Tag: strength

..and Happy Women’s Day

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As a teenager, a thing like “Happy Women’s Day” would mean no more than the greeting cards that flooded the stores, flowers being sold at the roundabouts and the  TV commercials engaged in happy women propaganda’s.

And today, the scenario is pretty much still the same but  I am with a different perspective of course.

I grew up in a house with more women than men, read in a convent school that insisted on teaching values more than swallowing text matters and both of these combined, prepared me and so many more like me, around in this world for a reality different than that of fairy-fables without having to give up on the fact that magic and miracles do happen.

I wonder at times, what gives us so much strength to endure the passing storms of everyday life so gracefully or at least  make us appear graceful at any given time? Is it because we never stop believing in the magic of the “what ifs’?”

 Not only are we the living hormone factory but also the empire of overflowing emotions. I bet, each one of us would agree that it is rare we feel the same way throughout the day, each and everyday,thanks to the variety of chemicals and sub chemicals entertaining our hormonal system and yet it is the tiny little casual things that emotionally move our worlds. Ain’t that funny!

We are gifted with strength, passion, admirable inner and outer beauty, love and affection and the sole ability to procreate another life form. However, in spite of the all the bestowed grace we have ‘supposedly’ been set at the mercy of acceptance and acknowledgement of others and at least at some point or the other, personified to become someone else’s perception rather than our own, impersonating the many things a woman “is supposed to be” than what she “is”and the prejudice has ever since continued.

It is wonderful to reflect as a woman today, to fathom the system of creation that allows a girl to celebrate her phases as a little girl that chirps like the happy birds of spring, an enthusiastic and ‘creative in her own ways’ kind of a young daughter, a blooming lady in no-time, preparing her wings to set herself off with a basket full of dreams and aspirations.

With her spirit cultured with magic and miracles of bedtime fairies, she is pumped to explore her life of dreams that are only meant to come true. However there is so much out there that changes the whole equation of what she wished for and what she received instead.

There are rules and norms, perceptions to handled, duties to be fulfilled, sacrifices to be made, master the virtue of forgiveness, battles and insecurities to fight and the constant need to provide caped in a personality full of poise and grace to reclaim yourself as a women at the end of the day.

And in all this turmoil, it is our tiny little dreams that get shoved in the dark corners of the closet. Some of us never get a chance to look for and trace them back and some of us who manage to light the fire of our dreams and pull out that piece of our forgotten bit, make wonders happen surprising the audience that once doubted us.

I seldom smile to myself when I am forced to think if it is this gifted & secret power of women to rise like a phoenix, irrespective of her circumstances,the need for her to be suppressed, questioned, denied and treated differently from her fellow gender?

After all, it absolutely does not need a man alone to change the fate of a woman but the woman herself, who raises both a man and a woman to bring the change we still wait to see.

 ♥Cheers to us and to all the strong women in our lives!♥

Image Source : Pinterest

‘Re-discovered’ along the Trails

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18th September 2016; and I feel the breeze of a Sunday evening on my face, just as if it was for the first time in ages and indeed, it was.

In the quest to chase boredom, temporary failed attempts for desired outcomes in most areas of my perceived aspirations of ambitious living, I landed up entertained with a couple of engagements.

I, at no cost wanted to become the ’empty vessel’ auditioning through an amplifier. So, I started following some of my creative passions, digesting the bitter pill that in no sooner time, would that give me a paycheck end of the month but hopefully would fill me with a dose of contentment.

From here began the vigor and the constant inner push to write and vent through my blogs, discover the happy side of being a vegan foodie, work on creating prints- doodling, relevant and irrelevant ones, DIY recycle crafts to deck up our new apartment where we just moved in 4 months ago and watching the walking trail that is so lush green and faces the patio of our modest nest.

Apart from the patio, my work desk and my bedroom too, are the ideal windshields to this walking trail, where neighbors of the community and adjacent residency go out for scheduled fitness runs & geared up bicycle rides, chit-chatting friends who brisk walk and burn calories, new mommy’s sweating it out with their baby’s in the stroller, young school folks confidently sweeping in and out on their skateboards and what gets most attractive to me, are the single dwellers or devoted couples who are out walking their four legged furry friends.

If anything in this crowd and apart from my flowers dancing along the tune of the peaceful morning breeze, makes me smile and drool, is watching the adorable pooches and their amazing human parents.

Amidst all this and all my planned modes of creative and constructive diversions, began the probe to want a four legged companion for myself. With such willful imagination, I almost started living with a pooch, marveling at the change of events that it could promise in my lonesome hours, and then it was time to ‘Google’.

I encouraged my husband, took him into confidence with much less choice left open to him, and we began the expedition to adopt our first baby- our first doggy member.                       We Browsed and researched through adorable dogs, filled in application forms in almost all the nearby shelters and patiently waited to hear that a match had been found – somewhat like the matrimony sites that run the marathon of matchmaking crafts in India. 

