Do it with passion, or not at all.
Nursing a child suffering from influenza isn’t easy when one is suffering from the same virus. There is the mother in you, who wants to take care of the child, and then there is the person in you, who wants to rest and be pampered back to health. What makes it worse is when your partner decides to join the same virus party. So here we were, all members of our family sick with the same virus at the same time. We were all occupying our own spaces and had almost no energy to interact with each other. The four year old recovered first; she was also the first one to catch the virus. Since she was feeling better, she wanted to help out, which was adorable but what does one tell a four year old to do to make you feel better? Every time she asked me what she could do to help, I literally had no instructions to give her. She took the onus on herself and decided to cuddle and tell us stories.
We heard about a unicorn who saved a little girl from a dinosaur because it could fly, whereas the dinosaur could not, and we heard about yet another unicorn who flew so high up that it could see the Earth from up there. The unicorn was obviously not alone; there was a little girl with it who touched the Earth, which felt warm. I am not sure if the Earth can be warm to the touch from space, but our little girl really did warm my heart. I decided to take inspiration from her and write this piece with her by my side. She wanted to help by sitting on my lap. She waited for me to type my first words, as I just stared at the screen blankly. She turned to me and asked me to start typing; I said I was thinking and she asked me why?
Why do you need to think, Amma? You can simply type whatever comes to your mind, she said, even pressing a few keys to demonstrate how simple it really was. I told her that I needed to think because I wanted to be sure about what I write. I had to make sure it was something that I believed in and something the readers would relate to. She didn’t seem convinced, yet reluctantly decided to give me some more time to think. When my fingers still refused to move, she asked me if I could play Uno with her and that is exactly what we did.
How easy it was for her to make up a story, how effortless it seemed when she decided to support me, and yet it was so natural when she decided to entertain herself. Passion and expression comes so easily to these little people who rule our lives. Three days later, here I was still thinking about what to write. It was supposed to be about something I am deeply passionate about. I had my answer in the beginning: I was going to write about writing. Still, it took me days to decide what to write and days to figure out if it would be well-received. My doubt wasn’t about the passion itself; it was about the feedback that I might or might not get.
Yes, I can give some credit for my brain not working to me being sick for almost two weeks, and at the same time I can give loads of credit for finally getting started to the little inspiration that runs around from room to room in my house.
What is my passion, I got to thinking. Is it being a writer or being a mother? Am I more passionate about baking or gardening? What about my profession, does that have any ranking in this list? What is that one key thing that drives me? The truth is, my answers keep changing depending on what is happening in my life. Some days I want to be the most successful and famous therapist there ever was, and on other days a hug from my child suffices for everything. There are days I am frustrated by how slow some of my projects are moving, and then there are days when cooking an exotic meal for my family is what I am most passionate about. With so many options to choose from, I asked myself, why did I need to define any one thing that I am passionate about? Isn’t life made up of many many tiny ingredients put together? Isn’t that what makes it exciting? A little bit of this, a lot of that and a whole lot more of something else is what the spice of life is, and that is what I am most passionate about. Like they say, a spoonful of sky, some strands of the rainbow, a handful of giggles and a whole lot of laughter make life worth living.
Hence, I decided to declare that I am passionate about being who I am, at every moment; being who I want to be, unapologetically. I am passionate about being good at the things that I do, I am passionate about trying, really trying hard before I finally decide to give up. I am passionate about giving up if that is the right call for me. I am passionate about my truth and I am passionate about sharing my views with others, even if it means being diplomatic. I am passionate about doing it with passion or not at all. That is my passion. Have you found yours yet?