#563 ONE Month Later

 One Month Later

Source: BlogChatter

It’s Spring here, but, today, the sky looks dull and grey. No trace of sunlight can be found anywhere. Since the end of March, it has been sunny for most of the days of the week, but today it seemed a bit gloomy. Everything seems so quiet, even during the working hours of the day and I can hear the sound of ticking off the clock. Was it reflecting the state of my mind?

One month has passed after that tragic event and I feel that a part of my life has gone still forever. Just like the weather, there’s an inexplicable heaviness in my heart and I’m starting my day with such a gloomy feeling. I’ve never felt so sad before and I am just experiencing this abyss as it is, without putting much effort to ward it off. Now, I don’t feel emotions as intensely as I used to when the sadness dominates over the other, or perhaps it will take a while to be back to absolute normal, or never, I don’t know.

I’ve observed that I’m getting to see more dreams in sleep than ever before. Today, just before waking up, in my dream, I saw that I was traveling with my sister. I couldn’t catch the train that we were to board together and boarded the immediate next train going to the same destination after 2 hours. During the entire journey, I kept worrying about my sister as she didn’t have an internet connection. Before we could meet, I was awake. That made me think if that dream indicated that I had to let go of a part of me that was once so dear to me, to fate.

I had an appointment with the doctor yesterday. I would always look forward to appointments with my doctor earlier, but these days, it makes no difference. The doctor’s words of consolation have no effect on my internal state of mind, although I appreciate their care and concern. 

My faith in Karma is at stake now after having faced a lot of tragic events one after the other within a month! I don’t know what’s God showing me.

Some things can’t be fixed through external intervention, perhaps, a divine intervention is all that is needed. I am still looking for some answers and will continue to do so!

Source: BlogChatter

 

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Swati Sarangi
10.04.2025

  I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

#562 Am I an INTROVERT?

 Am I an INTROVERT?

Source: BlogChatter

Recently, I was asked in an interview to grade myself on a scale of 10 to quantify my level of extroversion. Of course, this was a question asked to assess my personality.

My response was 7/10 based on my level of comfortability with people around, so that puts me in the category of Extrovert, right?

However, I feel myself to be an Introvert who enjoys my spare time engaged in reading, writing, painting, singing, or playing chess online. Along with doing all these activities, I also like exploring new places, meeting new people in social gatherings, and striking a meaningful conversation.

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My recent experience of attending my first social event in the Netherlands tells a different story. No, I wasn’t stuck in my seat all the time, sipping coffee to avoid meeting people. I approached the attendees and speakers and initiated a conversation.

No, I didn’t rehearse the dialogue in my mind, I just spoke with them. I came to know that they were from Venezuela, Ukraine, Slovenia, Siberia, Nepal, Brazil, etc.

So, what do you think I am, an introvert or an Extrovert?

Isn’t it a confusing state for not being able to decide my nature?

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I hail from India and if I were to rate myself on the level of Extroversion; I would’ve rated it 5/10.

During my school and college days, I limited my interactions to a group of 5–6 people. I was engaged in my studies and spent my spare time collecting my ideas into articles or poems.

I developed a lot of hobbies during my school/college days like reading, writing, painting, singing, or playing Table Tennis, basketball, or chess.

I was always more comfortable in my company than choosing the company of others which made me independent. I wouldn’t fear traveling to different cities on my own, when I didn’t have anyone to go with me, for writing exams or appearing in interviews.

                                                           -----------

Fast forward to many years, I took my first international flight to Hong Kong, all alone, on my own, during the Pandemic Days in 2021 to relocate with my husband who was working there.

Then began my search for a job in a new country, I would explore the city, mostly on my own, during working hours when my husband wasn’t available.

I would discover a new route, the fastest way to reach the venue of the interview, and later workplace with the help of Google Maps.

Life presented its plans to me for which I got a chance to live and work in Finland and the Netherlands, where I’m based now.

I continued my exploration of finding a new place, Cafe, Indian Grocery Store, social events, or meeting new people. This process made me very comfortable with any place and my acceptability of uncertainties increased.

I met many people and formed connections for life. I, no longer, hesitated to start a conversation, no matter how small it was, and those small conversations peaked up their momentum to some deeper discussions that I always craved for.

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I feel that all those experiences, that I was exposed to because of God’s plans for my life, evolved me into a more mature and adaptable person.

I consider myself an Introvert for an Indian Society and an Extrovert for a European Society.

Sometimes, it becomes a little challenging to define my true nature.

That’s because I feel that I’m continuously evolving and the answer to this question, say, after 5 years, will come out to be completely different than what it is today.

