Burn the Old

And in keeping with the theme of the year Diwali had me with the flu! The Diwali party I went to had me in tears when a guest innocently asked me about my health. I blamed it on over tiredness and far too much medication with almost no food but it spoke to me of a deeper worry. This year my health got me scared. I was tired of being ill, fed up of the pain and was almost desperate to have a day where I felt better. It also made me realise that while I was so busy pretending that none of this mattered to me at all, in truth, it actually did.

The party was cut short by the worried husband and I fell asleep with more medication, wheezing severly and in pain.

But like always we started the new day , with me pretending the previous vulnerable me didn’t exist. I marched around the house lighting lamps, cleaning up, powering through a back pain, fever and faking that I could actually breathe. It was then in the evening, the magic of Diwali happened.

Some friends came over- just to relax, hang out, have a drink and laugh. They didn’t care how I looked or what I felt like. They accepted that I couldn’t get up so easily and that I was cold and flu-ish. They marvelled at the little lighting I had done and played new games which neither of us understood. They made Diwali easy. Diwali became about friends and family. It became about no judgement and easiness and the lights were all of us in that room- laughing and smiling.

I stopped pretending and guess what, the world didn’t stop loving me… and I didn’t lose face either… a remarkable revelation , in many ways most so for me!

This Diwali wasn’t fancy.It was simple. It was intimate. It was messy. And that was perfect.

P.s. (Palat says)-: The end of the year sometimes also means learning to put an end to the expectations and drama you carry within yourself. If you kill your inner Ravana (ego), you can allow your soul to fully shine through…