Keep in mind

2017.
This was the year to mental health. I dedicate this year as the year I learnt about the importance of a happy mind, than good grades or monetary achievements. Actually, any achievements deem invalid without a healthy mind.
2017 crept on too fast and left even faster. Personally and through family and friends, I've seen the effects and affects of an unhappy mind. Even the newspapers and TV channels were full of events and deaths caused due to a unhappy mind. Even then, the stigma around this issue hasn't been lifted. Why?

Is it really that impossible to grasp that the conscious mind is a part of the body? Just like the nose, your legs, the stomach, the mind too needs a little self care. Maybe the symptoms of the mind aren't physical manifestations or even remotely tangible, but that's what makes it even more dangerous. It creeps on without a sound and kills you little by little. Mental health should honestly be the top priority of every human being on earth right now. The kind of fast paced stress induced lives we like to label as the 21st century living is a cry of help for mental health institutions to be the most important type of governance the people need. The mind is the sole reason you make sense of this world and create meaning to your existence and yet we don't seem to take care of it.

Some days, everything gets so overwhelming yet you feel underwhelmed. You are unable to explain this hole in yourself that your emotions either switch off or go on a total overdrive. You don't ask for help because you don't know what's wrong. You can't explain it as you beat yourself up when you see the utter helplessness in the friends and family you've confined in. So you cut off. I mean it seems only logical right? You're the only person in the world who has spent maximum time with your own brain. Your mental health is something only you would know since for starters you are the only person who has spent time with it. Your identity is a result of your mind. Everything as you know is a result of the perception your mind gives you. So cutting off and only focusing on your mind, alone seems logical, right?
But logic doesn't always work. Yes science and facts are always right and logic has worked all these centuries to in mathematics and reasoning, but even science has its limits. So many things work but only in theory. It's actual manifestation in reality is another story. The same with logic, in the logical sense of practical steps, it seems only logical to cut off everyone and deal with it yourself. But it's not the reality of the solution to your problem. Just like you need a doctor to fix a fever, you need professional help. It's just as logical too.

Many times we confide in our friends and family about our issues but a general observation of my almost 21 years of existence has told me the everyone in this current world can do with some therapy. Everything is ever changing as we all try to cope with the changes while simultaneously handling all the pressures and expectations. I mean, we're all overwhelmed humans trying to survive and make sense of this confusing world by underwhelming our emotions and mental health.

So to all my friends who have confined in me and vice versa, we're all just headless chickens who gives each other a sense of comfort, but the real step into the right direction is asking for help. Talking always helps and we need to support each other. But there's only so much we can offer before it takes a toll on either of us. So what can we do? Ask for help. Real, professional help. Life's unfair and bad things happen to good people, bad people win, wars are fought for no reason and there's a whole load of unpleasantness happening. Can you imagine how hard it would be to look at the better side of things if your mind itself isn't happy enough? The world is a shit-storm as is, let's not make it things worse with an unhappy mind. Let's work to make your mind a happy place to be.

Bad days are going to happen irrelevant. Things will go wrong and you will lose. But with a battle going inside your head, it will get even harder to fight to find solutions to your problems in your life. All your energy is spent in treating the wounds your unhappy mind creates, you become tired before even actually living, and that my dear friends, is the biggest tragedy of them all.

So let's work on our mental health. "Mental health before everything" is our new motto. Nothing comes before keeping our mental capabilities contend. Let's collectively work on removing the stigma and making not happy people, but happy minds.

So here's to 2017, the year I dedicate to mental health and making all future coming years to keeping my mind happy. The year I dedicate not only to my mind but also my friend's and family's mental health as the utmost priority.

So my dear readers, don't forget to water yourselves. Just like you water flower regularly to watch them bloom, I hope you water yourself. Water yourself with loads of self care, kindness and love. Just keep breathing and taking time for yourself, learn to breathe and let go of anything holding you back from taking care of your mind.
Remember, mental health before everything. Go make your mind happy for that's all that really matters.
Here's to working to a better mental health worldwide, 2017, here's to you.

(if anyone out there needs a friendly ear to vent out to or just someone to talk you, I'm here. Always here to make the mind a happy place.)

