Moments: The thoughts that count

Today hasn't been the best of days. I have been very stressed out and anxious of late, and at that, on multiple fronts. For one, I have constantly been fretting over my family's well-being. Every time I hear of someone I knew being sick, I feel like the pandemic keeps inching closer to me, and that soon I will have to confront the harsh reality of a close family member falling sick, or worse, dying. On the other hand, with the lockdown, chores have once again become a time sieve in my life, and I am left with tiredness and the small interrupted remnants of an entire day. I worry about all the academic deadlines I have, and wonder how I will manage. If I will manage. The number of people I talk to has also gone down a lot, and some of the friends I usually call have either gotten exceedingly busy or extremely tired of listening to my woes ; and that has added to my feeling of being unmoored. As if all this wasn't enough in itself, the fault in our electrical stars decided to rear its ugly and highly probably head. Yet again. After an hour of being plunged in darkness and a chat with the electrician, I came to understand that a part had failed and it would take them an uncertain number of several days to replace it, given the lockdown. This incident by itself was not significant, but it served as the hair trigger that my collapsing equilibrium needed. I felt like everything was out of my control.

I intended for this to be a rant post. I even had the title ready: House of Cards. Surprisingly enough, after I wrote the first paragraph, I remembered two things that made me feel happy today. And I decided that with all the negativity in the world, I'd rather focus on these two things than the twenty other things bothering me. So here goes: 

I was sitting in the same room as my husband, staring at a screen blankly, deliberating yet again over all the things that were wrong in my life. I also felt incredibly alone, and finally, heaving a mental sigh, stood up to walk out of the room. My demeanor did not change outwardly, but just as I crossed my husband's chair, he called out to me. Feeling low? he asked me. Thereafter, he spent five minutes joking about something with me. I was surprised to say the least. Till now, I'd thought that couples being attuned to each other's emotional state without being told was the stuff of sappy romantic novels. I still have no idea how this works, because I hadn't said a word, I hadn't even looked at him, and he was in the middle of work. Yet, I am incredibly grateful that he was able to reach out to me in a moment where I really needed it. 

The second thing that happened today was when I hit refresh on my email inbox restlessly. I found an email from a prominent author whose work I adored. A friend (who is also a writer herself) had mentioned to the author that I loved her work, and possibly also that I would be delighted to hear from her. I was surprised again. Surprised because she and I have not been friends for years. I have never met her in person. We connected in the virtual world, and we know each other from our virtual conversations--emails, book reviews, blog comments. Therefore, I was entirely surprised by how thoughtful she was. Her gesture meant a lot to me, and I smiled for a long time reading that email. 

These are such serendipitous moments, Reader. Sometimes we don't proactively reach out and ask for the solace we need. But somehow, that comfort finds its way to us. In the form of a parent, a spouse, a friend, a pet. An email, a call, a kind word, a beautiful thought. And when it arrives, it moves us so much. In ways we can never fully understand, but only be grateful for. 

I hope my words and actions are able to give other people such moments of serendipity.