Thanksgiving

I saw a post talking about what all they were thankful for. On a day with varied hues of emotion, I smiled serenely thinking of what all I'm grateful for.

I'm grateful that at this point in my life, I'm at the pinnacle of freedom, both in my job and life. After being surrounded by order and structure, truly now every day is an adventure, I know not what the forthcoming day brings forth. Sometimes small victories, other times abject miseries. Sometimes, leaps and bounds, sometimes a few crawls. It's all in the game! I'm grateful I can pursue all my passions with zeal and no regrets. I'm grateful to be in the cocoon of love from my family. I'm grateful for all the new experiences I've had this year. I'm grateful I finally go to wield a red pen :P I'm grateful I've become stronger and weaker at the same time. I'm grateful that I've finally started discovering who really is Sowmya S Sundaram. I'm grateful to see this world, to love and be loved. I'm grateful that I learnt there are two kinds of people - people who make you and people who break you, and in the end, you'll thank them both. I'm grateful for the beautiful forest I wake up in. I'm grateful for the warmth of friendships. I'm grateful to be able to savour music, dance, art, architecture and poetry.

In all, I'm blessed. Thank you. 

MS

MS are the initials of Dhoni.
MS are the initials of the great Carnatic singer MS Subbulakshmi.
MS are the initials of my dad.

To me MS means only one thing - Mood Swing :P

It is an open secret that women get mood swings left, right and center and I have read trillions of memes making fun of their illogical nature. But I thought, let me take you onto the other side, how it really feels to have a mood swing.

My father saw great potential in me as a thinker. He was adamant that I approach everything in life in a systematic and logical fashion. Tears and anger were both for weak people, he would say, and he painstakingly worked to remove all traces of such emotions. To give his due, he did succeed. There was a stage when nothing in the world would upset me and even if it did, not a single soul would know.

Until I was a teenager :P

Then came the storm of random tears, screams and bouts of self-pity with no clear logical reason. At the end of them, there would be rest and peace. And permanent embarrassment. Personally, it's not very frequent for me but when it is, it is the weirdest experience ever.

Symptom #1: Feeling either over-talkative or not talkative at all
I suddenly feel I need to talk about vital issues on the planet, like why curly hair is difficult to comb or why Harry Potter is nearly a religion and not just some figment of someone's imagination. Or, the diametric opposite, I want to keep calm and contemplate on the inner meaning of life. Why do I not like chocolate for example?

Symptom #2: My voice changes
Believe it or not, my voice truly changes when I have a mood swing. It becomes very high pitched suitable for both squealing and screaming.

Symptom #3: Tears
Whether I'm hungry, lonely, happy, sad, guilty, jealous, angry, scared, I cry. Irrespective of what emotion I'm feeling. An ant could bite me and make me feel like I'm the biggest loser on the planet.

Symptom #4: Over processing by the neurons
There are no longer seven colours in a rainbow, there are millions. There is a reason for everything yet there are none. There are expectations and yet there are none.

Symptom #5: I enjoy it
Strictly speaking, it is not enjoyment. However it is a slow building process where I repeatedly read things that make me angry for example and slowly build up the flame. To an outsider, it seems as if I enjoy being angry or sad and am increasing it. It is simply a way to escalate the emotion I am feeling to truly let it consume me in the end.

All the while, everything makes absolute perfect sense in some form that the story teller in me is quite proud. So much so that me realizing that I'm in a mood swing is probably how a schizophrenic wakes up to reality.

Once a mood swing is over, I feel extremely sheepish. The lack of logic painfully stabs the rising consciousness. And yet, I can't help but smile because once it is over, I feel like I've experienced emotion in the purest form, quite capable of instigating the poet in me to evoke the aesthetic sense from my most honourable reader.

To conclude, I offer two pieces of advice - to the one in a mood swing and to the one with the one in a mood swing. To the person in mood swing, don't hold back your tears. This is something I learnt the hard way, having been taught that tears are weak. It is a sign that your body wants to rest much like a baby does. And if you are lucky enough to realize you are in the middle of one, sleep or do something that makes you really happy. Happiness is also an emotion that your mood swing would greedily cast its form into. To the person who has realized that their friend is in a mood swing - mood swings are not a problem. I used to think they were a problem to address, they are not. It is simply a natural hormone rush that quite addles the brain. Best things to help your friend - patience, listening, chocolate and maybe some gentle persuasion to rest. The most important thing not to be done is to smirk in your supreme sense of normalcy. I have done that in the past, thinking I am some epitome of calmness until the mood swing bug bit me too and forced me to realize its power. Plus it would tip your friend to the worse, who is already teetering on the verge of  total emotional collapse.

In the end, it is a weird experience and what is life without weird experiences?