After a month of wait, “I finally have a happy email in my inbox. We have an appointment with a furry guy called Wrinklet (yeah little out-of -the box name for a guy, but who cares when the guy in question is so adorable).”                                                                                           An unexpected 45 minute drive, a 15 minute mad hunt around the adoption event venue and hopeless upsurge of emotion of not being able to spot the event on time, was the priceless premium to meet Wrinklet – the smiling doggy in white. Mellowed and calm, he came close to sniff us and as we bent over to pat him and exchanged our first glance of mutual interaction, it all went with an ‘Awwwwwee’ ♥

The next morning, was that very morning from my imagination. A trial adoption was about to begin and a pooch was about to cross the threshold of our condo and I had hopes up in the sky. The trial was to last for 5 days and it was time to assess if we both could match and cope up with each other’s life style. Knowing us, as in me and my husband, I wasn’t really sure who had to cope up more, as facts unfolded dogs being manufactured to be playful and active and for us well, the recliners and bed explains it pretty much all.

But after all that research and pepped up hopes, I wasn’t going to really let the comforts pull me down. Finally the snoozing session with my smartphone alarms were resolved and morning walks began. Soon, I was one among the crowd, in the green lush walking trails, that I always watched from the blue camp chair in my cozy patio. People and dog greetings seeped in as an unsaid routine and lonesome boredom began to better tackled. I was now a prospective proud pet parent and in a long time, this was making me happy from within.

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Wrinklet never seemed to have responded to his name, so we tried with an even cooler title and named him Rex. Sharp and alert black and white ears (literally) , pinky eyes with white lashes, soft white coat and a look that melts your heart like chocolate in a fondue pot, he is a handsome combination of an Australian Cattle Dog and a Terrier. Oh and did I forget- he is one hyper active fellow ! Nonetheless, he is a top rated charmer and everything around both of us had just started turning afresh.

Time flew and 5 days passed in a snap of a finger. It was the Sunday of the following weekend since Rex joined us and we were preparing to venture the trails for our routine evening walks. It was comparatively late than our usual schedule and there were hardly other companions that evening on that trail. Rex and I indisputably had the trails to us and we walked it down like two old pals having so much to catch up.

Hardly can I assess, what struck in me after those first 15 minutes of our personal stroll, and just to keep pace with my excited mutt, I happened to set aside my fears and gather some courage to match mine with his. And I began to jog intermittently. After 21 long years, four corrective spinal surgeries, bedridden months, years of rehab and majorly lost confidence when it came to physical strength, I felt the stir in my feet. Rex’s leash in my hand, his excitedly wagging tail and the assuring look into my eyes, converted my yearning into a boost that just managed to pump some forgotten motion in my feet.

The breeze that then blew on my face, from that very moment, on the evening of 18th September 2016, was such a long awaited reward and the confidence my new companion evoked in me just got ‘Priceless’!

Pic Source: https://unsplash.com/@gallarotti

 

Blessings in Disguise

nabomitadas3 Comments

footsteps

It’s indeed true when they say that ‘nothing lasts forever’. But it’s also true that when we are in the epicenter of a life phase, its seems that the forever is never ending.

Today when after I complete 8 long years, everything seems nothing less than perfect to me, a blissful married life, a contending career path, a mind at rest and feet that are now stable, I thank each morning remembering those sleepless nights that were spent gazing at the bland skies.So much has gone into the making of me, into the blessings of having to be born twice in the same life.

An accident and four corrective surgeries to my spine stalled 10 years of me and brought me down to bed for a whole year. With the physical pain of a recovering body, financial burdens, a wobbling mental strength, seeped in and out of me. I could never know better how a clock ticks, how a day begins and how the night ends. Such was the longing for the time to take away that phase from me.

After ten long months when I first sat up in this second birth of mine,I truely felt new.The skin on my feet were shedding into a new one, I needed a back support like a child to sit steady and a walker to teach me walk. I was now learning to walk again, and unlike the first steps of my life these ones had more meaning. I had earned them with tonnes of patience that the white hospital walls had taught me. When most of the people claimed to be worried about the future I was heading to, a bleak chance to complete my education, for the burden I could be on my parents, I was well taken care of by my small family, especially my parents. When others doubted, my two angels took pride in me. Of the person I was becoming and for the struggle I was fighting, was all they could boast about me and they made another stronger version of their daughter.

Subsequent to all the pain bearing struggle, mental motivation, a successful college degree and an acclaimed job position makes me awe back on those years. Little did I know then that I could ever be here. Each time I challenged myself and discovered a newer ‘Me’, a little saved from being a vegetable for life. Anger, frustrations & tears never left me. When people challenged and some even mocked, I passed it with a smile but my heart cried another thousand times. While walking in the deserts of harsh times I made myself forget of pleasures and trained myself each day to know myself.

I used to wonder,”Do I have a dream too?” “Where do I see my self in the next 5 years”. I had no answers as I had no vision but just to make my parents proud and happy for all the sacrifice they made for me. Well, only parents can do that for us.

Today flipping over pictures, my first nine mile trek at Munising, an over eight mile biking experience along the Mackinac islands with my husband, a better body, an ability to freely smile and almost do everything, makes my life feel like a book, like a dream. I rarely think of pains or my implant anymore. I have so much more to dream that my list keeps getting refreshed. I have so much more to accomplish on the doubts about me and I shall unfold them one at a time with grace and a real smile.

By now I know that my bed taught me to look up high all the time. The skies asked me to shine like stars in the darkness and the sun taught me that it takes a lot to keep that fire burning inside you.In short, it seems all like a preparation,a blessing with pain as its disguise which I have now uncovered.