Make Up and Meditation

I was never a particularly still child. Except when I was reading, I was a little twitchy, a little all over the place and a little lost in my own head (not much has changed).

So, for as long as I remember, I have been told that meditation would really benefit me. To be honest - I make it a few days of guided meditation and then it goes to shit. I get bored real easy and I know that is something meditation and mindfulness is supposed to fix but I don't think I have the patience to let it. At least, not yet.

My mental health has not been at the best of places in the last few years. To put it simply, I am not as happy and as self-reliant as I used to be. This to a part, I feel has been pathologized by the people around me. Yes, I am not always very happy and yes I need to be healthier in a number of ways but I don't think I quite on the brink of anything terrible just yet. However, I have learned (obvious though it may seem) that you don't need to wait to be on the brink of disaster before you do something about being happier.

So I am learning to be more mindful of my moods, my feelings and my days. This does not come easily to me. I love to talk and I especially love talking about myself but I am not a very introspective person. I do think a lot of my troubles do stem from a subconscious refusal to look at myself clearly.

This is where my 3 shade days come in. I have spent months and years rolling out of bed at the last possible minute, putting jeans and a sweatshirt, brushing my hair quickly and running out the door. So on the days I look somewhat put together and actually put on some makeup - those are the good days. I woke up early, I wasn't rushed, I had time, I had space, I could breathe. And on the rare days, where I pull out my Naked palette and use not one, not two, but 3 shades (experimentally and like an absolute novice), you know that day is going to be good. Or at least, it started real good.

Doing my makeup is kind of like meditation for me. It forces me to stop and breathe and actually take a minute and only do one thing at a time. I have to stand in front of the mirror and just look at myself. I can't watch TV, I can't talk to someone. It's just me and my face and my hands and the mirror. It's more mindful than you would think.

It also forces me to look - really look - at my face. I live in so many parallel worlds in my head ( I always have, always will: Maladaptive Daydreaming) that being forced to look at the reality of my physical existence - it's very centering. It forces me to look and see what actually exists, what actually is. It doesn't usually come with self-loathing. I look at my face, with all the flaws and strengths and I just have accept it and accentuate it as much as I am able.

Doing my make up is a reality check. Mirrors are important. I realize I live my life as a series of what ought to bes. In some ways, that is grand. I believe it makes me a very aspirational person. But it also leaves a huge gap between what is and what ought to be and a lot of my sadness and anger and rage emerge from that difference. People ought to be kind because I am kind. I ought to look better. I ought to study more. As a former IR student, I cannot resist in making the comparison - I am very a normative person, always obsessing with what ought to be - both in myself and how people around me treat me. Doing my make up, it forces me to be more empirical. I have to work with what is there, not what should be.

Sometimes, I am not happy with what is there. That is alright. But I need to know what is there before I can figure how to change it. I don't how to change a lot of things in my life right now. In parts, I am lonely, broke, anxious, unemployed and unfit. I want to be none of those things. But I am recognizing some of those things are symptomatic of my age and my place in the world. So makeup does help me realize what really is. I already know what ought to be. If could build a bridge of 'how' between the two and traverse it - I think I could be happy then.

For the moment, this is where I am. This just is. Today was not a 3 shade day, but today was a red lipstick day. It's tiny bridge from what was (unbrushed hair and a guilty lie in) to what ought to have been (decent outfit, eyeliner and lovely red lips). It's a bridge. I'll learn to build others.

Till I do, I look forward to my 3 shade days.

I hope you do too.

