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Dreamers and Doers

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As I approach two years of marriage, a thought came to mind. You see, I have always been a woman of big dreams, not the ambitious kind, but the audacious ones; the kinds of dreams that people only dare to envision when they feel that the whole world is their oyster. But there is a fatal flaw in my approach. All I can do is dream! In my lifetime nearing three decades, I may have dreamt of so many things to do, places to be, people to meet! But I have never brought any of my big dreams to reality. Until…I met my husband. Every dreamer needs a doer, someone who can walk with them every step of the way and hold their hand as they try to reach for the stars. For me, that someone became my husband. Before I met him, I would come up with all the ways to make something happen but never take the first step. I would think of all the things I would get from doing something, but never find the motivation to step out of my comfort zone. But when a doer entered my life, things started to slowly ch...
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Keeper of my Soul

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If I ever lost my memory, who would I trust to bring it back to me? I saw this question online today, and it got me thinking. Would it be my parents, my partner, or my friends? Or would I look at my diaries, blog posts, and journal entries? I landed on someone, but obvious- someone who has seen every version of me and won't shy away from telling me things the way they were and not the way I construed them to be. Someone who remembers my childhood better than I do, someone who has seen me closely enough to know which parts of me are worth remembering and which can be left in the unknown. If you haven't guessed who the person is - it's my sister. We share the same blood and brain cells. I know she gets most of her personality from me (even though she might never admit it). She somehow managed to become a saner, more confident version of who I could be. And that's one reason I would trust her to restore my memory. Having a sibling to grow up with is probably the greatest b...
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And the dominoes are falling

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When I was young, I desperately wanted to be an adult. A decade ago, I became one, and what a glorious run it has been - the freedom, the autonomy, the ability to make my own choices! But now, I am tired. The responsibilities are slowly weighing on my shoulders. I don't want to be a child, go into my past - those were never my glory days. But I am also dreading my present, not because I don't have the things I always dreamt of, but because I do. When the fictional universe declared 'with great freedom comes great responsibility', I never realised what it meant, until now.  For the past two months, since the moment I turned twenty seven, a quiet demon has possessed me - I am sad, perpetually sad. Sad because I can't see a future beyond thirty. Sad because the world keeps screaming war at me. Sad because I can't decide if I want to bring new life into this seemingly horrible world. Where is hope? I somehow can't seem to find it. But here we are and this is lif...
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To the friends of my friends

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I like the friends of my friends. The same-city friends of my long-distance bestie. The college friends of my school friends. The childhood friends of my adult friends. The guy friends of my girl friends and the girl friends of my guy friends.  I see the joy in their eyes when they talk about these people, some who were there before me and those who came after me. There is something magical about knowing that even if nothing else ties me to these people, we are united on one front - being there for our friend. The sense of camaraderie, joy and fulfillment I gain by knowing that someone else cares for someone I love in ways I can't, is inexplicable.  It makes me realize that I play a very specific role in each of my friends' lives and they in mine. Meaning - no one person can fulfill the other's every need - no matter what! While I can be a sounding board for my long-distance besties, I can't help them move flats, sitting miles away. With some friends, I can jam to all k...
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Witness 2025

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Two hours before the year 2026 began, I was sitting at church, watching our achen urge the congregation to stand and share their witness stories for the year, and I stayed still, knees locked into place. Every New Year’s watch night service, I sit at church, and I let the voices in my head get the better of me “You can’t even speak in a singular language” “How will people understand if you yap in the colonial tongue?” “If you are witnessing only unto your God, you don’t need to get up!” But this year, I want to at least write my story down. So here is every way I felt my God’s presence in 2025 – In 2025, I was protected, as I travelled to seven different states (maybe eight – I lost count!), three within a span of twenty-one days. I turned a year older in grace. I got sick and got better. Lost a soul and grieved. Broke my bones and healed. 2025 for me was the year of rest and quiet resetting – of priorities, mind-set and loyalty. I found my people, lost a few, reconnected with peo...
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I am back at my maiden home for a couple of days, and I find myself constantly hovering around my parents, especially my mother. I don’t want anything from her, I just want her in the same room – even if it is just us sitting and doing our own thing. I just want to see her. Ever since I got married, I find myself constantly reaching out to my mother every time I am overwhelmed in an alien situation or unable to handle my own feelings. This time when I came home, I found my mother telling me how once your parents die, there is no one truly yours left on this earth – your siblings have their own families and so do your adult children; you have your husband, but no one you could rely on like your mother. This conversation flipped another script in my head – Am I ready to be what my mother is to me? If you raise a child fairly well in this world, chances are, they will need you for the rest of your life. So I ask myself - Am I ready to be a mom? Well, I don’t know the answer yet. I t...
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Turntable

