When life gives you a 2020 –

I have finally found out the cure to my writer’s block or if I could put in in a more appropriate way the cure to my long lulls of writing inactivity even though my 2020 resolution was to write frequently, and I have ended up making it the resolution for the upcoming, right at the door 2021.

So, the cure to it is free time and a mind at rest. After a whirlwind year that has changed my life completely – I am finally bidding it a goodbye right where I started it – the city of my aspirations and inspiration – Hyderabad; with the people I love the most and I couldn’t be more motivated to come back to the greatest love of my life – writing. So, here we go, the blogpost wrapping it all up.

Admit it or not 2020 was the answer to everyone’s deepest adulting wishes – to relieve childhood once more.

2020 shuttled every grown up, self sustainable, independent, hard working, frustratingly mechanically living 20+ adult back from their stereotypical weekday pe kaam-weekend pe aaram locked down in their hometowns. A huge flush of all my IT friends “making it” in their metro lives came back to my sleepy town. My own brother left for Odisha for what was to be the longest stay after thinking that the day they left for their engineering college was the last day they got to spend time at home. I was also a recipient of the new normal for a few months then, after being shuttled out of Chennai from my carefully curated life back into my hometown – short-lived until I started my residency. It was a twist of fate for everyone. The lockdown opened our eyes to all the words that came after the “what if’s we had been keeping in our minds. It gave us all the time to be kids with pastimes that didn’t just involve chugging the maximum number of beers again. From Dalgona coffee to playing Ludo King, from jamming on my guitar on Zoom call to picking up those unread novels again; the lockdown gave us life beyond careers – making us realize what we had been missing. Making me realize what I had been missing. It gave me all the time in the world to get over the things I thought I could never get over. 2020 helped me heal.

Yet, 2020 also shuttled me to a space I had only been planning for since 2012. This was the year I got to live all my dreams. I always wanted to live and work independently in a metro city – I got to do that at the beginning of the year itself when I got a job in one of the leading corporate hospitals in Chennai and got to experience the corporate life. The sheer joy from getting a salary off my hard work, paying my own bills, getting to live a life beyond work, getting to spend and splurge on myself was a high of another kind. If that wasn’t enough, I also cleared my NEET-PG entrances surprisingly on the first attempt; convincing me of the fact that sometimes you get things when you are actively not wishing for it, so maybe the concept of destiny exists. Not only did I get a PG seat but I got that in Karnataka – a longstanding dream since a decade. I can’t explain the moments of sheer disbelief I have that I am in Karnataka doing residency! And in the college whose photos I had since and mildly wished to be in 2012. Everyday I get to don the one attire I really love – my scrubs and go off to work. Every day is a new challenge to grow better than the day before. Every day reminds me of al the milestones I have yet to reach and achieve.

I was a small town girl once who wanted to live and grow old in the same town once, within the boundaries my father had set for me – not until one day I had the courage to scale it all. Now that I have seen everything that I can have, I realize the wish list never ends. Yet you might end your peace, happiness and real joys of life in trying to achieve them.

By giving me everything I dreamt of, 2020 has also taught me how when dreams turn to reality, they might not be as dreamy as they seemed.

Life has turned for better, but it’s the adulting version of better. Everyday I wake up exhausted and tired from the day before. My sleep deprivation hits an all time high trying to juggle being a junior resident with a normal functioning human being who needs a break. Now that I am at home and can reflect on my life in Belgaum, I realize I’m far off the mark I have gone from when I started it. I was dropped off at my hostel gate with three bags and wonder-eyed; so much that I didn’t even look at my mother leaving in the cab. I made all efforts to come away from my past, not realizing that’s what kept me, me. Every day in the hospital I run around thinking everything I do is changing the world, yet now that I sit on this chair overlooking the balcony with flowers and vegetables planted by my brother, my Maa cutting up vegetables, my mom and sister trying to fit into 15″ of a phone screen because I was not granted enough leaves to be able to go all the way to Odisha and ended up coming to Hyderabad – I realized that the life of peace and love I had been searching was already here. Glamour, glitz, fame – everything attracts me since childhood – I am the kid who has always been and always loved the spotlight. Yet, the fact that I forgot the ones who put me there is dawning on me now. What’s the use of being the spotlight if you don’t have someone cheering you. What’s the use of having good days I can’t celebrate with my family? What do I do on the bad days I feel so lost wanting to run away and sleep in my mother’s lap – the safest place in the world?! I realized my folly when a patient boycotted me for not knowing his mother tongue! All the things I had left for all the things I could have not realizing I didn’t need them.

But then I cannot be that ungrateful and dissuade everything over a toxic workplace and workload that takes a toll on everyone’s mental health – when I also have few things to be thankful for. Starting off with my friends – when people said you won’t be making friends in residency they were so far off about my lot. I might not have them on the days they are also busy and broken from the department – yet I have them tugging me on food cravings, Sunday brunches and spontaneous Goa trips. When I fall sick I have someone getting food to my hostel room door and through the scary dark room ultrasound finding. Life has found a small address in hurriedly drunk coffee before morning OPD and after evening round blasting. The picturesque residency images have been replaced with barking seniors, unreasonable demands and a department that is bent on sucking your peace and blood. Yet every single day that I see my naivety slip away I also know that all of it is preparing me for a future I never had the courage to dream of. I know that when I became a part of a glorious institute I should have been prepared for the yin and yang that came with it. I know exactly who I am and how too much of goodness is also an invite for the world to feed on you like vultures – and all of this is toughening me up for the greater battle that lies after residency.

So, here’s wrapping it up – my 2020 with all it’s highlights and lessons – knowing that this year has given me the time, space and opportunity to rise ahead in life and emotion exponentially! I started this year off with red wine, long drive and UNO with the fam – and my entire 2020 has a slow melt of it. Hoping that 2021 gets us out of the lull with all the essential teachings from 2020 and adapting it to a hopefully COVID-free world.

So, when life gives you a 2020, you learn from it to make all your years better! Cause admit it, we’re never gonna be this chill ever again. So, enjoy while it lasts – exactly three more days of it.

Happy new year (in advance) folks!