A Leap of Faith

A month ago, I took a giant leap of faith, done something so crazy.. so unbelievably out-of-character for me - that I could not have predicted for myself. Ever. 

I quit my job.

Why is this such a big deal for me?

Because I, unlike most people - actually make that EVERYONE I know - I LOVED MY JOB! I worked a job, I had no professional degree for (I am supposed to be a software engineer) - yet I loved to do, I have made amazing friends in my team members, I met my husband working for this job and to cut a long story short... it was like home.

So why did I quit?

You know, how sometimes in life, things get too comfortable and you need a jolt to wake you up? How sometimes, you know somewhere in the deepest corner in your heart that your calling lies somewhere elusive, just out of reach.. but if you tried hard enough you can reach there? Where you are is wonderful... but its not enough? It's like being in that wonderful relationship.. just before you breakup and meet your soulmate. :) It is perfect, everything is amazing.. but it is still not quite there yet. 

I have been working for animal welfare ever since I adopted my cats from World For All. Since then, I have fostered numerous cats, photographed many adoption events, spoken to a million people for adoptions, designed and marketed a bunch of posters, managed their social channels.. and had my number plastered all over the city/country. There is something about cradling an animal, that emotion that overcomes every single fibre of your being - nothing matches this. Nothing - NOTHING - compares to the feeling that you saved someones life today. 

So, thats what I did. I traded my fancy, high paying, comfortable job, for a job that allows little renumeration, lots of heartbreaks and tears.. and incomparable joy. I told myself, and many people who were skeptical about my decision - if I am not doing this now, I am not doing this ever.

For the first time in 25 years, I find myself without a plan. Well, a long term plan atleast. I find myself without a daily set schedule, something already decided and tried-tested to fashion my days. I will be honest, its been a month, and it is a struggle to come to terms with this missing order to my life. It is a task to force yourself to sit still at the desk, and quietly get some work done. It is like being let into a candy store after starving all your life, you do not know how to react. Where to go first. What to try first. 

There is a world full of possibilities in front of me right now. This is it. There are a million things, that went under my 'always wanted to do, but never found the time' list. The time for all those things is now. This is me, with my eyes closed, both legs forward, taking a leap of faith. 

Annie. 

P.S: Scotch has been taking full advantage of stay at home mommy... :)

Are you working? Wait first see how handsome I am. Blow me a kiss. Carry on. 

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Now Playing: Wishlist | Pearl Jam

Travel safe, Louie baby. :(

A couple of months ago, I came across a beautiful ginger white boy outside my office premises. There was a crowd of people, and this tiny thing was walking up to everywhere, with a searching look on his face, asking to be petted. Some didn't pay attention, some shooed him away.. and then he spotted me and immediately trotted over. I bent down to scratch his head, as I always do with kittens on the street.. pretty much anytime I see them, and I could hear his strong purring. He loved it! I saw his shoulder had an injury, so I knew I was going to pick him up and take him home to treat him. But my best friend from school was in town, and I was meeting her after years. I was supposed to meet her in about... 2 minutes. I picked him up anyway, and met my friend in the cab. She saw him and exclaimed, 'Oh he looks just like my Louie!! My cat that went missing a few years ago..' The new kitten seemed to love having two people cooing over him, and that's how he was named. My beautiful baby, Louie.

Made this adoption poster for him .. Such a pretty boy.

Longing.

You know how it physically hurts to drift away from someone, when you know in your heart you do not want to. And it is almost shocking when you allow yourself to go back in the past and dig up memories of shared closeness? You just have to move on and tell yourself that you grew up. The one you held dear grew up too. And you are just two completely different people, ... and that is all there is to it. Sounds so simple when you put it that way, people just grew up.

And yet, some days you sit and try to remember when was it that you had started to drift apart? When was it that this 'growing up' happened? Was it when you had your first real heart break? Was it when quit tying your hair into two pigtails and traded wearing ugly black school boots for shiny new college heels? Was it when you somehow made it to graduation finish line without having a complete breakdown and stepped out into the big bad world? Or was it when, corporate life killed all semblance of a social life that once existed, quickly distancing you from everyone that exists in your world? 

You may never know when you grew up.

It will be almost funny to remember how, staying in two different states, meeting only but twice a year for short vacations, was enough for two people to be the closest of friends and now staying in the same city, barely an hour away from each other, and the conversation never goes beyond an occasional Whatsapp. You will never know when memories become things of the past, stashed away somewhere on the top of the closet, wrapped in an old sheet, covered with a film of dust by now. Forgotten, because people moved on.

