It’s been a year since I have written something. My last post was the first of a series that I wanted to do but didn’t get to complete. And in this one year, I have experienced pain like I have never before. Despite all these years of dealing with grief in various capacities, I wasn’t prepared for what I was hit with. I couldn’t romanticize my sorrows like I usually did. Worst of all, I lost my way with words. I don’t know how to write anymore.

My paternal grandfather died last October. He peacefully passed away in his sleep at the age of 90. So it’s not like it left me distraught. But the idea of my dad being “orphaned” at the age of 49, confused me, to say the least. As much as he is my father, flaws and all, he was also a son. It hurt to hear him say that he wasn’t a child anymore. And I can partly relate to it. Every time I mess up or funnily enough, when I miss the feeling of being overly criticized, I call up my parents, even if they’re 9.5 hours ahead of me in time because that’s one thing that my acha promised me when I left India approximately 10 months back. That I can call them even if it’s in the dead of night. And I have shamelessly taken advantage of that privilege multiple times, from when my Forex Card misbehaved two weeks after landing in the US, to when my pressure cooker caught on fire a month back. So who do my parents go running to when they are dealing with a crisis now? My dad is an orphan and my amma can’t just call up her 78-year-old single mother (my Mummy who is Joni Mitchell’s age) whenever a research scholar doesn’t submit their work on time. 

In the past year, I lost two of my best friends to suicide. At this point, it has become a part of my personality and I use their stories for comical relief during stressful situations. After all, how do you deal with loss? Nobody told me I’d have to be prepared to deal with grief as if nothing happened when you're pursuing graduate studies. And it’s not like I can drown the sorrow with alcohol. Who’s going to listen to these nerds talk about their research on Responsible AI if I am hungover? Although, I’d rather pull out my ears than have to listen to someone talk about neural networks one more time.

A really close friend of my grandparents died last week. As I read my uncle’s message, I was four years old again. I was taken back to when my grandfather died. 19 years and I still don’t know how to process his loss despite having gone through worse. And I think I am okay with that. I’d rather experience pain than be numb to it, no matter what I have been through.