Movies!!

The tryst with Matinee:

It is hard to imagine that at nearly 30 years old, it was only my second movie experience at a theater, both coming in the last 1 year.

I distinctly remember the notion that movies are a waste of time as a school going kid. The taboo that children who go to the movies are the ones that flunk was drilled deep into my being. It was all just studies and occasional playing. We weren't that well off, but going to the movies was not a concept that existed in our home. That's not to say we did not have our fun, just that our definition of fun was pretty different from that of a common person. 

Now, the theater experience is not a pleasant thought. Having to sit still for over two hours in a dark room with very bright lights is not my idea of fun. I have gotten far too used to the idea of absorbing a movie alone, in my own space, in the comfort of my room and while juggling other multitasking activities.

DBA era: Chapter 1, part 2

Lights out Alice!

Sunsets and S

Being myself - conflicting

Just liking the person and not qualities - good or a bad thing?

Reference point data is corrupted - always had to yearn and put people on a pedestal - what do I even know about steady in the first place?

Is it just the car or the anxiety soothing ability or the frolicking - but counter to that would be what else is the point of another person and what is this elusive feeling otherwise if not safety and growth?

Top moments:

Perks of being a wallflower moment - Is it the car question day

The ritual of Galleria

Movie - The drama - So much fun dressing to impress - the funny flowers and association convo

Obviously driving around!

The flat hunt - remember how much fun Hero Homes was? - Similarly, sec 43 was fun pro max!

Bhawan - 32nd avenue - then CP and the shitty Indian Coffee house - bhawan food was sooo good

Exploring rundown buildings - such an allure for her - Shiey like vibes!

European countries to explore - Spain, France, Portugal ...but the WAY we explore is IMP and WHAT DO we look at is IMP

Conscient walks

Teaching driving - I get to have soooo much fun!

Sharing my playlists!!!! - HOW do they also like Tai Verdes, Amber Run, Mokita and the lesser known artists that I thought was rare!

Sunsets and S day - opening up and explaining my psyche

17th April, Friday - started pouring - Cyberhub walk to the parking in that INSANELY awesome weather and drizzle - then we drove around - sector 14 - went to the other mandir area - found the park - discussed what makes a good park (she likes them dimly lit and shady, I like them fully lit and lively) and tainted ones - then we go to sec 14 - grabbed a bite to go - narrating that pinterest poem - what a look in her eyes- then driving on UER 2 - with fleecing clouds and lightning- wow - that weather made the evening memorable - that memory will be etched forever!

DBA Era: The beginning

It is rare for me to not write about a new era. Generally, I am reaching to jot things down and immediately talk to myself about the new person. Is it a bad omen or is it something that I am not used to? The fact that affection is reciprocated is such an alien concept to me that I am having a hard time adjusting to this feeling.

But I need to take stock:

It crossed the threshold on 20th March, which was around 3 weeks ago. We have always ICARUS'ed, gone on short trips and hung out before this, but it reached a level of significance on that day.

Was I just goading them to that point? Why did I not stop myself that day even though I did stop myself and the situation initially? Why did I give in? The person with so many protocols and LOCs breached all of them...the question that arises and I cannot answer rationally is why did I cross all my lines...was it because I was shown affection or was it genuine or was it just vindictive?

I do think I am genuinely attracted to that person and their mind and their numerous talents - singing, writing...but for the first time, it is not just a specific thing but the entire person that keeps drawing me in...and there is nothing that I can directly pin-point to. I just like the person I can be with her, which is unabashed and unfiltered version of me.

But I did take accountability post that. I did the due diligence. I did the figuring it out bit.

And post that we have had some great memories together. Sitting and watching the sunset on the stairwell was definitely up there as the top core memory! Sharing awesome food in Himalayan cafe, seeing her face light up when eating good food is something that definitely made me happy. I just like to see her smile. The way she looks back at me, with googly eyes, with eyes begging to be understood, is something that definitely blows me over every time.

The way she came up with a poem on the spot while we were sitting at the stairs watching the sun set, which beautifully encapsulated every moment we shared that evening tore my heart to pieces. At the risk of sounding condescending or narcissistic, I like being needed and I like feeling like I can contribute something to help the person. When I look at her, I pore into her eyes, I see so much conflict in her eyes. In a split second, she goes through so many emotions and they well up so much that she is barely able to hold it all in. Her eyes screaming to be held, to be heard, to be witnessed, to be felt, to be understood, to be free, to be everything she ever suppressed in herself.

 Again, I cannot understate how alien the concept of being looked at with googly eyes is for me. I have always been in a one-sided situationships where I have to fight for my relevance and this is the first time I can just be me and it is enough. What scares me is that I don't know whether that is a good thing or bad

State of affairs 13th March 2026

 Lights out Alice!

The eye problem persists. Night time blurriness and strain is still a problem. Obscene amount of money spent on tests and multiple visits to 3 different doctors over multiple weeks have led to no conclusion for now other than waiting for the Vitamin levels to go up before repeating the tests again to see if anything changes. There is a part of me that feels that since I blew everything out of proportion and caused everyone to worry and panic, I should be punished with an actual diagnosis on something. Something that redeems me in the eye of people who think I was much adoing about nothing.