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I was twelve years old the first time I got to represent my church’s youth wing in a centre-level competition. For context, my church has a youth wing for anyone above the age of 12 till the age of 35/40 to be a part of. Every region with a considerable number of churches becomes a centre (I belong to the one in Delhi), and every year we get together to participate in various competitions (singing, quiz, sports, plays, etc.) and conferences. I have shared about one such conference experience I had as a twelve-year-old before. If you haven’t read about that and are curious to know more, here’s the link - https://blog.sharlinthomas.in/2024/01/one-minute-girl.html Bright-eyed, extremely awkward Shar got the opportunity to use her talents to the best of her abilities. The confidence she gained was reflected in her school performance and in who she was becoming as a person. The first time I got to stay away from home without my parents was when I was fifteen. There was a youth confer...
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Till death do us part - Season 1

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It’s official! It has been one full year since I stood in front of what felt like a million people and claimed this one man to be my lawfully wedded husband. And what a year it has been! There was unsurmountable joy, irrevocable sadness, fear of the unknown, feeling stuck, peace beyond reason, learning things about oneself like never before, and changes – so many changes! For someone who grew up on order and plans, I watched my world crumble and get back together in a year. I had only heard in myths and stories, how much yoking with someone you call your own could change every part of you. But now, one full trip around the sun as a married woman, I know. So here goes, lessons learnt from season one of the ‘till death do us part’ saga– The curse of newness – When things are new, everything feels giddy. The world opens up to new possibilities that the mind is jet-set-ready to explore. But when the dust settles and the sheen is gone, you realise the importance of what you left behin...
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A couple questions

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It was a chilly afternoon. We were sitting in class, waiting for our professor to show up. It was one of the few classes in which our brains were really worked up over seemingly fundamental truths and questions to be answered.  One such question we were asked that day was this - Who are you? A simple question at the surface, but something too profound to grapple with. I remember that day, nineteen-year-old me wrote ten long sentences describing my ethnicity, religious affinity, birth order, abilities, talents, various social groups I belonged to, and the roles and titles I held as a person.  Now, twenty-six year old me wonders - if I strip away my social identity and the roles I play, who am I then? Here's what I think -  I am a dreamer. Someone who cooks up stories through her writing, rewrites her past in her brain, and runs the trains of mindless thoughts into her unpredictable future. I love entering into the worlds created by others through their art - be it books, m...
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Clear is Kind

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It’s been nearly two years since I started my PhD program, and I have spent most of my time reading the works of those who came before me. I fairly enjoy reading difficult texts. I’ve been the kind of person who, as a child, would read a dictionary for fun, carry it along to decode complex verses in unabridged versions of Shakespearean plays and 18th-century novels. But somehow, despite all that training, I still find academic papers to be the toughest lot I have ever tackled. Having spent one year navigating through corporate jargon at work, I really thought academia would be different. Silly me! At first, I believed it was my lack of conceptual clarity that caused these problems around comprehension. But as time went by, I realised, sometimes it’s really not the reader’s fault! First, I had to figure out how to get through pesky publisher paywalls. Then I realised, it is better to take an open-access publishing as the positionality for my work than struggle senselessly with c...
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Precocious Grief

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I have been sitting with this thought for months now. Virtually unable to pen it down until I saw this reel that really triggered me enough to let my emotional bucket overflow. I am reaching an age where chances of me losing a loved one to time are greater than finding new souls to call my own. And I don’t know what I am supposed to do with that. I am a future-focused thinker, no matter how hard I try to be present in the moment. So when I meet my friends, or talk to my parents, sit with my partner, or laugh with my sister, I am actively dreaming up a reality in my head where they won’t be with me. Then there is also the thought, What if I am the one to fade away first? I am petrified of what my last memory would be in the minds of the people who matter to me. Since ammachi’s death I have been extra careful of how I end conversations and meetings with people who own a part of my soul. Is this normal? – To experience grief way before I have truly experienced it as reality. Am I losing o...
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Humility and Joy

