Linking up for Day Seven, the concluding day of the Festival of Words hosted by Write Tribe from July 10 to July 16, 2016)
Now that I’m almost at the fag end of the 7 Day Festival of Words thought I’d make an honest confession! I am so glad I pushed myself to do this challenge, considering what a shaky start it was!
Through the past seven days, I’ve been on a roller coaster ride of thoughts, feelings and emotions. Paralysed by a writer’s block, made worse by a sudden disappearing act by my home help for 3 days, while in the grips of a nasty bout of migraine and juggling the usual daily chores, I was dead certain that I was going to pull out of the FoW by the end of Monday.
Luckily, Jay was around (working from home that day) and it was such a blessing because I was totally grounded by noon. Suffice to say that it was nothing short of a nightmare. I took my first morsel of food at 10 in the night, after being violently sick through the day. If you suffer from migraine as badly as I do, your perspective on life changes and ‘good’ days and ‘bad’ days can almost refer to life and death. To cut a long story short, I had two choices, put up a fight or give up!
Being the quietly stubborn kind (my family knows exactly what this means!), I decided I would not give up so easily. At least not without putting up a proper fight. I literally ‘fought’ through it all and survived. The posts went live on time, there was food on the table for everyone and they came to a clean, tidy home, the supplies were ordered online and sanity was restored, with Arjyo’s exams getting underway and Jay working on a major presentation. I’m here with a grateful heart and a silent prayer thanking God for helping me through it all.
But, that’s not all. I must tell you about two thought-provoking writeups from this week that triggered my memories and made me grateful once again. The first was Parul’s post which took me back to those wonder-filled days of childhood and the simplicity with which we accepted things. Memories came pouring, both good and bad, but, strangely, I realised, that even though I missed childhood, I was happier as a grown-up because of the sense of control over my life that I feel today. Grateful that I’m in a place and amongst people who ensure that it stays that way!
The other was the news doing the rounds in social media about Sania Mirza’s fitting response to veteran journalist Rajdeep Sardesai on why motherhood was not in her agenda yet! Her response was perfect! Her words reminded so many of us what we have to face from people time and again. Her words remind us once again about how social conditioning creates stereotypes and how people wish to fit us into those stereotypes every now and then.
It reminded me all that I had to face from perfectly well-meaning folks at different stages of my life. When I was single, they’d ask why I wasn’t settling down. A few years after I got married, it started with those apparently harmless questions like, ‘when do we get the good news’ etc etc. I paid no heed and continued with whatever it was that I was doing. When I decided to go abroad for higher studies, they scoffed at me, because it meant I was going to defer motherhood another couple of years. After six years of being married, people started suggesting I go for IVF because there was no baby in sight! I was even suggested ‘motherhood’ as a treatment for my migraine, believe it or not!!! And all along, I was only keeping a word that I had given to myself. Jay and I wanted to study, to travel and enjoy a few years to ourselves. Apparently, there was everything wrong about that decision!
I’ve always believed that this lifetime is all we have, so never really had any time to leave the most important decisions of our lives to be taken by other people. We owe it to ourselves to live life on our own terms as we deem best. Again, grateful that I had the time and the opportunity to live my life on my own terms. Grateful to be in a place where we can choose what to do and how to do it.
Before I sign off, let me add FoW has been great! It has been wonderful to have had another chance to read and connect with so many blogger friends once again, including some good friends from the previous A-Z challenge; happy to have ‘met’ so many new bloggers this time and an absolute pleasure to have read so many wonderfully inspiring posts.
Here’s to more challenges, more learning and more experiences to share in the days to come. Happy weekend everyone! Until next time 🙂
My other posts for the Festival of Words:
Day 1: A Haiku – The Day is Ending
Day 2: A 100-word story – Acceptance
Day 3: A photo post – Worth a Thousand Words
Day 4: A 100-word story – The Awakening
Day 5: A collection of quotes – My Favourite Groucho Marx Quotes
Day 6: A photo post – Skywatch Friday#18