Till then, I let myself be completely soaked in the experiences of life.

Source: BlogChatter

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Swati Sarangi

27.11.2024

 

  I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

#561 NIGHT sky & a shooting star

  Night Sky and a Shooting Star

Source: BlogChatter

I saw a shooting star
I closed my eyes and prayed hard,
To get back what I lost, 
The grief of which just can’t be told,
Fireflies are like stars on ground, 
Bright, tiny, or round?

Immersing myself in a love
That I had never felt before,
How blessed my life seemed to be,
Just a few days before,
They say, “It’s a divine plan.”
I wish I could at least ban(it).

The hope that the night sky gave
Like a million memories to save
Moments are like stars on mind,
They come and go when they can
All I imagined was a parallel Universe,
Happy feelings but with tears.

A Universe where I can enter,
To witness everything happening
At the time, when it couldn’t 
Happen in the world I live in
Soaked up in the aura of gratitude,
I chose my present, to continue.

If you can read between these lines,
You’re so empathetic
‘Cause that might not seem so easy,
As it’s so cryptic in reality,
Could the reason for my grief be unveiled?
or something that others can feel?

I saw a shooting star,
I closed my eyes and dreamed hard,
Just met him in my dream, whom I lost
Sharing moments of immense love
That heals my heart a bit more,
The closure that I was looking for.

Source: BlogChatter

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Swati Sarangi

07.04.2025

  I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

#560 ULTIMATE Truth of Life - Death

 Ultimate truth of life – Death

Source: BlogChatter

As the title suggests, the ultimate truth of life is death. It is inevitable or unavoidable. It is said that life and death are the two sides of the same coin. We have no control over them.  

Death is the topic that I’ve neither written anything about nor would like to write but something unfortunate happened recently in my life. It takes courage to touch such a sensitive topic, perhaps I didn’t have that courage earlier. I am trying to share my realization from such an incident.

It completely altered my perception of life, having observed death so closely, recently. I had never imagined the intensity of grief that would follow the aftermath, and I would struggle to move on.

Writing has been an important part of my healing process. So, I am writing on topics that are running through my mind, which I would’ve hesitated to write about, earlier. For someone like me who writes about inspiration, hope, or optimism, discussing death is something so contrasting but how can I write about happiness while dealing with gloom in my heart?

For most people, death represents loss, rare are those who think of it as a way of liberation; liberation from this materialistic world or physical body that’s subjected to decay due to time and disease. I believe in rebirth i.e. life after death and the one who has done enough good deeds can escape this cycle of life and death.

As many Hindu Scriptures state the purpose of life is to get salvation; Moksha which can’t be possible without facing death. So, death is a kind of exam that everyone must face whose result can be salvation for the selected ones.

Knowing the fact from the Bhagavad Gita that the soul is indestructible and gets its physical form through different bodies, gives a bit of comfort, but inviting that soul into this material world when it has the chance to attain salvation seems to be a selfish desire.

I may not frame perfect conclusions for my articles these days but it seems to be a bit struggle for me, at the moment, to elaborate beyond the will of my mind, so I have to stop here until any new idea comes up.

Source: BlogChatter

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Swati Sarangi

06.04.2025

  I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

#559 DIVINE Plan

 DIVINE Plan

Source: BlogChatter

Every Saturday, I make sure to visit Farmer’s Market at a walkable distance from my apartment. I love watching different stalls selling fresh organic produce like vegetables, fruits, beautiful flowers, cheese, baked products, etc.

There’s a Church close to the Market. I also visit there once I am done with buying stuff from this market. I sit on one of the benches quietly, admiring the beauty of the architecture, painted glass reflecting sunlight and adding to the aura of the architecture are the hymns being played from loudspeakers that almost resemble chanting of Sanskrit Shlokas. That church became my temple, and I started visiting there regularly, mostly on Saturdays.

Something unfortunate happened a few weeks ago that left me heartbroken and devastated. My mind was surrounded by a lot of questions and searching for the answers to them. When I couldn’t find answers myself, I turned up to Almighty for the same.

I visited Church today almost after 1.5 months because of my not-so-good health condition. It was Saturday and I had to get back to my old ritual of visiting Church. I carried a letter to Mother Mary that I wrote last night which contained all the questions that my mind has been looking for. I dropped the letter there, cried my heart out, and prayed for peace and well-being.

Everyone says whatever happens is a part of the divine plan, but my sorrow-stricken mind is struggling to accept that at the moment even when I know I have no control over it.

Unlike other Saturdays, I had no desire to buy anything from the market or click any pictures.

