I think this year, the universe decided that I needed to be shaken out of my complacency and that I needed a mean mom to do that. Because that is exactly what 2017 has been. A real mean mom! Actually 2017 was like a mamma giraffe, she knocked me down and then kicked me to stand up. Just when I thought I was okay, there was one more kick to knock me down.
Oh yes, I resented this year. At least while it was happening. But looking back I see that I am not the same person I was at the beginning of the year.
I started this year with this great determination that I would make everything work. And for a while it did. Then came the kicks in the forms of illness, and being let down by people I thought were my pillars, expenses piling up and not being able to cope with my work load.
While it is true that these put my year out of gear, I learnt that there is something in me that just won’t give up. And in spite of all the chaos of the year, I managed to write 20000 words of my book during the Nanowrimo challenge. I learnt that it didn’t matter if I finished the 50,000 words or not. I realised that I could write 7000 words a day if I wanted to.
I made a lot of friends in my social media groups and enjoyed the conversations I had with them. I read a lot of books and reviewed them and my opinion was sought out.
Somewhere along the year, I stopped feeling like a tongue tied school girl in awe of people she admires. I leant that I can talk to them as peers and I felt accepted. For someone who has always been on the fringe of groups, never really an insider, this meant a lot. A shout out to Rubina Ramesh and The Book Club, and Corinne Rodrigues and her Write Tribe and the Wrimo India group!
This year I learnt that you can’t assume that people will be there for you. There will be times when you are all alone and that is alright. I learnt that I am enough. I learnt that I have a very stubborn streak and no matter how many times I got kicked to the ground this year, I got right back up again, out of sheer perversity.
In fact the best part of the year was this last week, which I spent with both my daughters. We spent the time visiting family and otherwise just sitting and talking and cathcing up on each other’s lives. The icing on the cake was when my daughter said, “Thank you mamma, for always being there and for always doing what has to be done. For taking everything in your stride and still finding things to be happy about.”
I don’t think anything could top that!
I have written this post as part of the Friday Reflections, the theme being, “Looking Back on 2017”.
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