From the Sea and the piano

The wind kissed her cheeks as she felt the wisps of her hair tickling her face. She smiled contently at the peace and quiet and a wave of nostalgia hit her, as the water crashed against the rocks. The sun lit up the sky in the warm hues of red and pink as the periwinkle waters struggled to keep its cool hues against the burning sky. She missed this. The peace, the quiet, the tranquility of her mother's house. She wondered to herself as to why she ever left this place. A place she once called her home.

She laughed at her vivid images of her mother's house, where her fiery youthful self, thought of it to be one of the most monotonous and mundane places for her colourful thoughts. The ache of mindless misguided excitement and childish wonder about the world and its mystical workings occupied her mind most days then. In retrospect, most of her youth seemed spent on things she didn't need. Have you ever spent so much time thinking about all the things you would like to do if you were a certain age? But kept passing that age and ended up just wasting all those years and time thriving on the hope that this all would amount to something some day? Yeah. That. She felt that.

Her mother hadn't changed a single thing. Not the vase with a chipped corner, or the Iranian rug that adorned the floor. "It matches your hair. Your fiery red hair, as you two light up my every morning when the sun enters our house, it is your hair and that rug, that light up this house. My dear, it's you. You're the fire to my life." 

Her mind flooded with the memories of days gone, as her present crawled itself into a corner of her mind. 'Reality is an illusion, and what you and I make of it, counts for what is real and what is not.' These words echoed in her brain.  Maybe she was a dreamer, taking after all her grandmother, a poetess. "Maybe what a writer does, doesn't account for much in the world of technology or science or business. But having the capability to pen down your vivid vast imaginations and dreams into a physical manifestation is a skill too. We are physical manifestations in a 3-D world where we have a conscious mind telling us about the lines between reality and fiction. But we writers can blur these lines and give the world a sneak peak of the eternal infinite possibilities of the world, only if you dream my love, dream." Her grandmother was truly a force of fire. 

Maybe this is why their little quintessential house, adorned itself right next to the sea, as the water tried to tame the flames of the personalities inside the house. 

The skies turned darker, as the redness of her hair, reflected the remnants of the light left in the sky, making her face almost glow eerily. To an outsider, she looked like a fading memory, a memory of the time spent in the walls of the house. She remembered how she looked, all pent up and scared, misguided with stubbornness. She remembered how lost and lonely she felt, but she had made up her mind. She wanted to go away from here and never come back. She wanted to find her own path, away from the house she once called home...

The audience then got to their feet and deafening clapping echoed the opera house and her finger played the song's last key.

She smiled to herself as the roaring sound of the audience's applause brought her back to her present reality. Smiling politely at the audience as her fingers left the comfort of the piano. 

She really seemed to forget the time and place when she played the piano. For her, the music and keys she played each told her a story, a memory of years gone. Maybe she couldn't paint pictures with words, like granny could, but with music? She really could create some real masterpieces. 

"This one's called From the Sea and the piano. I just wrote it a week back and hoped you all enjoyed it" she spoke into the mike, as she got a standing ovation from everyone in the room. 

It's true after all. Nobody knew her like the piano, back in her mothers home. The place where she started this eternal love affair. 

Time

Her mind seemed to be scattered. The dark gloomy clouds loomed over her head as she tried to hold her self together. There was this almost unsettling chill in the air as she wrapped her arms around herself tighter. The misty roads and wetness of the rains irritated her as her shoes were all wet from the puddles. Her nose was cold as ice as she rubbed her palm on it, in hopes to warm her nose.
A car brushed passes her narrowly as it splashed water all over her clothes, making it wet. "Icing on the cake, this is just what I needed." she thought to herself. She had accepted her fate that the day would just be a big snooze fest as she tried to be positive about it.