Conquering Sleep

I don’t know if insomnia comes naturally to me or if I artificially constructed it in a bid to get more time to just do things. Pointless, useless but absolutely vital to my mental health kind of things. I do know that it was so long ago – almost a decade – that I can’t really remember anymore. What I am left with is this – a large amount of information on mostly irrelevant things, a deeply intimate knowledge of every single hour the clock chimes after midnight and what looks like chronic sleep deprivation. I always used to pride myself on my ability to get by on 4 or less hours of sleep, night after night with perhaps a couple of nights every 10 days where I crash for 10 hours straight. Yes, I can get by. I don’t know if it is sheer dint of will or it’s the same thing that makes me sit, writing out essays, studying for exams at the very last minute when most people would be succumbing to a panic attack due to the absolute bleakness of prospects. Whatever this thing is – this ability to work under pressure, to put my mind under considerable strain, to just keep going – mentally at least – it used to be an asset. Now, as I get older, the toll it takes is getting harder and harder to ignore. The irritability I can always mask by overcompensating by being cheerful and considerate. The tiredness is combated by coffee and some secret reserve of manic energy. The health issues are not immediately visible and I am human enough to ignore them. And if it all gets a bit too much, I sleep for 8 hours for a couple of nights, get rid of the immediate signs of sleep deprivation and go right back to the same old routine. I don’t know why I don’t sleep on time –even when I have all the time in the world. Maybe I don’t like being left alone with nothing but my thoughts before sleep comes. Maybe I am too addicted to mental stimulation – even it is something as simple as reading. Maybe I just want to do too much and there aren’t enough hours in the day. I used to hope that getting to the why might help me figure out how to conquer sleep. Sometimes, when I am at my most brutally honest (and in the privacy of my mind, I always am –isn’t everyone?) I think maybe that it’s just a combination of laziness and an absolute lack of self-discipline. The thing is – here I sit on a train about to head to Delhi for another busy week. I have slept maybe 2 hours. I will not be getting sleep anytime soon. I am tired but I am so used to pushing that down and out of the way that tiredness is now something that flickers at the edge of consciousness, waving feebly. My tiredness is too tired to make itself felt. I think the problem is that I opened a browser page and googled nausea+lack of sleep and ended up on a page that listed the symptoms of lack of sleep. I think it is a serious reality check when I can identify with about 22 of 33 listed symptoms – ranging from fairly regular to semi-regular. I think this is a problem.

I think blurred eyesight and common headaches and sometimes tremors in my hand are a problem. I think nausea and a weakened immune system and just general tiredness is a problem. I think the fact that my physical stamina for exercise – never great to begin with – is completely shot through. I think it’s a problem that I have vivid dreams that merge into lucid dreaming and it’s hard to tell the difference. I think it’s a problem that sometimes I have dreams that I try to wake myself out of and I can feel my body not moving because of course we are put into a paralysis by our minds when we sleep and lucid dreaming and fighting your brain in your sleep isn’t probably good for the normal processes of sleep. I think that sometimes I feel off balance (literally) because my ENT system is probably a bit effed up too is a problem. I think that I keep picking something fresh to be anxious about every few months is a problem. I think it’s a problem that my memory is a bit not great in the last few weeks and I have noticed my speech patterns being not super fluent all the time is a problem. I think that I feel exhausted and emotional and reactionary is a problem. I think that my skin is a bit pasty underneath the brownness of itself is a problem. I think it’s a problem that my blood sugar and cholesterol and blood pressure all veer towards the high end of normal. I think its a problem that my eyesight used to be perfect and is definitely getting a bit worse as we go along. I think it’s a problem I am almost scared of sleep sometimes. I think it’s a problem that occasional morbidity is something I am too familiar with now. I think it’s a problem that I can’t seem to find the energy or mental concentration to write long things anymore if they aren’t necessary, like essays. I think it’s a problem that I can’t seem to wake up to one single alarm I think it’s a problem that I am sometimes too tired for simple social interaction on social media. I think it’s a problem that I am too tired to return messages and mails and phone calls and do basic things that I need to keep putting off because I.Am.So.Tired. 

The good news is that these aren't horrifying, can’t be fixed issues. The bad news is that they could become that. The bad news is that they exist at all. The good news is that I can fix it. The bad news is I don’t know if I will. The good news is that I can see my flaws. The bad news is that I am not sure I won’t let them be till I keep on self-destructing in this most delicate and invisible of ways.

So why did I write all this down? Because I am a rational, very organized brain for all the chaos I create around me. Because if you have an enemy, even if (excuse my dramatics) the enemy is yourself, you need a battle plan. This is mine. This is a written, visceral reminder to myself about what lack of sleep is doing to me. Little by little. Every day. It’s encroaching on life. And there is nothing more I value than myself. Alive and well, preferably. So this is my battle plan. This is my blueprint of military strategies. This is my map of my strengths and weaknesses. And I am making this all public because, every military general needs accountability and second opinions and support and help in battle planning. This is how I conquer sleep. Thank you for your time.