The other part of me goes back to that moment when I lost consciousness and felt everything slipping away, the pain increasing by an amount I was not able to comprehend, everything moving faster than the speed I was able to process it and crescendo of not being able to control anything and panic racing through my mind. I am pretty sure those however minutes I had passed out for were the scariest I have ever felt in recent memory. It scared the shit out of me to the point that everything that followed on that day felt heavier and much more real. Even now, the eye problem and the vitamin levels and the RA factor being high is just something that is midly inconveniencing, largely frustrating but not painful (other than the eyes and the constant headaches looking at  a screen or driving at night). But at that point, when it was also suspected to be a brain issue, post the passing out episode, it felt real.

What really gets my goat is the fact that there has been little to no progress on this. How multiple doctors are also unable to confirm anything even after multiple tests.

On a side note, I read a good paragraph from Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk:

No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments you should have been paying attention. 

The ending, part 50404...

Lights out Alice!

This is what I wrote when I was asked to go back to being friends and not make things toxic:

-----------

Let me over explain myself (hope you take the time to read it):

Part 1:

 It is okay for it to be not that big a deal for you.

 I know enough time has passed for us to forget the past and restart as "friends"

 I even know for a fact that we both can go back to being friends if we restarted this.

But I cherish our memories. Each and every moment we shared and all the fun things we did together.

I am grateful for every damn moment I got to spend with you.

Again, I have never expected you to feel the same. But this is what I feel. I never forced anything from you. But I have no interest in hiding what I truly feel and live a lie.

What took me all this time to heal was the constant denial from your end. It was you telling me this could never happen while we were slowly getting closer. That drove me to question everything and I spiraled pretty bad. The sheer abruptness of the ending in July and then your constant dismissal as "it wasn't a big deal" messed me up and didn't give me closure. I always believed that it was only me that forced all this and ruined everything. It messed me up big time.

I have been a mess for a while now and only now have I slowly gotten used to life without you as a friend.

Now, if I restart all this, I will have to overwrite the beautiful memories I have of you. I will have to erase everything in the past and pretend to move forward without baggage. I don't think I would ever want to do that. Again, it is not that I can't but these memories are far too cherished for me to forget them. I am happy for what we had and would rather hold on to that happy memory over the new ones.

Part 2:

 There has never been an agenda.

 I have tried my best to not make your workplace toxic by trying to stay away and I am truly sorry for all the trouble I might have caused.

 I know I am holding on to the past and to be fair, this is a choice. I have no expectations of any sort and have closed the book on this, but I would rather just have the good memories and take them with me forever

Part 3:

I do regret all the things we couldn't do together if I hadn't gone and messed it all up:

 All those road trips

 The treks we planned but could never execute

 Aravali bio diversity park

 32nd avenue workshops we planned on going to

 I will remember you everytime I take the turn towards Rajiv Chowk.

 I will always cherish the crazy fun we had in office. Holy shit, I don't think that level of fun is even allowed...pranking each other, teasing each other, listening to each other...every second was me being able to let my walls down and be in the moment with you.

 I will miss us having fun in the car

 The Blue lays packet

 The playlist

 Sahibaan

 The drives to India Gate

What we had was true. The only thing I hated is you dismissing it as something trivial. That part messed me up.

Part 4:

We had our differences.

We had our misunderstandings.

I know I have my insecurities.

I know I overthink, I know I mess up all the time.

But, both of us always knew how the other would feel and took that into account. Both of us always knew when the other was angry and would try to make the other feel better. I know it is partly in both our natures to be able to read the other person but I think this was beautiful.

I don't want anything from you. I am not a desperate person trying to force you to feel what you don't want to or stay in anything that doesn't align with your life's plan...I am always just happy and grateful to have had the time we did and have made my peace with it.

But I always want to keep these memories with me as they are special to me and being friends again would mean forgetting all this.

I could, but this was far too special for me to let go of. For the first time, I felt happiness without having to pretend.

Just clearly writing down everything that is on my mind and why it is hard for me to go back to being friends. Not trauma dumping.

Doing the right thing sucks

Lights out Alice!

I don't know why am I my own biggest limitation. No, it is not anybody else but my own brain, designed to help me, which is the biggest hinderance in my path to leading a better life.

Context: RC reached out if we could go back to being friends again.

On one hand having her around would be pretty cool and really good in the short term but I know that over time I will go back to having feelings and mis-interpreting her actions which would never end well for either of us. Which meant that I had to decline and end things which had already previously ended. This is like ending v_13345_final_v2...

I know there are decisions that I need to take that are right for me, which end up feeling like a kick in the gut. This was definitely one of them. In the time between making up my mind on a decision and communicating it, I must have flip-flopped a million times in my head, trying to weigh the pros and cons of taking a side.

