Worries....

Have you ever worried about your worries- what exactly is the worry about, how to get rid of it, what is the next thing to worry about and so on and so forth? (Of course, with life in 21^st century, you cannot expect to sort one worry and sit back!! The next one is always queued up… sigh!!). Well, I have been doing exactly this in the last few months. Like all of you, (heart-core empathetically) I have been burdened with a lot of uncalled-for responsibilities, the biggest (read saddest) one being “hide-your-frustration-and-smile”. I don’t know if I ever have been sadder to SMILE before this!! In short, I was sad, sad because I had to smile with all reasons against it. Anyway, apart from all the worries, my ever-growing worry-list seemed to be my biggest worry at this point of time. Guess I am confusing you all. That is exactly what I am right now- CONFUSED!

Myth: Physical exhaustion overcasts mental exhaustion.

Fact: Luxurious attention is the perfect cure for a lost soul.

I always saw my Mom over-working and tiring herself when she was sad or worried. She engaged herself in cleaning book-selves and show-cases including dusting of miniature show-pieces from milli-micron coating of dust, or knitting sweaters or stitching saree-fall etc. Not to forget, I always fell victim to this spree, for oiling window panes or iron bars of collapsible gate or cleaning fan blades, all those which were beyond Mom’s reach, unless of course, if I was sleeping. Now that was one advantage I always got (courtesy: my skinny look and dark eye-sockets) – no matter how much I slept, I seemed to her to be perpetually sleep-deprived and hence, at any point of time, if I fell asleep, she would make an all-comfort ambience for me to sleep away to glory – a major contrast to my elder sister. Sadly enough, given her lovely plump face, no matter how many sleepless nights she would have had spent, mom would never let her sleep after 5 in the morning.

If nothing else to do, one of Mom’s favorite time-pass was intra- and inter-room furniture rearrangement, notwithstanding the size and weight, and again her only enthusiastic partner being me. Dad would help us out by heading towards his chamber to leave us alone, but only after his composed commentary on Mom’s supernatural physical strength and suggestions for pivoting all furniture to the ceiling and rotating as and when wished. Didia (my sister) would try her best to escape back to her favorite work (Studying!!!) but again, of course, with Mom around there’s no escape from household work. So basically, Mom’s emotional-stress busting would drive us all to fits of irreparable muscular and bone-icular stress for the weekend mornings. But then, God knows how and when, amidst all these, she managed, all the havoc would be replenished by her super-delicious recipe for our weekend-special Late-Family-Lunch at 3:30 pm.

Anyways, I have grown up noticing the same pattern of her stress-busting strategy and perhaps by inheritance or voluntary habitualization, applied the same to my life, esp. in hostel since college days. Whenever I was sad, I would clean my room, dust the cob-webs, do the laundry, and even rearrange furniture in my room (!!!). I would do all these till I was too tired to cry and then fell asleep. It did work for some time. But inheritance involves both parents. No exception for me, with time I realized/acquired chronic insomnia like my Dad.

I started working out and early morning uphill jogging in the river-twined highway of the hill station where my college was. The rippling sound of the green waters and the ethereal view of winter fogs nearly touching the waves accompanied with the cool breeze would take away all my worries, the speed of the cascading waters would clear my mind of all other earthly things. The workout would tire out my muscles completely so that I was almost ready for the next fit of Sleep. In short, I did everything I could do to tire myself and all my strength would exhaust but could not keep my eyelids together at any cost. Being a Pharmacy student, I started wondering whether I had some problem with my eyes, apart from the already existing myopia or was it actually Insomnia. It was much later that I realized my worries were too huge to be accepted by my little unused grey cells and hence they attacked my eyes.

Irony of Life: When you are young at heart, you are not unto your age. When you grow up, you are far beyond your age.

At times I felt so restless; I didn’t know how to make myself happy. I tried all means, literally. I tried Meditation to discover the actual “Me”. I tried fags to forget the real me. There was a time when I almost gave up eating because I did not care what happens to me. There was also a time when I over-ate and sweated out in gym to shape up myself. I tried changing phone numbers once every month and as well as going on with the same number for years. I tried to be away from home to escape all complaints about me. I tried to be at home when I was ready to accept complaints as feedback or convince when and where I was not at fault. Some of the ideas did work but I am too disoriented to continue one trend for too long. Finally I met someone who showed me a totally new way of thinking.

(to be continued….)