Stuck on IST
I wrote this one on a flight back from India. Home is seldom a place. It takes a few greys to realize that home is often a person or people, and a feeling they inspire within you. And eventually, if you’re lucky enough to realize it, home becomes a place within you that you can travel to whenever you wish to.
This is an ode to the home I’ve built within me — my sukoon.
“My watch is still on India time. I glance at the screen from time to time and think to myself, 'ah, it's time to start dinner. Mum must be in the kitchen already.' I look outside my flight window and I'm reminded I'm already far, far away. Dinner must've already been made and eaten. I close my eyes and dad is walking in the garden outside, silently mumbling his evening prayer with a content smile on his lips. Mum is poring over her phone, voice messages will be heard and sent, reels will be seen and forgotten. The day is over for them and they're probably already in bed. But for me, I'm stuck. I'm still stuck in India time and I can't bring myself to change the clocks.”
I wrote this on the flight when I was on the flight back to Berlin after a month-long trip to India. The trip didn’t go exactly as planned but that’s been a recent trend with me and I’m getting more used to it. That’s been one of my biggest lessons of adulthood, that as you add more years to your life and gather more relationships under your belt, you add a lot of unpredictability to life. Suddenly you can’t stick to a schedule with military precision, something that was so easy to do till a few years back, because you have to make a meal for an unexpected guest or take a loved one to the doctor. And it used to annoy the life out of me.
Honestly, it still does at times.
It gets harder to stick to workouts. It becomes tougher to meal prep. And more than anything, it gets tougher to find a reason to prioritize work above everything else.
It’s funny and strange how the same things you spend your youth learning are the things you end up unlearning in your middle age. Suddenly your career and work accomplishments aren’t the most important thing, your family and friendships and relationships start looking just as alluring (and often, a lot more). Again, this is a choice you need to make and I’m sure there are people who manage both beautifully. I admire them, and I’m also a bit jealous because it’s something I’ve not been able to do.
Yet as I sit here reading those emo lines I wrote a few weeks back I can’t help but smile at the romantic heart in me that refuses to die despite getting kicked around so much. I still romanticize small moments, I bake birthday cakes for the people I love, and nostalgia has a hold on me like nothing else does. Everyone that comes into your life and touches it just a little leaves a part of themselves in you, long after they’ve gone whether you like it or not. Not all those are good memories, there are the bad ones, and they too have their place of honor.
Except what I’ve learned along the way is the only way to survive is to turn the hurt into something beautiful. It’s for an entirely selfish reason, because if they’re not going to leave they might as well evolve into something that doesn’t hurt or maim you from the inside. That way the hurt becomes a lesson and the heartbreak becomes a blessing and suddenly it’s lost its hold over you.
I’m free, but they still have a home in me. They always will.