She spent 10 minutes trying to hail a cab as she balanced her umbrella, her bag, and her books. It was a feat on its own that she hadn't drenched them all. Finally, an elderly gentleman stopped his taxi and accepted to take her to her destination. Time was running short as the train had already been delayed thanks to the rains and more time was wasted trying to hail a cab. It seemed the more she tried to hold on to time, the faster time slipped between the tightly held confines of her fingers. Her patience seemed to run thin as a scowl made itself known on her face. She was so concentrated on how late she was running, that she almost missed out what the taxi driver was telling her.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?", she asked.
He simply smiled with his kind old eyes and said, "Looks like someone is having a rough day. Are you okay ma'am?"
Normally she would be mortified with the straightforwardness of his question since he was a stranger, but she thought better of it and to hell with it. His kind eyes looked genuinely curious about her.
"I'm running a bit late and these rains have soaked my clothes and books. I'm cold and my patience is running thin. I think you could say my life is a mess as I try to play catch up with my old friend time, who refuses to let me come near him." she vented out to him. She didn't realize she was talking fast. She quickly muttered apologies to him. "I'm an art student, we tend to talk fast and in circles. Sorry for that." She flushed red in embarrassment as the old man's eyes twinkled with laughter from the rear view mirror.
"Oh my dear child, I know not about the arts or its ways as I haven't studied enough. But I do know a bit about time as he's been quite a dear friend of mine for 68 years and counting. I still now and then play catch up with him you know? He's quite the slippery eel." he said.
She smiled as she asked, "Can you bestow some tricks to this young fellow rookie about him? I really need to make him my friend. I keep forgetting about him and he always has a price for me to pay. I'm getting quite sick of it. Though it isn't totally his fault. I'm quite lazy too you know." she shrugged and said.

Suddenly her eyes welled up. It's like the dam of emotions that she kept closed for so long suddenly opened their gates. She didn't expect such an overwhelming sea of emotions to vanquish her body as she sat quietly for a minute, trying to hold herself together.
The taxi driver took notice of the shift in the atmosphere and remained quiet, averting his gaze back to the road.

This was the most random mood swing that had ever happened to her. But the rain piercing against the hood of the car's roof just made it worse. The darkness of the sky, the rumbling roars of the thunder, the noisy traffic just added on to it. She was confused as to what made her so overtly emotional that she couldn't control her mood, as she felt a wet trail of tears on her cheeks. She quickly wiped them off but her frustration grew more and more by the second. How could she crumble down so easily when nothing terrible had even happened to her? What was the meaning of this? She prided herself to be a practical level headed person who didn't display her emotions in plain sight. So what was happening now?

Her mood just got darker and darker, as she tried to keep the wet trails at bay. The old man didn't ask or comment further and for that, she was grateful. As they neared her destination, his kind eyes looked at her as he said, "Child,  if you ever are running too late, just remember to walk a block ahead to the signal there. I promise you, all and every taxi will accept to take you to your destination as the taxis at that signal have to go your way. It's not much, but it will definitely not waste your time and you will reach faster. Time can be quite cruel that way, he's a bit hard to deal with. But don't give up on him just yet, once you have him on your side, he's quite the trustworthy and valuable friend to have. I really do hope you go easy on him and on yourself."
She quietly handed over the fare and just as she turned her back to him, she muttered a sincere word of thanks. His wise old eyes gave her one last glance as he took off again.

She was still processing the sudden shift in her mood as she tried to pin point as to what may have caused it. As she entered college, she read a quote on one of the bulletin boards saying. "Time heals all wounds." The old man's last words came ringing to her mind as she felt some of the weight being lifted from her shoulders.
Maybe, it's time to stop holding on to time so tight, and for once, let him knock at your door and offer you his services. Maybe it was time to let go and loosen the reigns a little and let time do his job.

I know it's been a while, I apologize. But I hope this article finds you in good health. It's been tough to write something worth publishing here. I promise I'll be back soon and better.
Until then
xxx

To everyone and anyone who misses someone

If you were here, in front of me, with all arms and legs and skin, I would show you the dark grey cloudy skies and ponder about its dark beauty. I would talk about my day and spice it up to sound more entertaining for you. I would finally take those walks you keen nagging me about, as long as you were next to me. I would watch your eyes as they gave me all the attention in the world, as you smiled at my every silly tale. The clouds roared in protest as the rains threatened to fall on our heads, but as long as you were there, I didn't think it would matter to either of us. We would watch the waves running back to sea, as the sea pushed it more and more towards the sand. You would probably come up with an anecdote about how even the waves know better than to try and touch humanity, as people sunbathed on the sand. Only you could do that, turn something into something so beautiful, yet intriguing. Your anecdotes and analogies about the world and the way it functions are some things I've always admired about you. The conversations we would have, or the things we would ponder about, are things only you and I ever pondered about. Conversations went beyond the limited bounds of just being conversations. Debates were what it ought to be, rational, unemotional and patiently hearing all sides and making sincere efforts to listen to the opposite side. We didn't need small talk or ice breakers, conversations just flowed through. Even the silences we shared seem appealing to me right now.

