Small Tragedies and Big Accomplishments of 2015

"There are no big tragedies, there are only small tragedies," my brother likes to quote Swami Vivekanand.

So, what were my small tragedies and big accomplishments this year?

in that order, they were:

that i didnt get to work on time; that i did not eat three meals a day for most of the year; that i have not been regular with taking C for walks; that I stopped my night time routine of giving my face a gentle relaxing scrub and flossing my teeth; that my apartment has been an absolute mess practically the whole long year! (and my regret of last year about trying to work during my long service leave is pretty up there too! i hate myself for the promises not kept!)

that i met most deadlines at work; that i grew at work; that i was true to my self and i took encouragement from the wise and kind and truly loving; that i was true to myself and i started the renovation (however daunting i anticipated it to be and truly disrupting i am finding it in hindsight) and i bought a car (with a fat lot of help in learning how to communicate with the rather unhelpful sexist car salesman) in time for my parent's visit and how i love it now and i learnt a term of pottery and enrolled in the journalism course and of course, that i dared bring chicory home. That i stuck to my commitments and that I tried to make my decisions count.  

pop culture in 2015

Books I read this year:

• Happiness Project - Audio - Yes, would recommend it.
• Name Of The Wind - Kindle and Paper & Audio - Y-WRI
• Wiseman's Fear - Kindle and Papaer & Audio - Y-WRI
• Cadence - Audio - Y-WRI
• (Part of) Aziz Ansari's Modern Romance - Audio - Hmmm, might. I enjoyed it but it was close to the skin and i nobody to laugh at it with.
• Born to Run - Audio - Y-WRI
• (Part of) Gut - Audio; the book was interesting but I couldn't stand the reader
• The new murder myster by JK Rowling - Nah, don't bother
• Brene Brown's The Power of Vulnerability - Audio - Y-WRI
• Amy Poehler's Yes Please - Audio - Y-WRI
• Brandon Sanderson's The Emperor's Soul - Kindle - Y-WRI
• Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire (Mistborn 1) - Kindle - Y-WRI
• The Master Magician - Kindle - Nah, do not bother
• The Atlantis Gene - Kindle - Y-WRI
• Roe Morris's The Ultimate Make-up Guide - Paper -  Hmm, might
• Patricia B.M's I'll be home soon - Kindle - Hmm, DEFinitely if you are getting a dog!!
• (Part of) Lorenz's Man meets God - Kindle - Hmm, might
• (Part of) The Anna Katharine Green's Mystery megapack - Kindle - This should count for more than one book, I think this is AKG's entire works or something. Y-WRI, pretty old but timeless, for the fans Agatha Christie
• LM's The Husband's Secret - Kindle - God, I hated this! I can't remember why, I can't even remember when I read it, this year or the last - but I remember that it got great reviews and that I HATED it!   

I am looking forward to:

• Facepaint
• Iman Beauty of Color
• On Looking
• Mitch Cullen's Mr. Holmes
• CS's Wild
• BB's Daring Greatly
• The Perfect Theory
• How Muscles Learn
• Trespassing Einstein's Lawn

On TV (Did I really not watch anything new else on TV this year?)

• The Bletchley Circle - Y-WRI

Netflix and other movies:

• Tamasha - Y-WRI
• Coraline - Y-WRI
• A thousand foot journey - RUN AWAY!! The most in-authentic movie - people are NOT so rational, we feel irrationally threatened, we are stubborn, we are more creatures of habit than of reason, or even happiness!
• Kingsman - Hmm, might.

I'm looking forward to:

• Mr. Holmes

Podcasts:
Podcasts are new for me, I barely started a few weeks ago. I use Player FM and the following are recommendations:

• The Dinner Party Download
• Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert
• Stuff You Should Know

I'm looking forward to:

• Music and the Brain

This has been a fun year.

This year has been one of the big years. Looking back at them, I think I can safely say, most of the years in my life have been big years.

Some big years are born small, and they have all the appearance of a harmless stream gently bubbling along, and then midway, earth splits and the river changes direction and things are never the same again; some big years are born big, they are like streams heading towards a cliff and you already know that things are going to be dramatically different; and then there are years of great rain and all the water that has spilt on the wide land gradually makes its way back to the main stream and before you know it, this stream has caught a lot of water and is now a big river.

This year, 2015, was like the last one: it was a small year, but there had been rain last season, of which I will speak later, and so things just kept adding up. It began with my home renovations, that are still continuing; then I started to learn the violin and journalism while at the same time work got interesting; and during all this it felt like I fitted in my skin better and that changed me in subtle ways. As a gift from the universe I discovered The Kingkiller Chronicles: it felt like the literary equivalent of eating the smoothest dark chocolate cake in a French patisserie, when I revisited it with Rupert Degas reading it for the audio version, it was adding a glass of warm mulled wine to go with the experience. I also got home Chicory, one of the most life altering decisions I have ever made, I am so grateful for him that it seems to have changed me at the cellular level. My parents visiting, together even tho there was no drama happening in my life, was a big deal, and we got a new car. My grandparents got settled in their life and decisions; my relationships with my friends went thru some major change, different directions for different friends, but I am still trying to figure out exactly what - like perhaps I competed my journey from being a high-schooler to someone-I-wanted-to-be to being a high-schooler again but without the anguish. This was the year with considerably less anguish. (I wouldn't say none, but considerably less. Some of it was me, a lot of it was the universe, as you'll see.)

I think the roots of 2015 lay in the MIH workshop, last year, where I got to unpack myself and have a really good look at myself. Somehow, somewhere in there I learnt a little bit more about the shape of things*. Maybe, the following 6 months, spending long hours meeting people who didn't really know me add to impending discoveries and changes. A huge difference this year has been that I started speaking regularly to my cousin again, who has a way of looking at me that I have missed - something that says, "I see you and I like what I see, I can see where you are heading and it is spectacular out there". C is great in a supporting act of unconditional old soul acceptance and love. there were a lot more highlights things that I don't know how to put into words, or experiences that I don't have the wit to yet understand. But I can note that my choices this year make more sense for me, even when they were irrational.

I have a feeling we are still in the middle of the plot, this is all going to make more sense in another episode or two, that while this has been a good run - the view is fundamentally different, it is better, I am fitting in my skin better - but we are heading to a bigger finale.

*The world is a much more interesting place if we look beyond what is visible to the naked eye. There is so much more to see! If we start to look more closely, a tree can be more than a spoon-shaped thing.”- Gut by Giulia Enders

 

Sigh!

as the year ends, one of the families I know is going to end being a family. sometimes things, as they are, need to end before better things are allowed to take their place. I do believe that in this case better things will take its place. I think things will become happier and lighter and whole lot less of a compromise than they are - I think people will have to learn to take responsibility for their own happiness, as usually happens when relationships end. I think that'll work, in this case, things will get easier and better. for the little child caught up in this sad affair, I think, he will prefer the storm to burst and blow over than for him to stand the edge of it forever threatening to turn his world upside down.

 

I will miss them, tho - this is not about me but they have been part of my life and I will be sad for the hole that this will bring, and I would mourn for the lost chances. so many things they could have done, if only things would turned out differently. sometimes I think, all that the world asks of us is that we be best and happiest and the most fulfilled people we can be - so that others who are caught up in their storms can see a calm horizon and know that this thing can be done. sometimes, I wish, they could have been that horizon for me; and sometimes, I hope, I can be that horizon for them!

 

I doubt either of those are possible.