climb.

the first couple of days back in singapore, after an exhaustive trip to india, is downright melancholic. i sit in the empty house, with no concrete plans for meeting up with old friends, or intoxication, or a hearty indian meal with butter naan.

but this has become home, surely. this time, for the first time, india seemed liked the strange place. so many places that i hadnt been too, so many people i had no clue about, even billboards looked so much more extravagant than before. come back here this morning, i had this odd sense of easy, that i usually feel landing in mumbai. but, no. its been four years, and this island, with my distaste for it, and my depression within in, it has become what one would call home, for the sake of familiarity and consistence.

but it is very hard to acclimatize back into the life i live here, more introverted, but far from timid, more alone, but so much more courage. but the thought of waking up and not having to option to catch a rick to V's place, or a train over the weekend to spend time with sriki and john, or coffee with abhi and jim, or yards of girl talk with fra, or just hanging with my brother, driving randomly through pune. i miss all these things immensely. i put such emphasis on the few relationships i have chosen to maintain, that after having them, the loss of them (be it temporary) is debilitating.

nevertheless, it has become such a habit, this good bye nonsense, that i find it hard to extract one tear, even though my insides are going through the heart-wrenching-est disney movie part where mustafa dies. my physiological body doesnt seem to understand the need for expression after the third time, "youve done it a million times before. im not letting you waste another ounce of your bodily fluids", while my head is begging for some sort of vent, believing it actually may make me feel better.

oh well, us and our idiosyncrasies.

i do hope the next two months do not fly by. i have a pile of work i need to get busy with, plus alot of discussion and decisions as to my break next year, and november will be busy with people coming and going and me turning 23 when i still feel like i should be 19. december will be a whirlwind of last minute everything, dissertation submission, assignment submission, exam prep, packing, planning, partying, and finally leaving to go back to india, where sunburn will await my delicious arrival, in what i hope will be me minus the "baby-fat" and dark eye rings; and so on to new years with those i love best and a brand new year promising that i DID in fact finish my graduation within the decade, and more importantly, that i did FINISH it.

every year i promise, P-R-O-M-I-S-E, that no year has gone by as fast. thing is, fuck that. through all my anxiety, my new understanding of the transparency of life and the uselessness of it, through laborious nights that barely fill a page, through my threats of giving up and resorting to alcohol poisoning, let alone dependance,

i now know this;

that the best days are yet to come.