I guess I just miss your presence, the true essence of your very being, your familiarity, your physical manifestation to almost everything about you. I wonder if you were here, what would be going on in that brain of yours. What would we be talking about? What exactly would we be doing? What worldly knowledge would you impart as I try not to zone out? If I could go back, I would devote all attention to you.
But such is not life.  If life is what we make of it, as you always say; then I wish to make life alongside you and go back and give you everything and more. But life is funny that way, and you don't get to pick and unpick the moments you can live in nor the people in it. I guess I miss your voice, your laughter, the light in your eyes, now which live in a memory. Who knew I would memorize all these tiny details about you, and live in it every time my heart tugged to see you once again.  My mind is a memory map, where I trace back all the places and things we've done together. It's hard to put it into emotions, but I guess the world would call it as longing?

Here's to everyone and anyone who misses someone, here's to you. It's hard to talk about a feeling that you experience every time you try to live one of your memories. It's not even remotely tangible and you can't explain why you miss them sometimes. Missing is sometimes taken as an emotion that springs up every time someone's absence is felt. An absence of their presence or familiarity in our lives. But I like to think, true longing, true missing is an emotion that happens in kind of a revelation of sorts. When you realize how much you would miss that person, even if they were in front of you. That is when the heart truly longs and misses someone. So my advice? Go ahead, miss them. But don't drown yourself in the missing if you don't know how to swim and find yourself some dry land.

So here's my small, seemingly insignificant blurb for anyone and everyone who misses somebody. You go right ahead and miss them, but remember tomorrow is a new day and life must move on. Such is this life, living in memories in a temporary relief, but the reality is still your present and you have to face it irrelevant.  There's no escaping that. I hope you find solace in this written piece whenever the longing gets overwhelming.

- much love xx

- fin -

To be or not to be

"I can't seem to write, sleep or do anything properly. My mind seems to be more scattered than usual as I sip on my coffee, with the warm air tickling my face. My head hurts trying to come up with things to write, things that actually meet my expectations."
She wrote these lines on a whim, just as she deleted them too. Her writer's block was just getting worse and her aimless and tedious life wasn't helping either. She seemed to be in a loop, where she just couldn't write something up. The train was full as the clock slowly approached 6:00 PM. Rush hour was dangerously bulldozing into the platforms, as her heart ached for the wrong things in life. Nothing she did seemed to make her forget. The more she tried to move on, the more she got stuck in that one loop.

