How many pictures are enough pictures

    

I'm taking a mental health break right now. I've found these to be quite useful, especially after the taxing last year I had, thanks to a toxic workplace. When I feel like I can't make any progress at all, that I've hit an absolute roadblock, or when I could push myself to work further but at the cost of my own health, I stop and take a break. Sometimes my break looks like going downstairs to brew a cup of tea. At other times, it's calling my mom up to tell her about what's new in my life and follow-up with updates about the motherland. Yesterday, however, it was a nap because I felt destroyed, partly due to the commute-heavy weekend I had and partly due to the lack of professional permanence.

There's so much fluff out there, nobody ever talks about the real stuff even when you explicitly mention this to them. I recently reached out to an old friend after years and besides the usual small talk, no more words were exchanged. There was the promise of a video call and exchange of more personal details but it never came to fruition. I'm starting to believe that is truly alright. I, too, have a life after all and finding a few moments to sit down and chat can be difficult during some phases in life. Although this past weekend, it wasn't that difficult and my other friends and I rang the husband up and had a nice chat together. I love when my friends can connect with other people in my life our of a genuine need for bonding, unlike desi curiosity.

These days, I want to cook more home food. I want to learn to make more soups, more stews, more pies. I want to crawl back into my cocoon and start again. I want less of this processed life and more listening to my own natural rhythm. Today, I've decided I want a break from daal chaawal sabzi and have a nice creamy chicken pasta instead, which, by all means, I will be cooking myself at home. I love this half-passive planning of weekly meals and knowing exactly what's going to go into my belly on a given day. I wish this for everyone, everywhere.

While typing this, I had a minor panic and felt my fingers for my two rings — my mother's carved Italian silver which she got when she passed her matriculation and my own wedding band which my husband and I decided to exchange privately one night, away from a room full of eyes, because it meant something to us and wasn't for anyone else at all. The latter reminds me of P asking why I never posted my vacation pictures only for me to affirm, "[The holiday] wasn't for anyone to see or for me to show off".

One day, I will run out of ambiguous images to use for my many blog posts.