Glimpse of the past

I recently had that one and only "Mango Doubles" ice cream, only to realize how some things never change. As adulting hits, you grow out of your old habits and interests. But does that mean that you suddenly start disliking those things? I don't believe so — we just tend to forget about them, so whenever I get an opportunity to get in the shoes of the "kid" me, I jump onto it and hence the "Mango Doubles."

This applies not only to our hobbies and interests but also to our friends or even our first love. So, as they say, "you never forget your first love," and I couldn't agree more because that is the most innocent form of love you have ever experienced in your life. If you're super lucky, that first love also ends up being your last. But for the rest of us, the first love just means a lot of happy memories and some sad ones. After a point, you don't even want to remember why things didn't work out with them, rather you just remember how some little things made you really happy and excited. Even though you think you're putting in all those efforts for your partner but that's not entirely true, is it? You love the way it satisfies you to put in those efforts. You find a sense of purpose in doing those things. I remember collecting the money left after buying groceries for months at end, just so I could gift 18 different kinds of chocolates, each one with a handwritten note, to my first boyfriend just so I could make him feel special (and probably to ease his landing into this adulting thing, which he handled much better than me, to be honest). I'm sure all of you must have done such crazy things for that special one.

Just a little bit about what's been going on in my life- I was going to my office from my home thrice a week. But the travel time sucked because even though my house is only 45 minutes away from my office, the office cab came at 9 am in the morning to reach the office at the time for the 10:30 am shift. This had been going on for a month until I finally got super tired because it's not about traveling as much as it is about waking up early in the morning to get ready for the office when you usually end up working till 10 pm, the previous night. So, I finally decided to uproot my life and move to Gurgaon near my office. I was honestly excited about it because I always wanted to know how it feels like to hustle like an independent young woman (I know it's a bit dramatic but that's who I am). My office offered 14 days of accommodation to all those who moved to Gurgaon and now seemed like the perfect chance of availing that. I must say that I had the time of my life in those 10 days but that's a story for another time. In case you're wondering why I wrote 10 days instead of 14, well that's because I got my ankle fractured (hairline though), and that too on my birthday (yes, anything can happen when I'm in the picture). So, anyway, now that I am on complete bed rest for 3 weeks, I have a lot of time to ponder about the past and reminisce the happier times (and yeah, hence this blog- I know it had been months since I wrote one now).

Why did I tell you my life story? Because I really felt like ranting about how much I miss going to the office. Just today, I was talking to a colleague about how much I'm missing the amazing coffee at our office and he said that we'll place a vending machine right at my workstation when I return just so I could shut up about how much I was missing coffee. So, it's not like I'm not having coffee because my mom has been kind enough to make me a good hot cup of coffee every evening ( I think people around me believe that I'll die if I miss my evening coffee even for a day and I can't really say that they're wrong in believing so because I do love coffee) but the option of drinking unlimited coffee at the office seems just so heavenly. So. now every day when I get my evening coffee, I remind myself of something that happened in the office in the past few months. Just today, I thought about how free some of the people in my team were one day (including me) and we went to the recreational zone in our office to play foosball, only to discover that the left side of that foosball table is cursed because no matter who plays, the team at that side of the table always loses (This is just a pro-tip for any of you office folks reading this blog that always choose the right side of that foosball table).

Enough about the office! Do you remember how we used to love watching cartoons? Wait! You really had to go back in time? We're not the same then because I just watched "Doraemon" and "Mr. Bean- The animated series" last week. Now that I have your attention and you've taken a little trip down memory lane to remember the last time when you watched cartoons, how does it feel to sit on the couch with the only stress in life being that unit test of Social Science you have next week? Remember teasing your siblings and carefully distributing that chocolate equally among yourselves, just because mom said that she won't buy you guys separate chocolates. And do you also remember being excited to go to school, especially on a rainy day because many of your classmates won't be coming and then your teachers will decide not to teach much? I know, simpler times...

Circling back to the "Mango Doubles," it used to be my favorite when I was a kid, so now every time I have it, I find a weird sense of comfort in who I was and how you can find happiness in such little things. Now, it's your time to eat chocos out of the box, drink "Frooty", eat "Melody" and ask everyone "Ye Melody itni chocolaty kyun hai?", watch "Tom and Jerry", fight with your sibling for that last piece of chocolate after you've finished your share and maybe enjoy that glimpse of the past. These are the things that will always provide you comfort no matter how old you get or how lost you feel with this adulting thing. That's probably because we didn't really need to have our lives together back then (XP).