I'm a fucking masterpiece

“Don’t tell me I’m beautiful. 

I have already heard the word rubbed raw across the flesh of so many girls before me. Thrown at them like rocks that beat the skin of those we do not understand. “You are beautiful,” we yell with such contempt. “God dammit, why won’t you just believe me, you’re beautiful!” It is not a compliment. It is a victory march of your own self sacrifice. “You’re beautiful,” we say through gritted teeth. “You’re beautiful,” we spit out through tears, looking at a reflection we hate. “You’re beautiful,” we say, holding a body that has never felt the arms of another. 

“You’re beautiful.” 

Don’t tell me I’m beautiful. 

A word like that floats on the surface, give me something with depth. Tell me I’m intelligent. Tell me I’m courageous. Tell me that when I laugh the whole world smiles. Tell me that my voice is sweeter than strawberries. Remind me that my hands have helped flowers grow, painted the ocean, and captured the sky in my phone. Assure me that with a mind like mine, I can change the world. Don’t tell me I’m beautiful. I don’t really care if it’s true. I’ve spent years trying to convince myself that beauty goes through and through. Don’t tell me I’m beautiful. I’ve felt the word splatter against me enough for a lifetime. I am better than the “beautiful” that slips from your lips. 

I am the ocean, 36,000 feet deep. There are parts of me you have never seen. I am outer space, infinite in your search. I am not simply “beautiful.” 

I’m a fucking masterpiece.

—unknown  

Awkward sadness

I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning or a Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday 2 a.m., gunshots muffled by a few city blocks, I am a broken window during February. My bones crack on a nightly basis. I fall from elegance with a dull thud, and I apologize for my awkward sadness. I sometimes believe that I don’t belong around people, that I belong to all the leap days that didn’t happen. The way light and darkness mix under my skin has become a storm. You don’t see the lightning, but you hear the echoes.

- Anna Peters

Leaving my second job (to go back to my first job)

I really don't want to go. I will. I don't want to.

What's it been like in Webchutney, you ask? 

So much fun. It's been too many long nights but as many drinking sessions. It's been lifetime friends, hopefully a husband and accelerated learning like I thought was not possible. I learnt and grew and sang and cried and I learnt so much of myself. 

21 clients, award winning work, 3 offices and an exit interview later, yesterday I said goodbye. 

Teary eyed but no tears. I feel like I'll see you again. 

P.S I think I hate the new (old) place. 

Prince Charming

From my many drafts from many moons ago

I wish it were simple. Relationships I mean. Why can't you find the perfect person on the first try and live happily ever after? Why do you have to kiss all the frogs before you meet Prince Charming?

I'm tired of the frogs. I'm weary and I want to give up and sit at home and stop "putting myself out there" so I may bump into him. I want to know that he will find me in some chance meeting while i'm grocery shopping or hailing a three wheeler or walking on the road. I don't want to figure out (yet again) what I should wear and agonize about the state of my skin.

Honeymoon period

I think it's time to put the worst 5 years of my 26 years to paper. This is not for cathartic purposes. No, I don't need catharsis. I have dealt with this healthily and moved on. But memory can be fickle and may not serve me indefinitely and I would like to chronicle this if nothing else. There are these mistakes that will always define who you are and this certainly changed me.

It starts out as all romances at 18 do - with copious amounts of coffee, stolen looks, late night movies and even later night texts, fluttering eyelashes and fluttering hearts. He was the college friend of a school friend and I was not interested till much later. When I did get interested it was out of a long boring summer and the craving for something new. We texted and had coffee, we watched movies and drank alcohol and as always I fell in love. 

6 months into all of this, I lay dreamlessly asleep in my paying guest accommodation. The storm was yet to break. 

My phone rings in the wee hours of the morning to the time of some romantic song that absolutely deigned our relationship and thereby had the honour of being my caller tune for only him. A girl jogs me out of my sleep with a ruthless question - "Are you Godara's girlfriend?". I say yes. She says she is also. 

Jonathan

This is just about him.

I wrote a couple months back about how an 'arranged' marriage was the only form of relationship I was ever considering. No boyfriends, no dalliances. A husband was all I wanted. 

It was a few weeks into my new job with a splattering of failed relationships and crushes, that were never to amount to anything. I was in an anti-relationship phase.

Today, I sing a different tune.

Webchutney came with its pros and cons. I love my job. It's a 100% more stressful than Ogilvy but it doesn't feel like work. My hours are long and because it's the digital medium it's almost as if I'm working everyday, weekends included. Everything needs to be done quickly because everything changes quickly. What is relevant the last minute may not be the next. I love every minute of it. I've also made friends. Life is good. My only complaint being the disproportionate amount of money I get paid for the amount of work I put in. But then isn't that what everyone complains about?!

Back to Jonathan. 

He is the Business Director here. When I first saw him, my 3rd day of work, he was briefing a whole bunch of us and while doing that he was crushing and rolling his joint. First impressions: Drug addict. Intelligent man. Hot voice. End of story. 

I always knew from the first time we spoke that he had a thing. I was clear that I didn't. He was persuaive, I thought creepy. He had a girlfriend back in Mumbai. A girlfriend of 3 years he loved and intended on marrying. His Facebook page if nothing else was testimony to that. I was done with unavailable men. Clearly this falling into that category. Dead end. I put it out of my head, treating it as a situation in which a person over a long distance relationship was crushing on someone he thought attractive. Natural. Not my problem.

Except, eventually the texting began. A couple a day. Work related. Then personal. Moved to through the day then through the night. Then the phone conversations started. 15 mins. 45 mins. An hour. 3 hours. Sunrise. At some point I knew I should say no. That I shouldn't encourage it but it rolled on till we went for dinner and then dinner and a movie and I knew he was having problems with the girlfriend. I also already knew that if I kept at this any longer I would be the one crying. It panned out. He broke up. We broke in.

He's here. My boyfriend. My roommate. It's been almost a year. I'm building castles in the air. The future seems like it may not be so bleak after all. Every once in awhile I slow down. Catch a breath. Reign it in. Let's not get carried way. The winds can still change. This is yet to be my happily ever after.

20 something and struggling

I'm not smart or beautiful or rich or young. I'm an average looking, average earning, average intelligence 26 year old with a world of insecurities. Average.

At 15 I wanted to be a beautiful, smart, rich and confident 25 year old. I had a plan. I had the steps planned to a goal. Somewhere in the last 10 years I lost my way. Plans got delayed, the money dwindled, time ran short and something was always more pressing than what actually was. I got split between a job, groups of friends, deceptive boys and alcohol. 

My everyday got in the way of my dreams. 

That may hold true to all 20 somethings. Trying to be independent, to grow up and join the ever widening ranks of responsible citizens, daughters, bosses.

We forget to look at the larger picture when we have to make ends meet.