This was a different Saturday!

Even though I didn’t get answers to my questions, when I returned to my apartment, my heart felt so light for having done what I wanted to do, as a part of my healing, as a closure.

Source: BlogChatter

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Swati Sarangi

05.04.2025

  I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

#558 A CLOSURE that my writing provided me

 A CLOSURE that my writing provided me

Source: BlogChatter

When something unexpectedly unfortunate happens in your life, you look for answers and reasons behind it. Then there follows intense soul searching too and a process of facing and handling your emotions.

Such an incident has made me look for answers or think about what I could’ve done differently to avoid it, even though I realized that I had no control over it. It comforts me to think about events happening in the parallel universe in the same timeline that I wished to happen in my life.

Writing has immense power. I knew it already as I’ve been writing for ages but the realization that it can heal me came to me quite recently. Sitting with my laptop in my empty apartment abroad, I can pour my feelings out by making my fingers type consistently until they no longer want to.

These days when I neither want to go out nor talk to anyone, I let my heart do the talking and this talking gets manifested into my writing. I write as much as I can and whichever way is possible, sometimes as written notes or letters or memos on my mobile.

On some of these days when my mind and body seem a bit tired and my heart is soaked in inexplicable sadness, I seek refuge in writing, sometimes writing with my identity, other times in the veil of anonymity. I neither want my feelings to be validated nor a lot of sympathetic ears to listen to my adversity, I just want to write. That’s all.

I realized how much closure can writing bring to me. Yesterday, I wrote to the Universe or God asking for answers to questions about incidents that happened beyond my comprehension. With tears rolling down my cheek, wetting the piece of paper, when I reached the end of the page, I felt healed, even momentarily. It was like a loving caress or embrace from my parent. 

It’s not so easy to cope with the loss. No formula or shortcut can instantly heal. Every day comes with a different challenge, and I get to face my emotions in a different way. Some days seem to be relatively easy while other days take me to square one, when I’ve to start everything all over again. I just can’t replace my old self, the optimistic one, over my present self. It will take time to get back and I must be patient with the process.

I am learning to face my emotions as it is without labeling them, or perhaps I’m too tired to evaluate anything mentally. Right now, I am grateful for all the good memories that filled up my memory bank and thankful to God for all those moments that could’ve gone wrong otherwise.

Source: BlogChatter

 

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Swati Sarangi

04.04.2025

 I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

#557 GRIEF doesn't change you

 Grief doesn’t change you

Source: BlogChatter

 

"Grief doesn’t change you but it reveals you" — John Green

Grief hits the most when the unfortunate event has already happened and you realize that what you thought to be yours, is no longer there.

During an unfortunate event, we are in utter shock to process anything. The happening of the event leaves an indelible print on our minds.

I always looked forward to Fridays, especially Friday evenings which would mark the beginning of the Weekend until 07.03.2025 when I got a fever that stayed with me for the next few days and changed my life forever.

What worse can a mere fever cause, one may ask?

Well, anything can happen from a simple thing nobody ever imagined. I am not writing it to create a sense of fear in the minds of the readers, but writing to ease my grief a bit as writing has a therapeutic effect on me.

Life is strange, things happen beyond our comprehension and we start looking for answers. I am in that stage of my life and looking for many answers from God.

People say life has strange ways to make people humble but what about humble people, why does life play games to punish them for the mistakes they never made?

Even though grief gets better with time but realization that what you thought was yours, is no longer yours, hits the hardest.

“Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” — Vicki Harrison

Healing from grief is a slow process and demands a lot of patience. When you think you’ve healed from the grief, the grief surfaces once again, making everything look so fresh.

Nearly thirteen days have passed since that unfortunate event, no matter how much I try to heal but I’ve lost a part of me in the process. I was reborn and I am no longer the same.

I may look strong from the outside but I break down in the middle of any task that I do, in a day. It just doesn’t happen once but many times. A part of my mind and heart is still stuck at the hospital when I got relieved on 11.03.2025.

I often ask God why he had to be cruel to me but I get no answer.

Grief has revealed a part of me that I never knew existed. It has evoked a more empathetic self for my husband and I observed a similar change in him towards me. Couldn’t life teach this lesson in a better way?

When my grief-stricken self can’t see the big picture at this moment, all I can do is hold the happy memories associated with the event close to my heart and feel grateful for them. It was a part of me and will be an integral part of me forever.

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” — Helen Keller

Right now, even though I am many miles away from complete healing; both at physical and emotional levels, I am trying to do all that I promised myself to do; taking baby steps, one day at a time, so that when I look back, I will be proud of myself for embracing the beauty of those scars.

