The pandemic has hit us all; in different ways, in various magnitudes, in contrasting extents. And the truth is, many of us are just not in the best headspace to be okay.
And while that’s a hard pill to swallow; now, of all days (with my birthday looming in a few hours), I have (perhaps finally) come to the conclusion that where I am is fine. The desire to celebrate and the knowledge that it cannot happen the way I envision it to be and the ways I will choose to find pockets of happiness today — as I have the past few days, as I will in the coming weeks — is fine.
It is valid, still.
Admittedly, I have been a little too hard on myself this year when it came to my birthday. This time 12 months ago, I fully became a lawyer after a flurry of events — learning I passed the bar, taking my oath, signing the rolls. The trifecta memorised by each and every law student on their first year. Two years ago, I woke up at before sunrise, took a cold shower, and put on make up under the dim dawn light, half-squinting at the mirror my dad hung for me next to my cabinet door. I graduated from law school that day.
Today… well, today things are different. A global pandemic, collective disenfranchisement, a fear of the unknown, government ineptitude, systemic violence — they all have contributed to a sort of disjunct; a kind of disoriented belief: do I deserve happiness now? Should life be celebrated now? Or must I keep the festivities at bay, keeping for myself instead hushed greetings, neatly tucking them away after, safe for revisiting another day, for a less precarious time?
A day before my birthday, I find myself not knowing.
My heart, however, ever the rebel against the practicalities of my brain, demands celebration. For her, despite it all, and in fact because there is so much pain, and darkness, and grief, a celebration is not just warranted, it is encouraged. As a reminder towards hope, and life, and of better days ahead.
As proof of the truth of the resilience of the human mind, the human will, the human heart. As a commemoration of the past year, and how it is worth celebrating that I am here still.
Things may not have been as rosy as they have been this time of year as compared to previous years, but there have been victories alongside the challenges, and perhaps for that alone, life is worth celebrating.
Three days ago, I wrote down on my journal how the past year has been for me. Four things stood out: (1) completely confirmed to myself why I do what I do, (2) fully came to accept my need for help, (3) learned how to cultivate a safe space as I shared my love for yoga with others, and (4) established in a very personal manner that home is a place, but home is people, too.
The list perhaps may not be much, but it was my reality the past 366 days. And in the face of such a downtrodden world, a world currently and simultaneously the entire globe but also the confines of my cramped studio apartment inhabited by my pet hedgehog and I, perhaps — and this is only a theory, but one I fervently wish to be gospel truth — joy still exists.
And in the littlest, quietest of ways, perhaps it demands celebrating.
Happy birthday to me.
Of perpetual finds 