Remember how a decade and a half ago, life was full of all these amazing stories - like that one time you got blasted for ruining mom's sarees - two sets, one for each of the moms - in order to make a make-shift tent on that terrace you spent almost all of your time on. Or like spending endless hours, armed with only that old blue comb, inventing hairstyles that could be worn to school. Or that one time, you lay close giggling in the middle of the night, torch light in hand, looking up meanings to words in that faded old Oxford dictionary, you dare not ask anyone else. When you began a ritual to 'treat' each other with pocket money saved over Diwali, when a cheese grilled sandwich, pavbhaji and two bottles of old Coke, amounting to a mere 50 rupees, was an expensive luxurious meal for two. 

That time when you breathlessly declared that you had fallen in love with that guy who had grown taller and considerably attractive last fall, and definitely seemed to make some suspicious eye contact with you at Holi. And then the winter after that, spending hours on that same terrace, calls names to the same guy in childish fury, for breaking your heart to pieces. Spending an entire night brushing aside boys and their silly antics, to talk about life and career and fucked up families and a future you were too scared to confront.

It all faded away. The terrace grew too small, the heartbreaks got too big. The future we were so worried about, became the present... one in which you were just a figure on the sidelines. Marriage happened, kids followed. New families happened. New responsibilities happened, and  all our childish playthings were packed away. We went from knowing all to knowing barely anything. This wasn't just falling out of touch, this was more. This was not just growing up, this was growing out of each other. 

It happens. I know. But just this once, can we go back to 90's again and stay there a while longer?

~ Annie. 

P.S: I miss you M. :(

P.P.S: Something that would have come easily to me otherwise, but for some reason it didn't this time around - That time you called me at 4AM, while you were awake tending to your kid and I was awake tending to my sick kitten, and we giggled quietly whispering about how we were now mom's feeding our babies.... I swear I was back to our sleepover when we slept out in the hall, giggling at 4AM. 

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Now Playing: To Make You Feel My Love | Kris Allen

Blogger stats and related revelations! :D

So I read this recent post by PeaBee, in which she mentioned some of her blog's stats, which got me very curiously on my own dash, looking through all the 260 - two hundred and sixty? WOW! - posts and checking out my blog stats! I have added^ / edited* some questions, and I seriously recommend you do this activity in case you have been (like me) blogging for a while! Total walk down memory lane, this one. :)

My first post: Hello World
Okay this is mortifying. As we can see, I had an insane tendency to use a lot of full stops and exclamation points. And utter disregard for correct spelling. In my defense, this was FIVE years ago. And it is ironic and funny how, my life DID turn into a human-rights, save-the-animals themed story. :)

Why hello again.

So, dusting cobwebs and generously dousing the place with air fresheners, here I am, out of my blog hiatus. 2 questions - why was I gone and why am I back?

First, easy to answer, I was super busy. As we may be aware, I was on my conquest of the 26 before 26, specifically the 'Do atleast 5 weddings / 20 portraits, the paid kind'. Yes dear awesome people (who still read this blog :P), I have recently crossed off my list item with flourish. This has kept me so busy that hardly anything else has moved from my list!

Second, a little more difficult to answer, but I think I am now wise enough to add my two cents to a piece I read today - 6 Vital Questions To Ask Before You Are Ready To Say I Do. Call it a critical analysis if you will. I'd like to say - great piece whoever wrote it (since the byline was missing.. or mysteriously placed elsewhere), good flow, some great points. So here is what I have to say / add about the whole topic:

So You Think You Can Dance!

Working alone can make you seriously lose track of time... because you are wasting so much of it! :| To cut a long meaningless story short, I landed on my favourite part of YouTube again - SYTYCD re-runs. :)

Here are some of those perfect, beautiful, flawless dance routines, that never grow old, never seem any less fascinating or any less beautiful, no matter how many times you see them. These are some of the best dancers I have ever seen.. and I so wish they had dancers / choreographers like these back here in India!

Pick Me, Choose Me, Love Me

So far, it has only been me and the bestie who love watching Grey's Anatomy.

Maybe because we both were introduced to the series very recently, and have been obsessed with it so far. I had been meaning to catch it for ages, but it was only recently that I managed to get hold of all the seasons and LITERALLY watched them in one go. I actually bunked work one Monday (!) because my head was aching from all the continuous hours of watching the series and then stayed in all day watching some more. Haha.

Why?

This is a rant. 

Ending the year with a list!

If I was ever asked to give a success tip, I would definitely say 'Make a list!'. Everything I have going for me in the present, was a line item on a list I made sometime in the past. Of course some lucky things also followed of their own accord. But making a list and obsessively following it, is a way to ensure that your goals remain on your mind and within sight. At all times. Trust me, it works.

Turning 25

Best. Birthday. Ever. That is the only way to describe 5th December 2012.

Having suffered through a panic attack about one week before my birthday this year (panic about turning 25, and crossing over to the 'adult' list from the 'young adult' one), my birthday was by far the most awesome, wonderful birthday I have ever had. The strange part being I celebrated it with only 3 people (Nutties and two school-time best friends), zero internet connectivity, no phone in my hand, total disconnect from the world!