How To Make A Happy List

Dear Aditi,
                 I am happy that you're doing your best to stay happy. That got me thinking about what is happiness. Which led me to the realization that happiness is different for each and everyone of us. It is as unique as our fingerprints. Or lip prints, if you want to be creepy.

To me, happiness is being with a person I love (which is usually you and my mum) and going to new places. Usually when there are more than 3 people I feel uncomfortable because I am not the most social of people.

My red leather jacket is also one of my reasons to be happy. And my swan pendant. I know that if I were a cartoon character that would be my look.

Stepping on dry leaves is way up there too. Also walking on gravel. And walking barefoot on grass, which to some may be disgusting but I quite like the wet and ticklish feel of it.

Art is obviously something that makes me content. But it isn't only the drawing or inking part of it. It is the reaction that people have to my work. When someone genuinely likes something that I have made, it gives me so much joy.

These are a few things on the top of my mind that make me happy. But my aim in life is not to be happy, per se. My aim in life is to find things to be happy about. Which will lead to happiness, and I have a feeling it will be a more permanent kind of happiness. My second aim is live with you in London,  but that letter is for another time.

See you later.

Upa.

How To Find A Silver Lining

Dear Upa,

              I have so much to talk about that I don't know where to begin, but at the same time I don't really know what to say. Your last letter was beautiful. Thank you so, so much.

What you said about dwelling on fictional characters’ problems to forget our own is so true. But sometimes it just isn’t enough.

I've spent the last many weeks getting increasingly mad at what I've been handed. It started off with me just being sad at what's happening, but now I am straight up pissed off. You more than anyone are aware of how much I hate change. I wrote my boards, got a week and a half off and then had to join a different school again in a different city with a different board pattern with completely different kind of people. And somehow, miraculously, I managed to actually not mind it, largely because of a subject called Legal Studies. I've never shown more interest in a subject before, except maybe English. And now I have to give up that subject because I need to do Maths, and even worse, I'm writing an admission test for another school tomorrow because this school is being infuriatingly stubborn. I don't know if I have to go to that different school but I do know that too much change has happened and I am not happy about it.

However, believe it or not, I'm not writing this letter just to rant about how unfair everything is. Okay, maybe I am. But I am also writing it to try and help you, or anybody else reading this.

If you, like me, are a human being that has breathed on this planet for a reasonable amount of time, you have, at some point in your life, been pissed off at absolutely nothing. I say absolutely nothing, but we either blame it on our luck, or life, or God, or whatever else we believe in. But this is how life is right now, and this is what you and I have to deal with. Being angry or upset about it is going to change nothing, trust me. Because if it did, it would have definitely worked for me. But it doesn't.

Let's face it, life is absolutely unfair most of the time and that's just how it is. But the way I see it, dealing with it is what makes life what it is. Searching for a silver lining in a dark cloud may not be your idea of fun, but that's what living is. Happiness is a choice. I've always said that the world doesn't have the time to make you or me upset in particular so we should get up and deal with life.

And you're probably wondering why I'm telling you this stuff, and the truth is, I'm not really sure either. But whenever you're not exactly happy and are mad at life for being the way it is, and anime or fiction is just not enough, know that I really do know how that feels. Just come back and read this and know that things do get better, because you have the power to make them better. Besides, I’ll always be there if you ever want to boop my forehead. (I tried it on mumma. She laughed at me. You were right.)

So even if my luck is not the best at the moment, right now, I choose to be happy. I choose to concentrate on the better things, like the smile on my driver’s face when he was talking about his two little children and how happy they were with the traditional Rajasthani clothes my mom and I got them, or the little girl swinging happily on the chain fence outside my school, or the occasional flashbacks I had of my childhood as I walked down the well worn streets of Mayur Vihar, or how I’m going to see you and the others very very soon. I won’t keep searching for that silver lining, I’m going to turn this whole cloud silver. 

Bye for now,

Aditi.

How To Help Yourself

Dear Aditi,
                 For as long as I have known you, I have known that you are the type of person who cherishes people and people’s company. The little things they say and the slightest quirks they have, you notice them. It’s the thing that people love about you, whether they know it or not. Now I don’t know if that is common or not, but I don’t have it. I don’t notice anything unless it is blaringly obvious. And I don’t even remember small details about myself, let alone other people. To put it in the sappiest way possible, you are special and no one can compare to you. It’s horrible that fate is cruel enough to separate you from us first. And here is the important part, first.

