~sisterhood is real and happens if we let it~

It is so amazing to see my cute network of sister friends creep in from here and there from time to time and send their love. Nothing like it. Really. If I am quiet or kinda taking my time out one day, I swear I'll be showered in love through texts/emails/shares of high positive energy and beautiful golden love gestures. I loved the brothers I grew up with, they loved me in this cute protective way. And life found me sisters.

In a world where everyone thinks women hate women (and don't get me wrong, it wasn't that easy to get to this point with these friends, nor was it so planned, and I also had to lose some friends along the way :/), believing the world would never have gotten me here. I know it's a cliche ted talk thing to say that don't listen to others, they'll kill your dreams - I've almost always seen it to be true in my life. Dreaming/believing/imagining has brought me through my own unique journey in life I really doubt many people have seen or can see or can share/verbalize. Sisterhood exists, it is real, it is possible, it takes time and work and willingness like anything else. But it is so worth it, so uplifting, so fulfilling, especially in the face of its seeming odds in the world. It makes life more beautiful for everyone around - we need the women, we need them to work together, and we need them to pick each other up, and we need to bring our men in on this aspect of our women and our human amazingness. Spirals of miracles.

Losing at something I thought I was awesome at...

There's a particular sentence in my dating profile description that I was pondering the other day, "..I absolutely love to lose at something I am awesome at.." Hmmmm.... I was recently wondering how true it still was about myself - have I really been recognizing defeat and finding thrill in it like I claim is typical of me? And boom. I just realized today that I am a pretty mean person inside, that I also get jealous, I am also acting from places of low self-worth etc, and am not acting with the highest love towards myself and those I claim to love. Like WHOA! That truly shatters so much of my self-concept.

So, do I love losing at something I thought I was awesome at? In truth, yes I still do. The humbling process is so amazing. This is what love and the intention to love does, I think. When I love someone, it inspires me to dig deeper, and SEE myself more. Because I truly want to love and not hinder/hurt the other (perhaps because I also know that I actually am not so loving and kind deep down?), but my own stuff gets in the way. It's amazing how our surface tools are thoroughly trained and programmed to blame others, to trap us in the same thought processes that we now need to break.

I guess I am just getting to know more of me, and see if I can find a way to handle and love these dark and un-pretty sides of myself. I feel expanded for sure - but now it's a matter of seeing whether I can manage all that I have seen. How can I navigate through this overwhelm of stuff I have awakened to? These are usually aspects of others I don't like, but lol, here they are, inside me - harder to see, but waiting to be seen, asking for my attention and knowing. Mirror analogy, yes. Finger pointing analogy, yes.

Honestly, it feels like a tearing apart of my insides - where there is a zipper going down the center of my body that has been brutally taken down. In some sense, I like that I am no different than others -- finally, a platform for more connection! In another sense, I feel like a hypocrite, I feel guilty for acting out of non-knowing this whole time, thinking highly of myself, when I am made of the same stuff.

But this defeat feels good. It has pushed me deeper, expanded my awareness of self and other bubbsies around me, and has challenged my ability to manage and love myself anew. Not the old already uncovered parts, but the newly uncovering ones. Losing isn't easy to grapple with, but it is welcome.

Holy Shit - is there someone in the house?!

I definitely heard someone go into the bathroom. I called out to check if it was my roommate. She had just texted me she was at a friend's. So, who just entered. Why. How. Someone is in my bathroom. I don't want to use my laptop as a weapon. Luckily, Stiglitz and Atkinson wrote a big Public Lectures book. It's perfect. I step outside - all alert. Roommate - is it you, I call out again...and she answers casually.

I wonder if she finds my panic unfounded. I wonder if she is proud of me for thinking through things and being prepared with a nice weapon in decent time. I wonder if she thinks I am nuts. I wonder if I am nuts. Well, I think this gives me a fun story.

Also, it reminds me of when at my first apartment in the US, I had left the house, but had forgotten something. My dad was working from home. I run up the stairs with my 140 lbs body of those days, with my Punjabi heavy footsteps, running up carefree in my house. Only to find my dear daddy-o holding a weapon (I don't remember what he it was - perhaps a thick newspaper rolled up?), ready to hurt the possible perpetrator of his home. His first reaction (perhaps concealing his fear) was anger at how loud and scary and fast I had run upstairs. Haha, it was funny to me. But he was serious. Knowing him, I am sure he also found it funny at some point. But not immediately and not too visibly. It was cute to see my dad all freaked out and scared and then covering up and playing dad. I also used to do this thing where I would be ready to duck out from behind the wall each time he went to the bathroom at home. And he would legitimately get scared - I used to find it cute funny for a short while, and it would still make him laugh. But after a couple of times of seeing how truly scared he would get, I stopped doing it. I love and miss my daddy-o, and how he would laugh because it was his crazy daughter running pranks, despite his clear moments of fear for his life. I made my mom totally lol today over facetime (success!) - and she compared my humor to my dad's.

Love. 

I am pressed for time too

I want people I care about to indeed feel that I have all the time in the world for them. That they are the only person I care about and am helping. But it would also be nice if after receiving this, they slightly looked up and saw that I am actually doing this for several of my friends and family. So maybe they could pick up some of their own slack now, and offer to pick up mine. Sigh. But as it is with expecting others to do something -- I need to do it for myself -- and I willllll I guess. Love. So simple yet so complicated.