"The pain passes, but the beauty remains.”
 — Pierre Auguste Renoir

Source: BlogChatter

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Swati Sarangi

21.03.2025

I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

#556 BLOGCHATTERA2Z - Third time in a row!

 BlogChatterA2Z – Third time in a row!

Source: BlogChatter

This is the third time in a row that I’m participating in BlogChatterA2Z and it is evident from the April tab of my blog, for the last 2 years, which has the maximum number of posts. Having successfully completed this writing challenge in the last two years amidst a lot of obstacles in my real life made me confident to register for it this year, and I’ve set out on a path to explore my writing ability.

 

The last few years of my life have been too dynamic, which has helped me migrate to different countries, made me move from one apartment to another, adapt to different cultures, living styles, and climatic conditions, and find a home abroad. As easy as it sounds, it was never easy but the fact that I don’t complain about the circumstances made everything appear so easy.

 

In the year 2023, when I joined this Challenge, it was when I just joined a new job in Finland which was consuming most of my life, as I would spend 3 hours/day commuting to my office. My life would start around 5 am, completing daily chores before leaving for work, and end at 11 am before I would prepare myself for the hurdle of the next day. My weekends would be busy, with getting the stock of groceries for the next week. I pushed myself so hard to schedule some posts during weekends or the time before I cooked dinner after work. With the extended deadline, I was able to complete this challenge, and I am proud of myself for having completed it.

 

In the year 2024, I joined this challenge from another apartment in Finland, with sickness from Flu at the end of this challenge, making it too hard for me to push myself. When you’re abroad, sick, and alone, especially during winter when there’s no Sun in the sky for months in a row and you can’t go out in such a harsh climatic condition, it becomes too challenging to navigate but I don’t give up so easily. I worked hard on my commitments and delivered the outputs within the deadline. I am proud of myself for not giving up when it was getting so hard.

It is 2025 and I’m writing this post from a historic city in the Netherlands where I’ve been living for the last 9 months. Something different from other years that I’m doing this time is that I’ve scheduled some posts in advance, before the start of this challenge which I couldn’t do previously. As I’m healing from a recent loss; both physically and emotionally, I hope that writing in this challenge will make this healing process a bit easier. You may find my raw emotions being exposed in some of the posts but remember that it’s a process of healing that I’m into and this process is neither linear nor straightforward.

 

Just like other years, I have a strong belief that I will be able to finish this challenge before the deadline. Oh! Wait, I’ve not even decided on the prompts to write on. I will wait for the days of April to provide me with prompts as the month unfolds.

Source: BlogChatter

 

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Swati Sarangi

31.03.2025

I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

 

#555 Oh! My little LEMON

Oh! My Little Lemon

Source: BlogChatter

Oh! My little Lemon
My bundle of joy,
You brought a lot of happiness,
And moments to rejoice.

Little fingers, little toes,
Skin so delicate; a gift from God
You were a little wonder,
Spreading love and light forever.

You looked exactly like what
I had envisioned, so cute,
All your facial features
Resembled your loving father.

You were so innocent,
To ever trouble me,
You made me feel what love is,
And what silent mischiefs.

My heart will always be grateful,
For your divine presence in my life,
Like an angel, how easily you
Brought smiles to faces you never met.

I wonder how a tiny human,
Like you can bring changes,
That might take years to reflect,
That’s what you did so effortlessly.

My life hasn’t been the same,
After you left, as the sun sets,
All I am left with is an inexplicable
Grief that gets difficult to bear.

I am in a process of healing;
Healing physically and emotionally,
By taking baby steps,
One day at a time.

I will bless you every day,
For every single day that I live,
By holding you close to my heart,
You shall always be my Little Lemon,
The most precious gift from God.

Source: BlogChatter

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Swati Sarangi

19.03.2025

I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

#554 ANSWERS that my heart searches for

 ANSWERS that my heart searches for

Source: BlogChatter

Answers that my heart searches for,

To the questions that have stemmed up,

From circumstances so adverse,

Still keeping me in the mode of denial.

 

I don’t believe what happened,

But I have no choice but to accept,

I couldn’t find out why it happened,

The way it should never have.

 

Everything looked so perfect because,

I made sure it was with the preparations,

I couldn’t have been happier,

As I was about to embrace something grand.

 

Life’s unpredictable, no doubt,

It snatches away everything from you,

When you seem to be so close,

To what you’ve aimed to manifest.

 

My heart searches for answers, sometimes

Praying before God or making a frantic search,

On various websites or posting those

Questions in the veil of anonymity.