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My dearest Binu achen, I'm sitting here at church. It's the 8th of June. In a week from now, it will be seventeen years since you left for your heavenly abode. The educational scholarship offering we collect in honour of your memory... it's helped so many kids study in the past two decades. Is it a coincidence that your death anniversary coincides with my ammachi's? I think not. You were one of the few people who smiled with their eyes - true Joy's fruit of the Spirit. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news - in my room at home in Kerala, far away from reality. I never got to see you then. I was too young to understand the depth of the loss when you passed away. A part of me is glad that the only image in my head of you is the smiling, cheerful one.  Every time I pick a badminton racket, I remember you. The centre youths host a badminton tournament in your name every year. In all of Lord's glory, atleast we know that you left this world doing what ...
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On the other side

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In the enchanted forest, only the strong survive. In this magical place, mortals and souls collide, mortals on earth, souls in heaven, divided by a mirror-like dimension, with the mortals desperately attempting to bring the souls earth-side. When two mortals forge an alliance, they form a bond strong enough to pull the souls into their world. We call them soul-ties, the bonds these mortals form with the souls on the other side of the mirror, only to catch a glimpse of the souls sometimes. The souls reflect all that is good, the mortals live in a world full of evil. Some debate the value of pulling souls into the sinful world, away from eternal happiness. But for most mortals, these souls are the only way they can experience a glimpse of what heaven looks like. I am a mortal who entered into this magical enchanted forest without an invitation. My only qualification was the newly forged alliance with another mortal. Soul-ties are a product of love they say. And in our little universe...
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The First Season

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I just read on the internet that at 26, you are only on the first season of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. And this got me thinking. Where exactly am I in the 'first season' of this life? 1. I am on my 20th day of re-starting to work out again. 2. It's my first month of learning how to play the violin. 3. My fifth month of being married. 4. Eight months since I published my first research paper in an International Journal. 5. A little over a year as a PhD scholar. 6. Two years and two months since I published my first book - Shades of Love. 7. Two years and six months to my very first adult job. 8. Three years to have graduated with a Master's Degree. 9. Three years to have lost my ammachi. 10. I am celebrating the fifth year of my blog on May 7th. 11. Six years since I first learnt how to play the ukulele. 12. Eight years to my first VBS leader experience. 13. Nine years of my bonus life. 14. Ten years since I graduated my 10th grade. 15. Thirteen years since I first felt in love w...
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Coffee and Complaining

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I don’t talk about my faith very much. Even though it is one of the most important aspects of my life, I have always presented a watered-down, secular version of it in public. But that is really not the case. In an attempt to make weekend plans with me, a very close friend of mine said, “I keep losing you to church”. Interestingly, that has always been the case. Since I was a very little kid, Sundays were always for church. For twenty-five years, my schedule looked like this – Monday to Saturday: School/College/Work; Sunday: Church. You may ask – when does this girl take a break? Honestly, I don’t think I have had one till I entered into my PhD program and switched to taking up remote work assignments. Sundays continue to remain for church. But this is not about how I spend my Sundays – this is about my faith journey. Five minutes ago, in my morning worship, I read this Bible verse – ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news’ (Romans 10:15b). And it follows ‘faith co...
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Faster than the speed of light

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I t's 30th January 2025. Another month is coming to an end. The pace at which each day has been moving since I turned an adult is astronomical. Do you feel that way too? It's like each individual day doesn't feel too fast but time in general, it's sprinting. Is time faster than the speed of light? No? It certainly feels so to me. I was sixteen a blink ago. And now I am twenty six. Closer to turning forty than I was to being a goofy ten year old. But that is also the beauty of it all. I have always wanted to be an adult. To have complete autonomy over my time and space. Not to say that I didn't have any growing up. But I find it easier to live with each passing day. Twenty five felt like an awakening. Twenty six feels like an island breeze. I feel calmer, more in control of myself, more willing to make choices that serve me best regardless of how people around me may feel. I also feel my energies shifting. This year I did not cut a birthday cake but I spent a whole w...
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A day in the life of a PhD Scholar

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Hi, I am Sharlin. It’s been one year since I joined the PhD program at the Department of Social Work, University of Delhi. And this is a typical Tuesday in my life. 6.30 am: Wake up Spotify is linked to my alarm so I wake up to a random song I have in my favorites’ playlist, an almost perfect start to the day. Brushing and bathing later, I drink a glass of warm water first thing in the morning. Six months ago, I came across a book called the Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron. It calls for two regular practices to keep the artist in you alive. 1. Write a page of absolutely whatever comes to your mind (It takes me about half an hour to get through this) 2. Take yourself out on an ‘artist date’ once a week, doing things you like for fun and to reconnect with yourself. (Still struggling to be regular with this, but when I do, it’s the best time) 7.45 am: Get ready Getting dressed doesn’t take much time because I usually end up deciding what to wear the previous day (an absolute game-ch...
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Thirty days since…

