The Point of Me

So after a long and much needed hiatus in New Zealand, Im back in Canberra. I went to University here for 3 years, but now that I'm back and looking for work, the city feels so different. I guess I'm looking at it with fresh eyes and outside the context of campus life. The move was disorientating at first. Almost as if growing up was no longer an option. But I've settled down some. Took my stuff out of storage, got a nice rental, have a routine centred around finding a job etc. But there's still a weird 'in transit' feeling.  In a sort of new city, without close family and friends that actually work and have a purpose to their day, i can't I can't help but wonder, what is the point of me? Taken out of my familial home, without the usual household errands and chores, and out work, this period in my life has made it awful easy to examine this small existence of mine. What is the point of me? What void do I fill? Not to say that employment is everything but there is much to be said about feeling needed. About feeling like you have a purpose in life. That certain things can't be done without you. That you matter. That you are indispensable. 

I was discussing this with a good friend of mine. She's been there too. She likened this stage to that on a video game. The one in which you're in flux until you collect the right amount of energy to jump up to a higher or another level. She got a job at a snazzy law firm straight out of college and she reckons she jumped too early.She thinks that she should've perhaps enjoyed the transit phase more. She has since left the law firm, but her story, has lent some perspective to mine. It hasn't really helped with my general feeling of listlessness but it's reassured me at some level that this 'in flux' stage serves some kind of purpose. That perhaps one day, I'll be burning with so much ambition, I'll wish for a simpler time. Or perhaps this quiet time will inform my later ambitions. I don't know. But it sounds like it's stock take time. 

A New Normal

Happy 2013, baby! It would appear that I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon once again. With no reasonable excuse to explain it all away. Other than I felt like I had nothing to say or nothing worth recording anyway. Warning - the following might be a bit of a dampener with the probability of a silver lining developing on the horizon :)

A photo I took while driving away from a sunset. Because it's good to see what one is leaving behind ...

The long and short of it is that I've just pulled myself from the pits of what looked and felt an awful lot like depression - you know that lethargic feeling, the lack of motivation to do anything and all round being in the pits. I attribute this mainly to not having any solid plans post my graduation from Law school. As happy as graduation was, I think I would have been happier still if I had something solid in the horizon to work towards. But the end of 2012, a year that should have seen me race towards the finishing line, saw me barely being able to cross it. While I fared well in the exams (thank you, fairy godmother!), my brain felt rather dehydrated and really quite incapable of making any life choices by the end of the year. Going back home to New Zealand and a long stint on the couch, catching up with my summer reading and blogging on a weekly basis about happy things, seemed so ideal.  But it all went square. Rather than feeling rejuvenated and rested, I was a ball of feverish energy, feeling restless and quite frankly rather disorientated. After having been a student for so long, I was probably suffering from some kind of identity crisis. Without highlighters and a textbook to color in, I barely knew myself. And then set in the procrastination. Cut to 3 months down the track with much agitation and weird behavior on my part, I finally got some blood tests done. Yea, apparently that's the secret. Turns out my stressful student life thus far has not done me any favors and a couple of things are out of whack. These things in turn took to affecting my mood and motivation levels to do...well, anything really. It's nothing that regular exercise, supplements and green leafy vegetables can't fix and it'll take about a couple of months, but I'll hopefully get there in the end. As scary as it was to be diagnosed with something, it was better still to have a gut instinct confirmed. To know what's wrong with me (on a physiological level at least) by name and to start addressing it.  We tend to always know when something isn't right on the inside. Sometimes we get really good at ignoring it. And the not so good feeling starts feeling like it's normal. But after a good solid week of Yoga and Zumba classes, I feel like I'm working towards a new normal. A better and healthier one. While there are moments of intense panic about getting a job, and literally having dreams about being left behind in some kind of race , I know I am blessed to have a family that allows me to focus on my health. While the job search is never ending and on going, it feels good to be allowed to build a new routine one step at a time. The first priority being my health.

Pensive photo time. I call it  'Dandelions and summer dreams' :)

I can only enumerate the advantages of a quick check-up. Of checking in with yourself, with your doctor or your counselor. Of perhaps drawing up a list of things that you don't feel good about and going about changing them because only movement and action can ensure a new reality. I personally have come to realize that my health really is something I can't afford to compromise and ignore under the assumption that my body is young and capable of handling everything I ask of it. This realization might have something to do with a meeting I had with my optometrist. She wanted to know why I didn't wear my glasses more regularly and why I chose to wear it only during driving and watching TV. I didn't realize I thought this but I ended up blurting out "because I like my reality a bit blurry at times". She gave me a puzzled look, of-course not really understanding what I was talking about. The root of the matter is somewhat superficial. Basically, even though I have on the large part moved on from my bout of adult acne, I still have a problem looking at my skin with glasses on. While it has healed considerably, it still has the potential to deflate me on a good day. And I didn't really realize this but living with a blurry reality was a mindset I had started applying to other areas in my life too. If I couldn't see it, it would cease to exist. Funny how life doesn't exactly work that way. But it's better to have realized this than never at all. One more tip for this dance called life, right?

So here's to  new, nuturing realizations :) Wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2013! Onwards and upwards in the pursuit of happiness.

A collation of my favorite Canberra shots. 

*** The photos used on this blog have been taken by me and to see more of the same, feel free to look me up on Instagram - 'Neha09' ***