Manvitha's Musings

 I'm not a therapist. Well, not in the professional sense. I didn't study courses, earn degrees, help people through depression. I sort of learned to read rooms by the way someone drummed their fingers against the table nervously, the way someone's smile dropped when I mentioned a name they hated, or the way someone's voice cracked when they were trying to hold back tears.  I focused on their tears. But no one was there to wipe off my own.  It was always like a gift, this ability to read rooms and make people feel uplifted. This ability to give people hope. But when you looked at how and why I got this ability, it's not as pretty as it seems.  These people I uplift, these pieces of advice I give people, and all the times I told someone that everything is going to be ok, I told myself it was just empathy. Well, I wasn't wrong. But there's another piece I missed.  I knew exactly how it felt to be in their place. Every single time. Every word I spewed out my mo...

 "But you don't look depressed."  You say it to me like it's a fact, peering into my eyes as though searching for the sadness etched across my face.  "I know," I reply emptily. "But I am." I give you a faint smile, a small curl of the corners of my lips, but it doesn't quite reach my eyes. My stomach doesn't hurt from laughing like it used to, my throat doesn't scream k-pop song lyrics until raw. Not because it forgot how to, but because it just doesn't see the point. My friend, I know that I don't look depressed. Because depression doesn't always accompany puffy eyes, dark circles, constant tears streaming down your face. Sometimes it's this vague numbness. The point where you feel too much until you can't feel anything anymore. Your heart is full of nothingness, you dreams buried deep inside the complicated layers of your mind because your thoughts made the path too foggy. It's like you can't see a way forw...

   This is about eggs. Sunny-side up, yolk runny yet soft, edges brown and crispy, texture smooth and indulgent, temperature warm and not scorching, just how I like it.  It's funny, right? The fact that I gave an egg its whole character arc when it was nothing but a piece of food gliding over my tongue.  Yet it felt like comfort. No deafening personality, no twisted words, just something to keep me company.  I usually never like others' company. And yet I enjoyed the egg. Until I realised, this isn't about eggs anymore. This is about people. Those who stayed even in the bad, those who left for good. All of them.  Including those who hurt me. Including those who used me for gain. Including those that were harsh. Including that that never really had a connection.  Why couldn't you be the comfort I so desperately needed when I could no longer see the light for a while? Why did you wait for me to initiate before calling my name? Why didn't you simply glide...

  One coffee shop. Same aroma of fresh coffee beans, same traffic honking through the window, same plants dangling from the walls, same tables, same straws, same cups. Yet it's crazy how every person sitting here has a completely different experience of life. One sipping the warm drink and letting themselves bask in the sunlight peeking through the door. Another feeling grateful for life. And there's the last one, wishing that they were never here at all. They don't enjoy the coffee like the others, they feel the bitterness of the drink glazing their tongue, while the bitterness of their thoughts washes over their heart until they wonder where the sweetness went. They wonder when it was the last time life felt sweet for them, the last time they could savour the sweetness without breaking. The last time they could feel bitterness pass without letting it contaminate the sweetness too. The last time they could look at themselves in the mirror without searching for flaws. The l...

  I laugh at your jokes until my stomach hurts. The old ones, the new ones, the ones only we understand, all of them. Because I don't know if I'll be quick enough to catch my breath the next time I shake with laughter next to you. Quick enough to realise that life goes on, people get separated and grow apart. It's bittersweet, all these years of friendship, all the spaces of comfort not being as direct as it used to anymore. I'll have to move to a new home. We'll have to schedule our meet-ups from now on. And part of me is scared that we'll just become another guest. That physical distance will distance our souls as well. I wonder if we'll ever be able to giggle the same way, that's why I laugh right now until my throat is raw. But one thing I realised is, this isn't goodbye. This isn't the last time. It's simply...distance. Our meet-ups being less accessible. Going on with our lives. Except it doesn't mean you have to stop being in mine,...

I saw someone on the internet saying that to be cringe is to be free. And yet I suck my stomach in, straighten my spine, adjust my hair so that it falls into perfect curls on my left shoulder at a party just so that I don't get called weird. Although civilized would be a better word. It's funny, the irony of it all. The things society tells us to do versus how it reacts to those. Yet there's that little smirk curling up at the corner of my lips as I stare into my fizzy drink and play with the straw, eyes on the crowd around me, mind somewhere else entirely. A world of my own. A world where I don't need to be civilized. Or cringe. I can just be..me. I won't wipe my makeup off after going home, for a start. I know that. I know that I'll spend a considerable amount of time staring into the mirror, playing with locks of my hair, the laces on my dress, acting like I'm walking a red carpet. And the audience is my own reflection. And it makes me laugh, how I know m...