Hit the road Jack

Came back from this amazing trip across a bunch of national parks in Utah with the family. Drove the length and breadth of the state in a week. Something close to 2k miles! I planned the itinerary in detail and finalized all the little details. This is very unlike me. I like to control the holiday itinerary but this was another level. I drove like a maniac. I was stressed out every minute of that vacation but I made sure everyone else had a good time. I drove like the end of the world is near. My world, that is.

I was dealing with a health scare. Yeah, the same one from last year. I thought it came back with a vengeance. I thought there was a finality to it this time. Everytime I thought it was a blip, the symptoms would came back. I just could not put the thought out of my mind. Every waking moment I was thinking of the finality of it all. I spent my time thinking about the messages I will leave behind for both the kids. You know the "open this on XXX" kinds? Time permitting, I plan to have two each; one for the graduation and one for the wedding. I have one of the four about partway done.

When we embarked on this vacation, my thought was that this is the last time I get to do this before the elder kid goes to college. Who knows if/when the next one will be? During the trip, I kept thinking that this was the last time I might get to do this, period. If that is how things turn out to be eventually then I wanted to have this one last big one with the kids. I couldn't take my eyes off them, I just couldn't have enough of them just in case there is something to this whole thing about afterlife.

Towards the end of the vacation, they mentioned that this was the best vacation ever. If this happens to be the last of it's kind, I hope everyone remembers it for the good time they had and not as the last good time they had with me. They have memories and a lot of pictures atleast. I am told I can't take much of it in afterlife.

The symptoms seem to have subsided since yesterday. Maybe I will get it checked. Maybe I won't. However the cards fall, I have learnt to treat every vacation as my last.

Control the uncontrollable

 Been a bit of a week...

Stayed off booze for a good 6 weeks. Then got drunk. Twice. In a week.

It is no secret from anyone that I don't expect to live beyond 65. Last week, talked to both my siblings separately and came to know that they are living with the same fear. Rationally speaking, this should not have been news. I share my parents and my ancestors with them. Their genes are my genes. How did I ever think that I would be the only one affected by the early deaths of my parents and grandparents. In all these years, I somehow never thought that they will look at it the same way I do. That somehow they will live much longer (I hope they do). It was a gut punch to think that I have been just playing the victim in my mind all these years but didn't spare a thought for them. I am a very selfish man. I got drunk. I was hurt. I talked too much. 

Three days later I did it all over again. What makes it many times worse is that this time it was a work event. I opened my heart, my hurts to a co-worker (who might be my boss some day). I have taken pride in being fiercely private all my life. There are things that people closest to me don't have a clue about. There is only so much I can blame on alcohol though. Maybe, deep down, After all these years, I want to share. With somebody. Anybody. Not appropriate for work though. Next day, I thought, I will be a changed man. I will behave differently. Probably not. One night of drinking does not change who I am.

And who am I? An alcoholic who can't control his tongue? Or an alcoholic who just doesn't know when to stop? Or a soul wanting to be heard? Sometimes, I just want to be by myself and shout. Shout. And cry. And cry. And cry. 

I am lonely. Very lonely. 

I don't even know who am I writing this for. I will never reveal this blog to anyone. No one will ever know who wrote it. Perhaps, that's for the best.

Failure is not an option

Doesn't look like success is much of one either. Lately, I feel that the only thing I succeed at is failing spectacularly at everything. 

The work doesn't seem to be getting any better. There seems to be no end to this tunnel. Sometimes I feel like I have tapped out. I have risen to the max level I would. Makes me almost start count the days to when i would be done with corporate world. Some of the people around me holding titles better than me do give me hope that I can do better but looking inward, it makes me wonder if I should make peace with where I am. This can't be it, can it?

I have broken contact with a bunch of friends and acquaintances the last couple of years. Lost and never to be revived sort of way. I believe I was not wrong in all cases but the aggregate number is troubling. Not many left. Not many left to offend. I am trying to be careful when I talk to the remaining ones for fear of losing them. This might not be it, is it?

Personal life seems to be going downhill. I am often asked to change everything about me. Change who I am. Feels too late. Or I am too stubborn or I don't admit I need change. For all the selfless attitude I project, maybe, deep down, I am a very selfish man. Either I change who I am or I change who I project who I am. Trying to speak less at home. Seems to be a better way. Hard though. How do I not be myself all day everyday. Has my true self run it's course already. This shouldn't be it, is it?

The Eu-googly

 Had to recently prepare a eulogy for father of a close family member. Someone I had been acquainted with for more than half my life but, for whom, I couldn't muster even half a minute of words without taking the help of internet. Two things struck hard...

I spent more time thinking what I didn't say about my dad. What if I had the chance to say a eulogy for him. Will I say a lot or will I stumble because I feel like I barely knew him. I never got a chance to ask him about his life, his childhood, his struggles, his hopes and dreams. How did I never bother to ask him about what he felt about losing his dad when he was 11 and getting bundled off to a boarding school. Or why he chose the path in life he did. Or what he feels about mom. Or us. What about his crushes? Did he have any girlfriend? How do I know that his brother had a girlfriend but not if he had one. How did I take him for granted so much that for 30 years I never thought of asking him about him. That was about half of his life and all of mine. It hurt to realize that I knew my father only marginally better than someone else's. I have so many questions from the last 17 years but no one to ask them from..

One website said I should start thinking about my own eulogy. Coupled with my belief that 3 quarters of my life is behind me, this one devolved into the scenario where my widow is reading a speech that cracks everyone up. Yeah, typical me. Even after my body is cold as hell, I am cold as hell. I was more concerned with making sure people laugh at my last words than with the mental state of people I will leave behind. While I may want to believe that no one will care two hoots that I am gone, the fact is that some will. I think. I hope?