Now when she finally had her life together, she felt a void. A void that something is going to come and take her world by a storm. 
Was it the fact that she was alone? Or was she just truly lonely?
She always liked to delude her mind into thinking it's her loneliness which made her alone. But being alone is not a consequence of being lonely. Being alone is a state of solitude where one confines into their deepest most blurred parts of their life, trying to acknowledge its existence and make way for its entrance, embalming it into one's roots. Isn't this where the world individualism comes from? That one defining moment, where you chose to let your confinement and inner self-worth to form something tangible and acceptable?  Acceptable, not only to other people, but also yourself.
She seemed to be questioning everything these days. Especially the kinda questions, she couldn't seek answers to without opening portals of anxiety and self-doubt. Maybe this is what growing up was all about. Accepting all the loopholes and portals that at first terrify the living crap out of you, but as you learn to swim in its vastness, you also learn to accept your inner demons and befriend them.
How did she want to be loved? What kind of person does she want to love? What kind of person would she want to be? How will the world remember her?
All these questions churned inside her heart, her core, her very soul, trying to get something out. Just like you churn butter, her soul was trying to churn out a map of existence. An existence where she wouldn't be so lost. But her mother always told her, "The process of churning takes time and efforts. You churn in continuous motions, steadily with firm hands. Sometimes your hands will want to give up and stop. But that's when you see the milk curdling, the foam of the milk, the thickened milk sticking on the ladle, and that my love, is when you know you need to continue, even if your arms might just fall off in pain. That is life."
She initially had never understood that analogy. But sometimes she wondered how her mother, for a person who hadn't stepped out of their tiny hut, knew so much about life.
She always thought that some earth shattering experience would turn her life around and suddenly everything would make sense. But in that anticipation, maybe she missed it already. Undervalued the moments she has had. Has she already lived the one moment, that one defining instance of her life? But missed it in anticipation for the significance that very moment?
Was it the moment her nose fit just right in the nape of his neck? Or the moment her parents held her together when she lost her pet dog or even the fact that her brother stayed up with her the whole night watching cartoons because she had a nightmare?
The more she thought about it, the more she realized the things she understated, waiting for things to happen, just as they were actually happening in front of her eyes. Her life was an intangible art where her feelings were the paint and her experiences the empty canvas.
Maybe that's why science doesn't like arts. Art is not tangible. There's no clear boundaries and limits to it. Similarly, arts yearns for the factual, calculated paths and ultimatums that science offers. She always thought that arts and sciences were the greatest lovers of all time, but for the balance of this fragile mankind, these two love each other just enough to be the co-exist side by side, and not together.
To be or not to be?

In the end, it's this chaos and rumble and that always made sense as her fingers slide over the notebook, etching letters and numbers across the page. Maybe she has finally won some time against her writer's bloc.

-fin

Inbetweens

I was his first friend. I was a figment of his brain's imagination. A figment, so perfect that we almost never fought. He always came running to me with the worldly frustrations of a child, when his ice cream fell over or when mom yelled at him. Nothing he ever did frustrated me. I was a living shadow, where only he could see me and hear me. I always had the right things to say, which was a sight of envy for him. Since he always seemed to say the wrong things to people. What he never understood was that I knew his heart. More than he knew his own, I had seen and lived in his heart in ways he never could imagine. Don't you know, I always had the upperhand.

I remember the countless conversations he and I would enact amongst ourselves. Confrontation was never our forte, but it never stopped us from talking ourselves into it. Maybe everyone always coloured you as this little perfect boy, little did they know your chaotic thoughts that ran through your mind everyday. I always knew he were much ahead of his years, a little old soul. He never seemed to defy authority because he was never one for the pointless little fires. He and I both know, he doesn't own matchsticks. He's more of a flamethrower.
Maybe he's too social to be a wallflower and yet enough of a wallflower to ever be social. Just like me, he like to exist in moments of inbetweens when his heart wanted to exist and live in all moments. His wit and charm is an acquired taste, a taste worth acquiring, just as I am. He knows he's my only friend and loved one and I'm weary to be fading away so fast. But such is this world we live in and my time has come. Change is the only constant while for most parts of our early life we were each others constant.
I know as I watch you grow old, my existence is supposed to fade as you find people are exist in real time. But just thought I'd leave some advice for his world. Let me voice my thoughts instead, for old times sake.

It's been a pleasure knowing him and thank you for creating me. He were the best friend I could ever ask for. I hope when he thinks of me, it'll be nice thoughts.
To the girl who will have his heart, treat him well. He's been waiting all his life for you and know that they don't make boys like him anymore.
To his family, who for the most times questioned my existence and yet let him be, thank you. Know that his kid loves you more than he lets on.
To the rest of the world, be kind to him.

To him, take care of yourself. Thank you for letting me exist through you and let that wild imaginative creative mind of yours run free. It was because of this trait, I exist and boy am I glad I do.


- You first friend,
Mr Murf.

PS
Context: Here is a letter an imaginary friend of a boy is writing one last time for the boy's growing old and so is his memory of his imaginary friend, Mr Murf fading away. 
I read it as a writing prompt as thought of it as the most peculiar and yet nicest story to write on. Here is what was written; "Your a kid's imginary friend. He's growing up and you're fading away."
So I hope you liked it.
Until next time reader xx