Fighting for Love

My paternal grandfather is quite an interesting personality. When we were kids, he taught us grandkids little nursery rhymes and games, he taught us how to read the Bible in Malayalam, and he always had a swing in the front porch when we came for vacation. All this makes him sound like a typical grandpa from Indian movies.. but there was a problem: He didn't really like me.

I am the oldest grandkid in my dad's side and when I was a kid, I used to think that being the oldest was an automatic ticket to being the favorite grandkid. Yes, sometimes my grandpa(appachen) would give me special perks like sitting on his chair for lunch, placing the colorful pink pill in his mouth and choosing the song we would sing for our family prayer. But all these actions would be counteracted with comments on how my cousin is well rounded or how my sister looks so much more like him. As I grew older, I became more aware of the snide comments and his lack of interest, and all the little perks I got was clouded by what I didn't get.

Thats when the fighting began- the fight for love. I tried to get attention, I tried to spend more time with him, I tried the separation technique hoping the time will allow him to miss me. But nothing worked. Finally, I gave up. It was of no use. If it weren't for his insensitive actions, my pestering thoughts about him not loving me got the best of me.

I realized why I have my appachen in my life. My appachen taught me how to be strong inspite of hindrances, and to motivate myself to strive even without perks. But the most important lesson I got from this experience is how to turn to my Savior. I realized that I have a Savior who fights for my love. My Savior who tries to get my attention by being very apparent and giving me all that I wanted. My Savior who gave me the silent treatment so that I learn how to trust in His love. My Savior who fights with so much love that I don't need anything more in this world- not even my appacha's attention.

We are surrounded by people who love us immensely. We also have those people that backstab us, betray us, hurt us and dislike us. They all teach us how to value our Savior's love and to cling onto that forever.

Seeing good in people

Sometimes its easy to remember all the bad things a person has done in your life. Sometimes we can count a billion reasons why this person doesn't deserve a second chance. Sometimes you wonder why you are still talking to this person. Sometimes it seems like a big circle of uncertainty that is going on between the two of you. Sometimes you just want to give up on this person.

Thats when you remember the times this person has stood beside you. Recall the good times that you enjoyed with this person. List out the billion reasons why this person is in your life in the first place. It takes just as much effort to think ill of a person than it is to think good of a person.

I believe in seeing good in everyone. People call me naive, unaware, innocent and maybe even oblivious for this reason, but I believe in giving people second chances. It might not come naturally to me, but I would rather spend energy thinking about how a person can be "good" than how a person can be bad.

There was a time when friends walking out of my life for various reasons took the life out of me. I still care about all my friendships the same way as I have before, but now I can cope with losing friends better. I don't want to tie anyone to a relationship/friendship that they are not comfortable in. I try to learn from my shortcomings and I try to improve myself. But people walking out of my life is no reason to reject people walking into my life.

After a long journey of toil and ponder, I have made my peace with this. I learned to not be judgmental based on past friendships because every new person calls for a new friendship. I learned not to be disheartened by the constant change of friends in my life because each person I met left a mark in me that I will cherish forever. Most importantly, I learned to be more welcoming, giving and serving in my friendships.

It still is a struggle, but at least now I have a starting point..

A New Beginning

One of my secret hobbies is to read people's blogs and notes. We all live in the same planet, but we sure do live in different worlds. Our world is our perception, its how we choose to see things around us, and it is almost unique to us. I enjoyed peeking into my friends' worlds, and I decided its only fair that I let them peek into mine. I used to write in my diary when I was a preteen/teenager and its really interesting to go back and read my old entries and see how much I grew up from my experiences. Maybe somewhere down the road, I will look back and see how I would have changed, or how I'm still set in my ways. My goal is to blog at least once a week, but we'll see how far that goes with pharmacy school and life in general.

Today is January 19th, the first day of my second semester in pharmacy school. Well, that describes today according to my calendar. Today was much more than that. It was the first day I was at UT as a 20 year old. I don't imagine some rush of wisdom to be bestowed upon me now that I am not a teenager, but being in school with a bunch of grown ups have taught me how to be mature, responsible and fun at the same time. I would like to hold onto that this year :)