We don't know what the future holds. Maybe being friends again is important for me to heal. Maybe she has finally come to her senses. Maybe it will all work out if I choose this path. All that this does is kill the last bit of hope that had died but got reincarnated with this invitation. However, because this happened, and my reaction to it, it was indication enough that I am still not over it and there is no hope of me being able to forget all this and go back to being "friends". 

I am happy that there was acknolwedgment of the fact that mistakes were made from the other person's end as well. Actually, that makes me extremely bitter. When you have feelings for someone and they treat you like a disposable convenient piece of trash, it hurts worse than being rejected.

What really bothers me and gets my goat is WHY would you want to go back to being friends! I know it might have been just friends and casual for you, but just sweeping all that history under the bus belittles my feelings. It makes me feel small for having them or holding onto them in the first place and that I am not ready to do.

I wish I was a better than this and able to forget everything and pretend that it never happened. I wish I could be the guy who could play the game and not be affected by the outcome. Sadly, I am not one of those people. Agreeing to be friends would have been pretending to be someone I am not. For the life of me, I could not bring myself round to living that lie.

If it isn't meant to be, it really isn't and I shouldn't force it.

Nothing really changes, yet everything does...

Nothing really changes:

I still lack discipline. I still make grand detailed plans with obscene numbers of adaptations to account for everything and anything going wrong. I stil suck at executing them. I leave most things I start midway, if not at the first third. I still get bored of things, even as important as a job and wake up on days planning to obliterate everything and starting from scratch once again. I still am unable to upskill myself properly and online self paced learning is still lava.

I am still lonely. However, I have enough bald spots and grey hairs in me to know better than to chase empty friendships. Not that I did chase them in the past as well, but as one ages, one grows more stubborn and steadfast in their ways and less adaptable to change and new beliefs.

What does change is...well everything. I am no longer the person I was a decade ago when I started this blog. Truth be told, I was more hard working back then and had more passion and burning intent. I had discipline and I had vigour, all of which meant that I kept trying to improve every day. I used to push myself and grow, even though it wasn't obvious at the time.

My parents are getting older. It does sadden me to see an armour plated person like my dad struggling to walk. I have fond memories of trying to keep up with his walking pace as a child, his ability to carry luggage in our travels without needing external help and just being the dependable person everyone turned to. Yes, there were faults and he was short fused (something that I have inherited as well), but he would get things done. Yesterday, he walked with a limp, was unable to put force on one leg and was in visible distress after standing for fifteen minutes. The person that could walk for hours, work for tens of hours and then come home to play or scold two kids and then go to teach tuition classses...

I suck. Jan'26 edition

Later the coffee gets cold...

Shit keeps happening. I keep making things worse. Further, I have again reached boredom at my job because there isn't anything new to learn and even if there is, there isn't enough pressure on me to keep me invested.

I hate that I have too much free time, so much so that I end up doing nothing about it and not engaging in developing myself in all the areas I plan on when I am overwhelmed with too much work. Why does my brain function in this faulty manner?

Why always potential and ideas but ZERO execution? 

Will I always be like this? Will I ever get over this problem? Why do I fall apart so easily? Why does just a few days without engaging work lead to a downward spiral of mental health which then leads to the decision of burning it all down and starting all over again? Can I never build myself without the crutch of academia? Can I never get anything done without external pressure or the world watching/ passing judgment?

Alice, I used to be good and eloquent once upon a time. I used to be able to articulate conscisely and be able to weave a visual story through my words. Then I shifted to Gurgaon and this shithole of mediocrity that everybody keeps raving about. All this place has done is make me settle for average and good enough and bring my level down.

I am sorry I suck Alice!

My SOP understanding as of 28.12.25

1. I need a plan of action to function. I also need margin in this plan to do impulsive things

2. This plan of action cannot have more than:

    A. 1 major to-dos -must complete item

    B. 2 items with grinding level work - where I sit down and focus

    C. 1 new learning item to feel that I am not derelict yet even though that is the case

3. The bigger issue that needs to be solved on a daily basis is dopamine regulation. I am pretty restless and borderline ADHD which means two things happen everyday...everything resets every morning and I have too much energy. My body does not carry forward all the learnings from the previous day. At night I tell myself that I have clear patterns that need to get better at and when morning comes the same things repeat.

Too much energy at the start of the day if not expended leaves me jittery, wanting to do too many things at once and unable to focus on anything. I end wanting to burn it all down, start again and start learning something new altogether.

Hence, the start of the day needs to happen with physical activitiy, intense and straining which helps me expend energy and get myself out my head. The adrenaline helps me regulate my emotions and then sets a better tone for the rest of the day.

Roadtrip...but the feeling is not the same or is it?

Over the weekend, I had a quick trip to Lucknow. Left Friday afternoon and was back by Sunday night. On the way the trip took 11 hours instead of the expected 8 because of dense fog and zero visibility and the speeds going down to 60. On the way back, it was more driving as usual as the trip was over the course of the afternoon.

Why do I do it? Is it because of my inherent liking for all things cars and driving? It is a contributing factor, sure, but I don't think it is the complete answer. Is it because it is difficult and somewhat of a perceived challenge to drive for 8 to 10 hours straight? This is also not the complete reason but an important contributor.