Way back when, saw this movie where this mobster boasts that he can walk away from anything dear to him within 30 seconds (or something to that effect). I internalized it too much I guess. I look at my work desk and I can walk away in 30sec without losing anything. Looks like I am preparing my personal life the same way.  I think I am taking this detachment thing too far...

The dilemma

 Ambition or capability? What do i have more of?

Of Births and health scares

 Tomorrow marks the day I complete another circle around the ball of fire. Normally, a day for retrospectives etc but this is technically not a milestone birthday (as in, not divisible by 5 or 10 or starting with 1), so retrospective can wait.

A sibling recently had a health scare ( lately, a lot more of that happening with people I know. Probably a sign of my own age). It was a routine surgery at the end of the day but the days and hours leading up to it were nerve-wrecking. This comes on the heels of some scares and recent scares about my own health. Some erroneous test showed that I was on advanced risk for heart attack, another one showed that I am in early stages of a condition I have dreaded me entire life, besides the other one where I have reduced vision in one eye.

But none of those damn test results mattered. I was more worried about this routine surgery than I was about my own (possibly) life-altering conditions. Not trying to be humble but even the thought of having something happen to her sucked the life out of me. 

I have always been selfish so wish I never have to hear any such news about a loved one anymore. Heard recently that death is like stupidity. It affects people around you more than it impacts you. Sorry everyone...

What if?

 What if?

The question that has had humanity perplexed forever. Who hasn't thought about what turn life would have taken if they had taken a right turn instead of left that one time, what if they had said yes instead of no or put that much less thought about that next step. Here's mine...

I have always taken pride in having no regrets. I have lived my life a certain way and I always maintain that I can never know, had I taken a different decision at certain juncture, whether it would have made my life better or worse. Weirdly enough, there is one non-decision I have often wondered about. Whether it was even a choice at that critical (?) juncture or not, I am not sure. All I know is, that I have often wondered if I could have done anything differently then that could have changed the course of my life.

Enough suspense...

Back to the college days - There was this girl that I had a massive crush on (that my first kid shares the birth date with) and this "friend" who would always be my side and shared the first name with the crush (and last name with my wife and birthdate with second kid - yes, life is weird). 

Anyway, I was either too shy, too much of a coward or too unsure, but I never told my crush that I have a crush on her. All the time, the friend would goad me to ask, I think.

Then college ended and life happened. I didn't realize till later but I was lonely in a foreign city and the only person I would call is her. For those who know me, they can understand how big of a deal was it for me to call her home phone and ask her parents to talk to her. I just never realized it for what it was.

I hear she is moving to a different city for a job. In my current imagination, I see myself taking a few days from my current job to go to that city and stand outside her office till I spot her. The then-me was too practical (cheap/blind) to do so. A girlfriend much later told me point blank that I never change my plans based on emotions.

Then one day, the crush came back for a fleeting moment and broke my heart in a million pieces. I called the friend hoping for sympathy but was told I never realized who my true friends were. I was too broken to understand the words hidden behind the words. Weirdly, they didn't even hurt.

Life moves me to a different country. The friend tells me one day that she is getting married and moving to that same country. She does. We talk once - I am flippant. 

15 years pass....life happens

One day, I spot her in the car next to me. I notice her. She does not notice me.Triggers a retrospective. Weird. I have a wife who loves me. I have two kids who are my entire world.

There are still times when I think about what if...

Old songs, new meanings 1

 Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai

Aaj phir marne ka iraada hai

Today, I have a will to live again

Today, I have a desire to end it all...

Ne'er the twain shall meet

 Am I disappointed because I so often fail to live up to my own expectations or because others do? They lost a game they never knew they were playing and didn't know the rules for anyway. What's my excuse?

Hanging by a thread

 Forever plus many moons ago, I read a story which goes something like this...

A kid is fed up of his daily struggles at school and wishes to get over all this mundane life of going to school, homework, routine etc and he wishes he can just skip to when he can control his destiny. He meets the fairy godmother (or djinn or satan or tooth fairy, doesn't matter) and gets this device where he can pull this golden thread to fast forward his life. The more thread he pulls out, the more he gets to skip. You get the idea. The condition being, he can't go back as the thread disappears once it is taken out. (sidebar: in my mind, I always pictured this as a floss dispenser. This is before I ever saw a floss dispenser in my life. And I have never been able to use a floss dispenser ever without feeling a bit of apprehension. Yes, I have issues. But that's a story for another day).

So, this kid promptly pulls the thread and moves to his youth, doesn't like the rigmarole of college and pulls more and realizes that the thread is silver now and he is an adult. Life is tougher. There is a job to go to and bills to pay. Fast forward, pull some more, get to bronze thread, family and kids, more responsibilities, more stress, more pulling, regular thread now, middle age, health to worry about, pills to imbibe, kids college to worry about, more pulling, very thin and dirty thread, old age, various afflictions, loneliness, longing for the age of golden thread etc etc...you get the idea...

I don't remember how the story ends but I am sure it's got something to do without enjoying the fucking moment etc but there are times in my life I have wished for this floss dispenser so that I can fast forward the tough times and just get to the good parts. 

Today was a crisis of confidence kind of day. I always thought I had more talent than ambition. Today was the day that made me believe the other way. Today was the day where I wish I could pull the thread and get to the good parts. 

But lately, any such thought is accompanied by the worry about pulling too much of that thread. Having this strong belief that I have less than a third of my life left, what if I miss the parts where my kids are still designing the Halloween costumes. Where they are still dependent on me to log into the computer. Where I still make pancakes for them. Where my wife still loves me. What if I miss the parts where I can still eat a pizza without worrying about the consequences. What if I miss the part where I can still call the loved ones. I don't even know which part of the thread I am on. Do I have some silver left or am I already too far down the dirty thread already.