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It’s been exactly a month since I made one of the most crucial decisions of my life. I stood in front of (what felt like a billion) people facing God and promised to have and to hold this one man for life! That was day 0. Thirty days later, I have things to say. Lessons I learnt; the life I gained. But first – some facts: 1. Mine was an arranged love marriage that took more than a year to make, giving me and my partner ample time to get to know each other and for our parents to bond. 2. Both of us were raised in similar life circumstances, allowing us to relate and agree to many aspects of leading life. 3. Since our first meeting, we have intentionally discussed our family, career and life goals.   4. Our priority was to allow our families to take the lead in planning the wedding which saved us as a couple enough time and space to focus on life after the wedding day. The wedding day was fun, extremely eventful to say the least. But thirty days into the reminiscence, here are a ...
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PhD and Periods

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It’s been ten months since I joined my PhD program and it seems like sufficient time for me to talk about my experience so far – specifically about…my menstrual cycle! I have been an academic girlie my whole life, but I never quite realized how much my hormonal cycle was affecting my work productivity, till I joined for PhD. The most salient feature of any PhD program is the need for self-discipline and the volume of creativity to get through any work assignment that comes one’s way. This means that for the first time in 25 years – I was the true master of my own time. I believe this is the reason why in over a decade of being declared a woman, my brain never registered signs of my body backing down, each time I was close to my periods. Having a factory-set routine can really numb these signs. I was proud of myself for being able to travel four hours a day, work eight hours, six days a week and then make it to church every Sunday. But ever since last October, when my body finally had...
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Of love and courage

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Art immortalizes humans - The creator and the muse. It is the single most intangible legacy. More than material possessions collected as precious treasure, passed on from one generation to the other, the things humans envision in their minds, create with their bare hands and leave on this planet leave a mark so indelible that the echoes remain for centuries to follow. I am sure Shakespeare and Beethoven were just enjoying their talent come to fruition when they made those masterpieces. Who knew that centuries later, you and I would be studying them in school, and listening to the remixed music on Ig reels! Why have these thoughts possessed my head? I was listening to music, the playlist shuffling songs without much of my volition. A song started playing, deep baritone voice on a piano ballad. It’s someone I never got to know any more than a passing acquaintance. I have been more of a fan than a friend. The song hits hard every time I hear it. Why you ask? It was his swan song. Unin...
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🍫

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First love feels like taking a bite of chocolate for the first time in your life That feeling gets etched so deep into your being… You can never really recover from it… Nor can you find that feeling again   More often than not, this feeling is fleeting Never to last a lifetime Only memories of that first taste of madness…   We keep wandering…desperately searching for that familiar feeling Never to really find it…anywhere again   But then one day there comes, An unexpected turn of events Something new… A sweetness that coats our tongue Reminds us of that first taste of addiction Of madness, of childhood   A different version of that familiar feeling We no longer pine for familiarity We relish in this newfound feeling It seems worth the effort Worth the wait Worth a lifetime…   Lucky are those who find this feeling… Luckier still, if that feeling stays!
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What's in a name?

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My sister texted me from the other room today. It was a hilarious conversation as always. But then, staring at her name saved on my phone I realized – We don’t have nicknames! We are the one-name and one-name-only gang. I'm not sure how many of you reading this will relate. But Charlotte and I have had to wait three seconds into someone calling our name out to know if they wanted to talk to Lin or Let! The other ‘perks’ of being born with no loving nicknames our loved ones called us is that we got ridiculously attached to our names. Now this does not mean we never got our fair share of nicknames or accidentally mispronounced names! Over the quarter century, I have spent on this planet, in chronological order, I have been called – SST, Lin, Ms Thomas, Shar, Sherlin, Shalini (a go-to for tele-callers), Shalu, Sharu, Sheru, Shera and my personal favourite – Sara. How I got my name is a conversation starter I often use to break the ice with new people. Let’s just say it was a commu...
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Dear Men...