Give us all a year, maybe two and we’ll be heading off to different parts of the world. It’s a part of growing up. I mean, you do have to grow up faster than us, but also you did get a debit card first. Give and take, I guess.

Also, you going away did not make the memories memories. They were already memories, even if fate would have been kinder and let you stay. The fun times are memories, they always have been. And yes, they will fade away. Some of them at least; and they will be replaced with better ones. Don’t worry; I will still be in them. Somehow. But you are grieving, and I will allow you to. Only till you come to terms with yourself. Your life.

Now, how I deal with grief. The simplest way to put it is, I don’t. When something upsets me, I watch anime or tv shows or youtube videos until I forget my pain. Until what I was grieving for doesn’t seem relevant anymore. Until the life and struggles of these fictional characters become more important than my life and struggles. I also eat my feelings. And draw my feelings. Sometimes I try getting a piercing to feel more close to someone far away. And the strange thing is, it works.

You could try that or boop everybody’s forehead. It’s funny, but socially unacceptable. So don’t do that. Maybe do it to yourself, but not in public. Mumma would be a perfect candidate for it, just saying.

Sayonara.

Upa.

How I "Deal" With A Crisis

Dear Upa,

                 Thank you for your advice. It was a huge help on the next day and made me relax a bit because as you know, facing new people, for me, is absolutely terrifying. It made me feel a lot better.

Recently, I’ve been experiencing something that is known as, in Danisnotonfire’s eloquent words, an ‘existential crisis’. And although this isn’t the general quarter-life crisis that we are so well acquainted with because of his videos, it definitely is a downward spiral of horror at the inevitability of life and death and occasionally questioning my existence. 

I think it started when it sunk in that I had to move away. It made me think about the amount of memories I’ve made in school and outside of it, the amount we’ve enjoyed together and the fun memories we’ve cherished, and I realised just how pointless all that really was. 

Those “fun times” are just memories. They are all over and they will never come again. Right now, as I type this, time is slipping away, and the moment I typed the previous alphabet is already a thing of the past that I will never be able to relive. It makes everything seem so insignificant. Honestly, I’m scared because most of the memories we’ve shared will be forgotten one day and I don’t want that. I want to remember and I want everything to matter, because otherwise what is the point of doing anything at all?

If you hadn’t guessed by now, yeah, it’s pretty bad. But I know exactly what kind of a response you would have to this. It would be something motivating with a tinge of something realistic and hard-hitting. How I plan to deal with this is to make sure I have something to look forward to and to concentrate on the right now, before right now becomes a back then. 

Anyway, needless to say, I’m a mess. But that’s okay. I miss you, and to be honest I cannot WAIT to make more memories that cause me to cringe with dissatisfaction in the future at how less everything matters. Love you!

Bye for now,

Aditi.

How To Make Friends

Dear Aditi, 
                 Since you are leaving, I figured you will have to make friends. I mean I am great and all, but other friends are important. Now, I am no expert in making friends. But I am pretty decent in making an impression on people. Whether it's bad or good, that really depends on the other person (it’s usually bad.)

Anyway, in my life time of searching how to make friends I realized that the only thing you really need is to be confident. Yup, that’s it. I mean that will last you about a week, and then it is the thing about finding common interests; but with the amount of fandoms I have introduced you to, I doubt that will be a problem.

Now is the question of how to be confident. And to that question, I honestly don’t know. My way of being confident is telling myself that I know this shit, and suddenly I appear confident. Honestly, you shouldn't have expected a better answer.

Think about what makes you feel bad about yourself, and then realize that no one cares! Other people have their own problems to worry about, and I know it hurts, but it’s true.

The second thing you should know about making friends is don’t creep them out. Don’t go to someone and say, ‘I'm just trying to be social.’ That might not work. Actually it would work on me, but I am not normal. The point is, don’t be creepy. Not until the third meeting, though it does depend on the person.

I have come to the point where I am just thinking, why? Why did I even start writing this? It is probably going to end up with me cringing about it later. This is like a sixth grade journal entry. Eh, whatever.

Bye-Bye.

Upa.