Crayons (reminiscences of a childhood)

Drawing everyday feels good even if it's just a doodle to those who enjoy it. It's been around 3-4 days in a row that I've been drawing daily. It's nice, it feels good to practice.

Normally I try my best to draw as close to the reference pictures or the images in my mind. 

Today, I tried to do it differently. 

I didn't keep any such standard in my process. I just took my sketch pen, drew some really simplistic drawings with my right hand...I made it a point to draw things I remember I used to draw often as a child. Then I took out my oil pastels and coloured it in with my left (non-dominant) hand. I chose my non-dominant hand purposely to re-live the child-like colouring I used to do in those years. I embraced the nostalgia of my childhood and all the memories of it. 

It was difficult to colour within the outlines, but I let myself be less than my achievable level of perfect. I smiled and coloured as I thought of my childhood spent colouring. 

I remember the smell of crayons and the boxes of them my teachers used to keep in their cupboards. I remember how my eyes would be fixed on those boxes whenever I roamed around in my latter schooldays as well, when I was in high-school. I love the feeling of potential in boxes of stationery and bunches of empty papers. They're so empowering to my mind that's ever ready to create something. (Even if the creation is terrible).

I remember how simple life was at that point. School days spent memorizing numbers & alphabets, drawing & colouring and making friends. It's not that I would want to go back in time, however, I'm just nostalgic.

I remember the old children's shows I used to watch, like Blues Clues, Teletubbies and Dora the Explorer. I also remember how I cringed when I watched it again at the age of 14 or 15. I still want to try food from the Teletubbies even to this day. 

 

I remember all those colouring books I'd get. But had a strange hatred for. I wanted to colour my own drawings, not someone else's. Though, some were an exception. That feeling of wanting to make my own path isn't new, I guess. 

I know how easy life can be when we don't force our paths to be perfect and comfortable...but allow things to happen so that could lead to our growth and improvement. There's so much to learn. But like the crayons I used today that I couldn't help but colour outside the lines sometimes, I'll try to not be to hard on myself when I get things wrong....as it was before in those sweet childhood days.

A friend for every trait

What a roller coaster ride my life has been with such a variety of people I call my friends! I’m pretty sure, you too can look back into the past and see the people who have been by your side when you needed them and the ones who didn't.

Whatever our experiences, shared or personal, we gradually understood the kind of bond we shared with those we called our friends.

I get it, friendships evolve as we do. Some end abruptly and some never seem to end.

I used to be the kind of girl that never understood how people would have friends they knew for around a decade. I thought they were lucky back then.

Now I’m not so sure I care anymore. I’m fulfilled with the way randomness gave me the friends I have or at least, did have at some point.

When I count the number of close friendships I have, I feel rich. This is the phrase I keep in mind when I see the variety and complexity of friendships I’m in....

A friend for every trait.

I like how I see myself reflected through my friends....they bring a whole new dimension to my interests and quirks.

I have friends with similarities in areas such as musical taste, germophobia, social anxiety, aesthetic, philosophical reasoning & logic, faith, aspirations, nerdiness, art style, introversion and so on. One friend can have more than one similarity...but what I really get excited about is when I make a friend who’s dissimilar to me...I see it as an opportunity to learn to see the world through another’s eyes....to see something different, to learn something different....it all excites me.

It took me a while to get to this point, but I no longer need to have people exactly like me in order to respect them....I don’t understand my friends all the time nor have all the same beliefs they do....but I know how to be respectful of their life. It’s so freeing. And it has opened a whole new world for me.

Friends leave sometimes....some, out of the blue, some, expected...some eventually....and some come back to you.

This is always a hurtful experience. Some close friends remain distant...and a void exists between us when we see each other. Another stinging experience is when you see someone who used to be close to you, and now isn’t a friend at all. And some friendships, never take root, they never happen.....even though you tried your best to make it work.

Strangely, some kinds of friendships come back in our lives, through other people. I found a friend who is like a friend I had lost in my life. And you feel the circle of life filling the gap that used to exist....maybe that kind of friendship was important in your life....and the universe felt it necessary to fill it. I felt this recently. I felt no more the regret of the friendship that I had lost.

In the friendship hierarchy, sometimes we find ourselves feeling something unusual...especially for a person like me....love, the romantic kind of friendship. Those friendships bring out the best and worst out of us...and we take every failure extremely personally. But eventually, if were brave enough to love again, we’ll find the right one.

Friends, through their love, teach us to love ourselves. Yes, it can be vice versa too. Self-love can teach you to be a better friend to others. It’s a crazy complicated web you’ll realize, when you try to discover yourself. I think who I am, keeps changing .....and so, I try my best to stay connected to my inner self....I think I’m worth befriending after all....do you consider yourself to be worthy of your friendship as well?