 

Some days are easy, while

Other days are simply so hard,

This process of healing that I’m into

It isn’t just straightforward.

 

As the day passes, the grief eases

The answers that could’ve given closures,

Can’t be seen anywhere anymore,

But the questions haven’t faded into oblivion.

Source: BlogChatter

 

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Swati Sarangi

31.03.2025

I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z 2025 

 

#553 12 years of blogging and sharing my stories

 12 years of blogging and sharing my stories

Source : Generated by the author using GROK 

The month of March holds a lot of significance in my life. As the title suggests, this is the day I started publishing my articles/poems 12 years ago, and I am still doing the same. I also celebrated my marriage anniversary at the beginning of this month. Something unfortunate happened a week after our anniversary, and it will be etched in my heart forever.

 

I always looked forward to this day every year and would schedule a post in advance, but all these things didn’t seem to excite me this year. I’m grieving from personal loss and recovering from it; both physically and emotionally. Life has a different way of surprising us, and not all surprises are always pleasant, and we can do nothing about it making you wonder how life can be so cruel when you’ve always tried to do what’s right.

 

12 years is a long time; that’s more than twice my years of marriage. A lot happened in those 12 years; mostly good events but also some unexpectedly unfortunate events too and in all these years, I realized how unpredictable results in life could be! There’s a higher power that controls the outcome; reminding us to be more grateful when things go all right because those things could’ve gone wrong too.

 

This blog always gave me a reason to celebrate each day. It became my online diary; something that’s there to treasure my written words without any judgment. I don’t care about readership now. This blog has always been so special to me as it never made me worry about the presence of a special someone to make me feel special. Writing my heart out without the feeling of being judged is the best feeling that I can ever experience.

 

As I write this post, I am writing with a sense of stoicism, I am neither trying to reflect too much on years of my literary journey, life, or anything particular nor forcing myself too much to feel those emotions that I used to have every year when I wrote bloganniversary post. This time, it’s different and it need not have to be the same every year. I must accept it.

 

I don’t know what inspiration I can offer to my readers through this post, at this moment, but I can guarantee you to get inspired by our previous posts which we wrote with a lot of energy, enthusiasm, and optimism. Even I will try to get back to those posts to motivate myself to get back to my old form and make this process of healing a little bit easier.

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© Swati Sarangi
30.03.2025

You can support my work through Buy me a Coffee.

P.S.: This was the first post that I published on this day, exactly 12 years ago.

#552 End of a chapter

End of a chapter

End is as beautiful as beginning. We live in a world where there is a mixture of good and bad events and sometimes we don’t have control over these. Sometimes, we are overwhelmed by the fact that end is approaching. End is often seen as the dead end. But, that’s not always so. Sometimes, end can lead to a beautiful beginning.

 

I often see end of a chapter as a dead end. But, later in life I realized, end of a toxic relationship or end of a phase or end of a journey or end of a career is sometimes very beautiful. Because, end can only show a direction to a new beginning. It actually requires a lot of courage on one part to end something in life. We go in a flow and we rarely visualize that there is a need to end some of the toxicity in life to which we are entangled to. In order to move forward, we need to end some of the chapters or put full stop to an event which is meant to be finished.

 

Being a girl, living in an Indian society requires a lot of courage to deal the hustle and bustle of life. It’s always a girl, who has to answer a lot of questions before leaving home or even going to her workplace. Girls often try to handle the situation whatever it is, in order to avoid the consequences. While handling the situations, girls often get bound to toxic bosses, in-laws, hubby, relatives etc. They think that relationships with their bosses, relatives or partners would improve in future. But when things don’t change, then there is an immense pressure on them to carry forward these type of toxic relationships. The pressure is also from the society as well, to stay in these relationships for a longer time. Then what would a girl do? She ends up being blamed for being not a good worker, mother, wife or daughter-in-law. Is this blame even justified? Then, she has to end her relationship with the person to keep herself at peace.

 

Is end that scary? Hell, yeah!! It may seem scary, if we don’t visualize the entire scenario at once or when we don’t have a proper plan. But, what if we think in this way that, there is something better waiting for us. I always like to quote that “There is always a light at the end of a tunnel.” Here, a positive mind comes for a rescue.  A positive mind helps one to see the silver lining though the cloud of uncertainty. There is so much power in believing that everything will work out even when you don’t know when and how: you just believe that it will.  

 

I would like to end this article with a positive note that,

End is not always that scary and it should not be misinterpreted as dead-end. Rather, it should be treated as a gateway to a fresh beginning.

 

SWETA SARANGI

15-12-2024