Tatyana in medias res

A checklist of sorts.  Lists on the internet are so irresistible. Thought Catalog and Buzzfeed endlessly thrive on this format, and I contribute to an unhealthy percentage of those list readers. So here is one, the quarter century milestone. What I have accomplished and what I am yet to make peace with and things that are still work in progress. This is not something you need to apply to your life, because you and I are as different as different can be. Make your own list.   1. Parents - this is the big one. Make peace with your parents. Get to know them, as infuriating as it is, get to know their political party preference and their views on homosexuality. Reason with them why you are right or try to see what their point of view is. And if they have, give them credit for how far they have come to accept changes in the society from when they were kids. The last two years of living with my parents gave me tons of opportunity to do this, though it did end i...

In the last few years, I have read a handful of books that have impacted me in a deeper way than I imagined they would. Freakonomics for example was something I could not put down, I kept nodding my head in agreement with every theory and also realized how my approach to economics in academia was fueled by the behavioral aspect of it. Anthem, by Ayn Rand was another that opened my eyes to the power of I. But nothing could have prepared me for the affirmation that came to my self while reading 'Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch'. To preface as I always do, I am not a religious person, although I do identify as a Hindu. I read the Bhagwad Gita when I was in high school and realized quickly that a lot of the things that practicing Hindus do in the name of religion are not necessarily aligned with my interpretation of the book. I believe more strongly in spirituality which comes from inside and not by public display of God adoration. So while I believe in evolut...

Of course I am going to blog about it. The opposite of love, is fear. And today, I'm letting fear win. We are taught all our lives that love is conditional. That people will only love you if you act a certain way. Everyone from your parents to your teachers tell you that you are desirable if you do the right things and less so if you don't. So obviously when you're interacting with other human beings who are full of doubt just like yourself, you are subject to their pre-set conditions as well. We can never trust them fully when they say they will never leave you. Because human experience says other wise. It is why humans love, then destroy then love again. Because we need to know that even after we have destroyed something it will come back and love us. Love sponsors fear sponsors love sponsors fear... .... and so in the moment you pledge your highest love, you greet your greatest fear. For the first thing you worry about after saying I Love You is whether you y...

“When a boy tells you he loves you for the first time only to become silent like a folded sheet of tissue paper not wanting you to decrease him into the truth, do not crack your face into the fullest crescent moon at the tapered bottom of a blackened sky. He never meant a single word of any of it. He is just a boy, remember? Only a boy, do you remember?” - Edwin Bodney, “When a Boy Tells You He Loves You”

Because I don’t need anyone else to tell me that my fajita burrito is perfection. While a lot of activities are more enjoyable when shared, food fortunately is not one of them. You could have a meal in the presence of others, but their presence has nothing to do with how good my food will taste or how much I will enjoy it. I love that if I wanted to I could walk into a restaurant and order two appetizers, a soup and a drink, a main and more sides, because I’m gluttony personified. I like to take that hour of the day to disconnect from social pressure of making conversation or even listening to anyone else. Even as an extrovert, sometimes you need a minute to recharge and food does exactly that. To reflect on your own thoughts and read that book, or brainstorm on that really backdated blog. Eating alone sometimes gets a bad rep, but take it from someone who is reasonably attractive and could get a date every day for a year for every meal, there is nothing sad about it. I...

It is a true life of privilege if you are always the one who loves less, who feels less, who cares less and invests less. And the only time you figure this out is when that privilege is taken away from you. All your life you have this skewed sense of what love is like and what it should be like and how it should make you feel. Then one day, you find out how wrong you have been. You had never before tasted the agony of not knowing, the restlessness to find out if this is it and the determination to move mountains to make it work. Whatever ‘it’ is. It is like absolutely having to remove the patch of scabby dry skin that is formed over a recent scratch even though it may hurt, you have to do it. Like having to touch the plate right after the server tells you ‘be careful –it’s hot’. This is like the epiphany that Ranbir has in Bachna Ae Haseeno, when he decides to right his wrongs of the past, even though he knows it won’t secure his future with Deepika. But it’s when you see...

Erlebnisse. (n.)the experiences, positive or negative, that we feels most deeply, and through which we truly live; not mere experiences, but Experiences. The only thing good about 2014 was that it was marginally better than 2013, which let’s say was a terrible year. 2014 though was all over the place, it made me a 16 year old at times and a 29year old at other times. I’ve became ‘jaded’ about things I wasn’t ready for. I also realized that being vulnerable is the best way to truly feel things both good and bad and there is nothing wrong with feeling things as opposed to what I thought earlier. Feelings were for the weak. But really they are for those who can deal with them. True to my resolution of the year past, I was more confrontational and therefore more truthful to everyone around me. This one is going to roll over to the next year though because there is a lot more room for improvement. This year a continuation of last year’s second half was also sort of a limbo perio...