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It’s the last day of Men’s Mental Health Month for the year. I wasn’t meaning to write anything until now. But in the last few days, I saw a couple of my closest men break down and open up to me that I wanted to say something to document this moment and this cause. I am a woman. I cry a lot. I was raised being exposed to a single male influence a.k.a. my father, no brothers or close male friends till adulthood so I haven’t really known what bottling up emotions feel like. Now, that I have grown older, been in close proximity of men with varying heights of emotional walls, I can safely say that I am exposed enough to give my two cents on the matter. So here goes… Dear men of my life (and of the world?), I am sorry you have always felt the burden of protecting and providing for the people in your life that you never got to take a second glance at your own wishes and desires. I am sorry you were raised in a way that prevented the child in you from fully feeling all the emotions a hu...
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Quiet Love

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 This weekend my family went through a major life update and I realized something! You see, I come from a place where emotions are not expressed, the way they show it in popular media. There are no 12 a.m. birthday wishes and celebrations, no hugs and embraces, no ‘I Love Yous’ being said every wakeful moment. What is there, is love... Love in a form that I never realized existed until now. Love in the form of toiling away for your sake. Love in the form of showing up in ways only they can. Love in the form of doing things for us in ways we never expected anyone to do for us. It’s the quiet love. One that does not use elaborate words or gestures to express itself. The one that is consistent, reliable and, ever present. Love that feels like a cool gust of wind on a warm summer day.  I am loud when I love. There are hugs, handwritten letters, random gifts…What happens because of this is that I have a bias towards people who show love the way I do. I am sure all of us feel that w...
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Choosing Joy

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 I am home, about to embark upon a journey of a lifetime and life is throwing so many curveballs my way that I could arguably only wallow in self-pity. But this is where I had a call with an elder sister I never had and she gave me the most touché yet often forgotten action I could take when life does not go our way. And that is what I want to tell you today! The act of choosing joy…an active striving to choose things and people and activities that give us pure and unadulterated joy, especially when circumstances are not going our way. This is very different from the toxic-ominous positivity that the world has made us believe in. This is not a covered up illusion, but an acknowledgement that life is shit, but we are consciously choosing joy and in that way, choosing ourselves. Now, how do we really choose joy? Step 1: Acknowledging our circumstances I have briefly mentioned this already. The idea is simple – to take a cold hard look at life and figure out what we can and cannot cha...
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Privilege

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I woke up from a lazy long drawn slumber From my air-conditioned room to my air-conditioned office I travelled In my air-conditioned metro… Delhi crossed a half century on the degree Celsius I enjoyed my vanilla ice-cream with banana bread My sister and mum experimented today… In my office my students greeted me I decided their fate with my red pen Evaluation day it was for them… Posted a few stories on Palestine Oh the comfort of breaking my silence In the safety of my nation… Chai pe charcha after work My students ask me about my scholarship Maheena ka itna itna I say… I take a sip from my cup The chai-waala toils away… There is so much disillusion around me Am I supposed to pray or run away? Hide or continue with my day… Is this enough? What would suffice? How am I supposed to act? Can I even do something? I don’t have the answers I hope I find the answers…
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Loving is letting go

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In twenty-five years of my existence on this planet, the one thing I have struggled with the most is grief –losing friends to circumstances, family to death, loved ones to choices, opportunities to fate and parts of myself to time. Losing myself I started calling growth, in the hopes that I am becoming a better version of myself with time. Losing opportunities, I called destiny, that life has something better, more meaningful for me. Losing family I called time, circle of life complete with fond memories left behind. But losing friends and loved ones…I struggle with that even today. When someone who knows and owns a part of your soul suddenly becomes a stranger, that realization can be gut-wrenching. But now I know better, and that is what I want to share with you today. See my problem was looking at people who entered my life as investments. I put my time, effort, love and care into you, and you remain in my life as a person I hold dear. When you decide to leave, you take away eve...
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Ripple Effect

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It is 11 am on Friday the 15 th of March, 2024. About an hour ago, I got a call from someone completely unexpected. It was an employee from my former organization. I wondered, ‘Why is she calling me?’ I picked up the call. We exchanged pleasantries. And then she told me why she had called. About a year and a half ago, during my initial months as a new employee, I had a field visit to her centre. I recognised the need for something to be executed which would prove useful and with her support, I developed a training program and that region became the pilot for it. Cut to a year later, the core team appreciated the initiative and it was implemented across the program. I had to leave the organization before I could see the fruits of our labour. But when she called today, all she had to say to me was thank you for helping her with it and paving the way for better representation of her work when accounted for. Now, I am not writing this to toot my own horn. This is more of a gratitude t...
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