Life Is Stranger Than Fiction

2016 will be, I am almost positive, my strangest year of life to date.  I read somewhere, I think Mindy Kaling said it, that life is much more unique and complex than what stories we can capture and share in day to day media.  I think that’s really true.  Media likes to capture the normal curve, but what about the outliers? What if your entire life is an outlier? OR.  What if the world is coming around and making a new normal? What if you just think you are an outlier when really, everyone is in the same boat as you?  It’s like when people ask which class Americans belong to, and invariably everyone thinks they’re in the middle class.  When really, that’s statistically impossible.  But everyone just likes to think so.

I don’t know what the point of that digression was.  The statistic anomalies of what we think of as normal? I don’t know.  Anyway, back to 2016 being the strangest year of life to date.  Mostly because I am finally embracing change.  And just going with it.  I know people may think wow Anu, don’t you love change? The truth is, I kind of hate it.  I hate when something you got used to gets yanked away from you and you just have to cry and mourn over the loss of something beautiful that you once had.  But a wise friend pointed out this is the reason that Hindu’s have a God of destruction.  Because destruction leads to rebirth and rebuilding.  The circle of life. Change is change is change. I used to resist it like no other. Now I’m practicing Radical Acceptance (yes another book I just finished which I think is fantastic, highly recommend it).

I can’t even tell you where I will be two days from now and that used to scare the crap out of me.  But I’m learning that change is all right as long as you know where your center is, or where home is.  Home is where the heart is.  I thought that was a terrible expression, because Jesus, my heart is inside me how does that make sense at all? But now I think I’m finally understanding what that all means.  We have enough.  Life gives us enough.  At all times in our lives, we have everything we need. Right inside. Home is what you make of it. For me, I’ve realized that the global hello is a cup of tea or coffee.  Every culture and/or region has a variation of it and I love it.  Inexplicably adore it.  Be it Bangalore, Delhi, Paris, Abu Dhabi, London, Istanbul, San Francisco, you have it.  So for me, that’s my new comfort.  A cup of coffee or tea that says hey Anu.  It’s all right. Take a deep breath.  You have everything you need right here. Everything is going to be ok.

That’s how I’m feeling about life right about now.