found myself dozing off a bit. I knew I wouldn't sleep but I was too tired to keep my eyes open. There was an older gentleman sitting right next to me. He could easily be my grandfather's age. We talked a bit before the flight took off - cursed the rising cost of the airlines and mused about our mutual frequent destinations before I gave up and closed my eyes.

I shifted in my uncomfortable seat in an attempt to comfort myself. And my arm touched the side of his arm. He was busy reading a newspaper. I imagined he would move his arm since I was too tired to move my own but he didn't. Usually people do - Americans are not very comfortable with the idea of touching strangers.
After a little while I started to feel the warmth of his arm against mine and it was an oddly comforting. I realized I hadn't touched someone - anyone - in a while.

I suppose that's how life is like when your family abandons you, your lover betrays you and your job drives you nuts. I suppose that's how people feel when they live out of hotels, start their day at one airport and end it at another. I am one of the many faceless people in that crowd. Real world.

I suppose it is the human touch that makes things alright. People forget what you say, they forget who you were. What they don't forget is how you made them feel  - how you touched them.

I am your friend. Please touch me. Nothing lets me know you care like a warm embrace. A healing touch when I am depressed assures me that I am loved. And assures me that I am not alone. Yours might be the only comforting touch I get. 

Cold Hearts

 

Here is the thing about snow: you never know when it is going to really arrive, how long it will stay and with how much intensity, how beautiful it will look or how difficult it will make your life for the rest of the winter, and most of all, you don't know when it will leave. You don't know when you will see your last snow of the season before it would all vanish.

Last year, I was here, right by my favorite bench. This was the first snow last year captured while carrying a heavy bag in one hand and balancing the umbrella with the other.  And today when this year's first snow hit, I was standing in 8 inches of it hundreds of miles away from this bench. I realized that the night before I had cut my last real connection to this place. It is amazing how drastically life changes in a matter of days or even minutes. You are kicked out of the place you called home and the people you called your own change their minds from wanting you all the time to never having anything to do with you. You never know when would end up being the last time you kiss them or hold them or even see them. You'd think things would be the same, and you would get plenty of time to see them but they get up one day, change their minds, and leave...  just like that. 

Everything betrays you, even the snow.

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For More: I ROMANTICIZE