take what you like, make it your own

I used to envy people who could write long, meaningful, and complex sentences. The writing felt so... clever. And I'm pretty sure there was a time in my life that I tried to mimic that exact style. It never came out right. 

In my teenage years, the girls who could wear a high pony tail looked cool. Skinny jeans were in fashion. Along with low waisted pants, shiny party dresses, and tank tops. I tried to fit in, but after all these years, I don't own any of the above anymore.

I'm glad to have built a sense of style as I grew up. With my mom caring about the latest trends getting home magazines for inspiration and ever willing to try out different stuff, to my sister approaching it textbook style from the perspective of colour theory and what flatters different body types, I borrowed different ideologies and now have my own. 

I dress like my mother, and my sister, and the girl on the subway who had this amazing bag, and the woman at work who has the same hair that I do. 

I don't know where my writing style is borrowed from, but I write the exact way that I would talk. And the way that I talk is ever influenced by the people around me. So perhaps my writing is a culmination of everyone I have ever spoken to all my life. 

We take what we like from different people, and make it our own. And doing anything a particular person's way is never going to feel absolutely right for oneself - we need to keep exploring until we settle on what feels right to us - for every. single. thing. that we do. And do that on repeat.

I think that pretty much sums up the entire human experience. :P

Love,

Kanksha

stayed the same

Being in the same place at a different time of my life has been an interesting experience for me. As I take the train, I find myself remembering the same music I used to listen to. I plugged in the charger in my room at night, and found myself standing against the bookshelf remembering all the times I've texted people from there at midnight when my battery was about to drain out. I sat on the step in my room, because the bed with the back rest is too far to connect to the wifi, and smiled to myself at how some things just don't change. 

Yet so many things do. My sister isn't at home anymore and I have seen her twice in the 15 days I have been here so far, and I hopefully will see her at least two more times. I sleep in my grandmom's room without my grandmom, so now it's technically my room, but it feels weird, and my own old room is still the only one that feels like mine. I don't know where stuff is kept in the house anymore. 

There is construction on the road, and so much dust because of it. Friends are actually getting married. Yet besides the weddings, things aren't really the same. Parents are growing older. I have dentist visits and doctor visits that are a priority - signs of me growing older too. 

Everyone and everything is growing and changing. 

And in this constant change, I feel grateful for the little things that have stayed the same - healthy and yummy food ready everyday, reminders to invest my money, a passion for wearing good clothes. And grateful for the people with whom relationships have stayed the same. They make me feel grounded and provide a sense of comfort and home that nothing else can ♥

Love,
Kanksha

short poem: contradictions

There is a joy of living because we die

And happiness because we cry

Only after a sun sets can a sun rise 

The feeling of all knowing that leads to surprise

All our feelings are a disguise for something new 

Something different,

Unpredictable evermore

have no wifi at home

My building did this amazing thing where they forgot to tell us they would not switch us over to the new default Internet provider. And what this means for us is that we need to schedule appointments to get access to the internet. Appointments were about 10 days from when we found out, so now my flatmate and I are undergoing a digital detox whether we like it or not. No watching TV, actually having to get up and switch on or off the lights, and no access to our personal laptops either. (We work from office so that's mostly unaffected). 

And all of this coupled with my Instagram detox, I feel like I'm undergoing some kind of withdrawal symptoms 😂

The last three days have been filled with SO MUCH free time. I come home and don't understand what to do next. Sleeping at 10pm feels like a lucrative option because I don't know what else is possible. We went to whole foods for a walk and came back. Spent time silently reading a book after dinner. Scrolled H&M on my phone. Removed the clothes from the dryer but felt too lazy to fold them so they're lying on the empty half of my bed. I'll hopefully get to the pile tonight. 

I never realized how much of my time and brain supposedly mindless activities take up. Maybe this Wifi less period is a blessing in disguise. I hope I start feeling like doing other better things with my time. And I hope I learn how to stay bored without getting frustrated. 

Try watching no TV for 3 days. I'll be surprised if you don't go through something similar. Will keep you updated on how I feel after a week!!!!

Love,

Kanksha 

happy new year

There's this prompt going on out there about having a word for the year, or a vision for how you want it to be. I've been doing it for the last two years and it went pretty well for me - 2022 was about building strength, and 2023 was about being more free to experiment with new things if I feel like it. I think this year I've been able to say yes to the things that bring me immediate joy or satisfy my curiosity more easily than I have in the past. And now I'd like 2024 to be about practicing delayed gratification. 

There are so many things that I want to do in life. And they're all going to take time, need dedicated consistent effort, and a lot more emotional regulation than what I believe I have today to focus on what truly matters to me. So I'm going to give myself one thing to do each quarter which I think should help me along the way. 

The first quarter I'll just try to reduce my current source of an instant dopamine boost - Instagram - by checking it just once a day for not more than 10 minutes. Currently I use it to fill up the gaps, spending either 2 hours on the app or 2 minutes in a day depending on how interested I am in what I am doing. But just leaving those 2 hours empty I hope will push me to do something more constructive, or just allow me to be bored, which would be great. 

I think my second quarter is going to be a promise to write 5 sentences everyday. Awesome for me if I end up writing more, but I've got to learn how to start with something I know I enjoy and want even though I am not in the mood for it. 

A habit I've already introduced in my life is ensuring I drink a glass of water everyday. The third quarter, I'll target ensuring I drink 3. Should definitely help my health long term, even if I don't like believing it's affecting me. 

I don't know what I should do in the last quarter yet. I'm sure I'll come up with something along the way. But the stakes for me actually doing this for the year are high. Nothing else in my invisible list of things I want to do in a particular quarter will matter if it's coming in the way of not checking Instagram, writing 5 sentences, or drinking 3 glasses of water. And ideally, those things shouldn't come in the way of anything anyway. 

I really want this year to be one where I invest in myself and have the patience to stay invested. I'm trying to make it as easy as possible while it still being challenging for me to set myself up for success. 

I hope I leave the year having proven to myself that 1) you don't need to feel happy or engaged every moment to truly feel okay 2) your actions are capable of changing how you feel, instead of your feelings having control over your actions and 3) you care about your well being even when doing so feels hard or frustrating and the harm isn't imminent 

Do you have a word or theme for this year? If so, what is it going to be? And what's your plan to help yourself succeed in achieving it?

Love, 

Kanksha