When Sunshine eludes you...

I had planned to write a perky post. But today has turned out to be one of those days, when you feel weighed down by the little things, the sharp edges that life throws at you every now and then. Or rather, when you finally get tired of using humor and patience to work around these situations. And one day, let these things get under your skin. A bunch of small things that make you mighty uncomfortable like gravel in your sneaker, a fleck of dust in your eye.

We’ve been living out of a suitcase for the past several months (the life of a military wife!). Months that have added up to more than a year, and that’ll soon add up to two long years. We have no news on when we'll finally go back 'home'. For now, we're here for good.

And while our house, large and sprawling, is laid out to perfection in another part of the country, we’ve been living in a single-room transit place (called ‘Mess’ in military parlance and for all the right reasons!), shared with another fellow officer (till recently), out of two suitcases. I spent most of my pregnancy here, and have been mothering a baby boy + trying to get a handle on my work while juggling my new role, all from this place that we can’t call home because the authorities in charge, won’t let us. Because, every time we decide to get a bit comfortable, we’re shuffled like a deck of cards.

I’ll spare you the details (of what each shuffling brings about), but to cut a long story short, our life’s been like a storm in a teacup. It’s been about re-inventing ourselves and dealing with the odds every single day. It’s been about packing and unpacking two dozen times, and vacating our ‘room that’s a house’ every other month. It’s been about dealing with uncertainties and logistical issues; burst water pipes, blocked kitchen drains and clogged washrooms; unwilling ‘help mates’ and well, so much more...every day, every week, every month.

I try to keep my sense of humor handy as I wade through the murky waters of this uncertain situation. I try to draw on my inner strength as life throws some unexpected spanners our way, to make the mix even more interesting and challenging. I try to overcome my dislike for frequent packing as I hop from one place to another every other month whenever we find ourselves homeless (when we’re asked to wrap up and vacate our room for lots of reasons, one of which may include my husband having to go on a tour of duty for the country).

I try to see the sunshine, the good in life, the silver lining in the cloud. And most of the time, I do. But one day, like today, I get jumped. All of it just creeps up on me, and gets me by the throat.

I know, in a few hours, I’ll be back being funny and sunny. But right now, cloaked in thunder, I’ll pull my hair, gnash my teeth, write in my journal, doodle up a dream and then get on with the business of living.

Do you find yourself stumbling upon such days?

art by Chandana Banerjee