A Letter to Spring

Hi there! Fancy seeing you after a long while. I always find that after a long pause of posting, I find it much more difficult to jump back in. It’s like I almost forgot how to film and question every picture before I post it on the gram. However, it’s not long before my yearning to connect with you guys begins to outweigh my newly developed fear of social media. Which brings us here.

To say it has been a long winter, would be a massive understatement. I rounded out last semester with a [somewhat] successful vlogmas. I say somewhat because it wasn’t a true vlogmas in that I didn’t film and upload everyday. I say successful because I remained consistent (clearly something I struggle with, oops) which was a far cry from the past few years where I pitifully threw the towel in after one day.

After the semester ended, I jetted off to India with my family to celebrate my cousin Kriti’s half saree party. I was initially super anxious to travel mainly due to the fact I haven’t been to India in ten and half years as well as having to sit through nearly 24 hours in air. But once I’d arrived, I was very pleasantly surprised. During this trip I felt an overwhelming abundance of love, happiness and joy. I feel more in touch with my family, my culture, my roots, my grandparents and came back properly reset, ready to start my last semester of college (I’ve also vlogged the whole trip, haven’t gotten around to editing it yet, but will hopefully be up and ready in the next few weeks).

Unfortunately, my first day back to college, I got into a horrible car accident. Thankfully no one was injured, however, my car was in the maintenance shop for nearly five weeks. During this time, I was sofa surfing at my dear friend and old roommate Mayeesha’s apartment. The silver lining to this accident: I got to meet three lovely ladies I can now call friends and reconnect and catch up with an old one I haven’t seen in a while. My stay consisted of bachelor wine nights (sans wine for me) shouting at Peter’s horrible decision making skills, rushing to catch the Rutgers LX, and tons of Okie Pokii.

And just as I’ve adjusted back to life at home and began looking forward to my favorite season of Spring, the awful corona virus has become a pandemic. As I’m writing this, the rest of my semester has been cancelled and graduation is up in the air. (Edit: My university graduation is cancelled) It’s a bit weird to grasp the reality of the current situation but I take comfort in knowing that it is not personal. As isolated as we are (or at least should be), the world is also more unified than ever. A girl in Saratoga, California is experiencing the same as a grandpa in Brighton, UK as an uncle in Gannavaram, India. That’s weird.

I am, however, taking this time to do things I never had time for prior. I started going on walks in the evening to catch the sunset every night. What began as impromptu and by happenstance, has turned into a little routine. Yesterday was the first day I didn’t go and it felt weird watching the sunset from my house and not being outside. I’ve also started prioritizing “SVSHMI”. To be fair, this started in the end of February, but now I have even more time to build it. I have new Youtube videos going up every Tuesday and Friday, and my goal is to pop up a blogpost every Sunday. I’ve also been more active on Instagram, but it’s been a bit more sporadic on there. Typically, when I begin to post more on a platform, the other ones get neglected, however, now I finally have time to concentrate on all. Not to mention I’m actually loving it now more than ever.

As winter comes to a close, I pray that spring will bring happier times with loved ones, days when we can enjoy each’s company in person and not just through zoom. In the mean time, I will be continuing my sunset walks and building SVSHMI. What will you be using your time for, I would love to know.