"Seize!"

You've got me spoiled,
Far too much.
Days and days
Of waking
Surfacing,
Grumbling,
All of that,
To your
Pretty, pretty face
And your
Dancing, dancing eyes.
Tis getting a bit difficult
To kick Morpheus away
Without you
As my personal alarm clock.
Everyone else gets seduced
Into my bed
And the land of sleep
Or just ups and leaves.
You are the singular
Singularity
That stayed,
Reclining
On my couch.
Coaxing,
Threatening,
Laughing,
Me
Out of bed.
You are sitting,
Creeping subtly
Into my brain,
Telling me,
I must
'Seize the day'
Flinging open
Shutters,
Proclaiming
The weather today.
You are all about the
'Seizing'
I am all about the
'Maybes'
And between the tewo
I arise
Compromise
All because
Of your smiling/scowling face
And try
To seize the day. 

Break

It could, it would – almost, maybe, just about- kick you, fuck you, bend you over- if you let it.
Ink and paper/Paper and Ink have been guzzled down the drains of this cesspool of a thing- let’s call it humanity. And they all say it is love that will do it. They are lying.

Strong is just a word, patience is another. Here take Serenity and shove it alongside the others.

What gets you, shreds you into nothing you can ever imagine being- is despair. Do not mistake despair to be a child of love. Despair is the oldest thing that ever was. Despair is the creeping thing that abounds in night and day and sings a siren song. Despair begins and ends.

When it comes, it will break you, unmake you.

It lies in the ruins of a shattered mug. It smiles from the bloodied knuckles of your hand. It screams in your head as you try and fail to suffocate yourself in your bedclothes. Despair is the  root and the tip. Every time it rises, it rises in the urge to break, break, break, break. It is despair not anger, but it is human to confuse the two. Every broken face, every broken mirror reflects despair.

Break it all, break it now. Break everything. Hear the music shatter and crescendo out in the world. Break it all for the pleasure of seeing it break. For the pleasure of hearing it break. For the pleasure of...simply the pleasure of.

Break, break, break, break and then perhaps you will learn the language of despair.

It is something you were born to learn.

Don’t worry.

Fever Dreams- NaPoWriMo Poem 26

Inspired by an insanely high fever. I had begun dividing up all my worldly possessions by the end of it.


Everything burns
Beyond the edge
Of
Sleep
Or
Something
Deep
That does not
Step
Into the light
Or the night
There was
Never heard
Not a
Single word
Just clammy fingers
That choke
A slight whisper
To stroke
The whys
And wherefores
And has beens
Are all lost
In your eyes
And Fever Dreams. 

Sunshine in My Heart ( If Not in the Sky) - NaPoWriMo Poem 4

Going to do a massive dump of poems collecting over the last few days now. Here's to Poem No. 4. This one was written about two days before starting my Ireland trip when I wasn't sure I was going to be able to go to Ireland at all- Visa issues. I had been moody and depressed for days and then suddenly I felt a bit sunshiny inside and said as much to a friend. Lo behold, an hour later I held my passport with my Irish visa inside. I do believe in magic, don't you?


I stole the sun.


So the Scottish
Clouds gathered
And murmured
About how I stole it.


So I kept
A little bit
Of Sunshine bursting
In my heart.
And returned the rest
To let the Spring
Finally, Completely, Thankfully
Start.

Animal on Edge- NaPoWriMo Poem 2

This here is a charming little story about what a panic attack feels like. Kudos to Emma Fox for suggesting a grand title.


I am little more
Than an animal
Curled up and sobbing
Sobbing on the floor.

I am little less
      Than a human
               Injured and howling
                             Howling at the mess

               
 Of things that are not
                                     Thoughts.
                                                 Of thoughts that are begot
                                      Of things.

                                                         

                                                             Sometimes the quiet is far
                                   And the pain is now
                  The wounds won't scar
                                                                               To numb the crowd.

                                  
                 Then instinct takes charge
                                                                                And I froth and spit
          At a world too large
                                                                                        With no place to sit.



                                             No air, No lungs, No breath
                                             Tis then, I am an Animal on Edge.