I don't know why but I feel good!

This is the exact same title with which I read a feel-good post in 2011 on my best friends blog, meleoandatangled.blogspot.com.
I hardly remember what it said, but I remember how I felt when I read it; something similar to right now; like my heart is in a cozy, warm place.
Cuddled up on a bed that isn't mine from long ago, and sharing a room with someone I'm not quite used to. No one to text, quite alone, far from home, and exams in the near future. It's nothing that usually makes me happy, but I still feel a soft fuzzy feeling spreading through me.
I don't have anything grave to think about, and I don't know how I ever did. The oceans always have more water than we need, the forests more trees than we can take down, and the Earth more space than we can destroy. There's no one that's irritating enough to pop the cloud I'm on, and no reason to frown. The world is a happy place, where butterflies fly through pretty meadows, tender waterfalls sound like wind chimes, and cute babies laugh at little nothings.
This what comfortable feels like. And I love it.

The dramatised proportions of change
Seem more so for someone such as myself
Who was free teenager, always wandering
Across the vast expanse of all she could be
Though she knew no destination, or even a direction;
Always open to all that came her way
With principles flexible, though still strict
A malleable character, influenced by all she saw
And ever-changing,
To fit the well quoted asymptote to perfection.
I was like a leaflet, flying, turning on itself,
Bending to the mercy of the breeze that carries it
A leaflet that never settles down
In a world where the wind never dies.
And now suddenly, I find myself on the ground;
I am a grown leaf.
Immobile, stationary, with all the stability I wished for.
But I'd wanted to be decided, not limited!
I desperately fight the shackles
Of my well defined personality
Of which even uncertainty is a  fixed character.
I bang on the walls of who I am
They're rigid; they don't give way
But I'll always go on to try
Until I gently realise
This is what growing up was all about.

Depression.

That's a word I've been coming across more often lately.
Starting with Dear Zindagi and ending with World Health Day, everyone has been talking about it.
We hang banners and share posts on Facebook like we're really interested. But does it really make a difference? Is anyone ready to listen to someone speak about their problems, and help them sort it out? Even when they think they are, they most often find you're not once you've dipped their toe in it. It will always feel like insecurities are meant to be obscured, a brave face meant to be put on, and the internal struggle meant to be suppressed. I'm not talking about just those with clinical depression; I'm talking about each one of us, who all lie somewhere along the spectrum of mental illness. There's no one that's perpetually cheerful and positive, and there's hardly anyone who doesn't find the need to pretend that they are.
It's easy to judge those that have the strength to speak out about it, and it's even easier to ridicule those that exhibit symptoms without realising it. It's amazing how easily can be perceived as "weird" or "annoying", instead of being understood for what they are.
I hope everyone knows they aren't alone, that everyone faces varying degrees of the same. That doesn't make anyone's problem less significant; the gravity of one's problems are decided by none but the person himself, and he can seek help for anything he feels necessary. You are unique, you are important to the world, and without you, everything would be different for someone. No one's life is worth their little obstacles, and definitely not their IPE results.
Kudos to every one of us, that crumble from within and look strong on the outside. Each of us has our demons that torment and take us down every now and then. Hurrah to us all, that defeat them time to time, to stand triumphantly tall again.

Turning over a new leaf

That's what I meant to do,
Like it was every time. I was to change
To be anew
To do it like I'd always dreamed to.
To be all I could be,
Aim for the stars, reach at least the sky
I was supposed to be different now.
Tons of times I've made this decision
Of course it isn't​ a first
It's a repetitive resolution
In a life with no fixed constitution
Like ice, tough as a solid like any other
That sometimes melts to water
Soon enough, when it's hot enough
It vapourizes
But what's worse, when left alone under the sky
Evaporates for no reason at all-
I feel it;
I understand it.
It's like when I'm back home
Where the familiar feeling envelopes me
Where things slip away
Under my tightening grip
Where my dreams seem as though of another
Where light fades out to darkness
And I greet my old friend again.

Alia Bhatt.
Every movie of hers that I see (let's leave out Student of the Year) moves something inside of me in a way that never fades away. It's amazing how someone can be so dedicated to their work. I've watched three of her four movies that are said to revolve around a very, very profound message.
It makes me think. There's so many things left to do with this world before it becomes perfect; there's so much that still needs work. There are so many things that one can think about and work on, that it puts me to shame when I think of the amount of time I spend over thinking paltry issues and planning frivolous events, the amount of time I waste imagining conversations that never have and never will happen.
There's so much to dream of, there's so much to change. There's so many in need, and there's so many who can give. Why does everyone "grow up" and "think practically" instead of rooting for the greater good, more and more as they grow? Why does growing up have to be equivalent to becoming selfish?
Why is it so hard to break through the norms of society and lend a hand; to pick up a shovel and start cleaning, even if your time here is enough only to clean up a little part in a little corner of the entire mess? Even if you were born in a cleaner part of the world? Why isn't being privileged enough of a reason to feel a responsibility?
What about those who do dream of great things, but are silenced by villains that never even seem to be like they are? Why do they advise to find the happiness in smaller things, to those that can see the bigger picture, and those that care enough to make a difference to it? Why do all mouths that talk, also eat; why don't they feed?
Each time a person looks at me and my intentions incredulously, it makes me wonder if I am wrong; if I will change, to "grow up" and "be practical". Nothing terrifies me more than that single thought.
I'm already twenty two; it's been five years since I started having such thoughts. There's so much to be done and I haven't done anything, and that eats me up. Time doesn't stop for any noble cause. Life is shortening every second, and things just aren't moving fast enough for me to keep up with it.

I never relate to it when people say "Ah, I miss my childhood."
In fact, I want to get ahead sooner, and see if I really could be all that I've dreamt to be.
Twenty two years gone by, and nothing is in motion yet. All the big dreams, all the wild desires; I know I'm on the way, but this just isn't going fast enough for me.
I know I shouldn't raise my hopes, but what's the fun if you don't expect and wait eagerly for it?
I lead such a regular life right now, doing nothing for anyone but myself, day in and day out. I want something bigger; I want journalists calling me and asking for my interview. I want people in awe of how radical I can be. I want to do things that make a difference to the greater good, and I don't want to waste my life on anything less than that. I don't want to a single moment not doing something that I'll cherish.
The worst thing I can imagine happening is changing my mind. I'm always being told that I will settle for less, that I'll have to; that everyone does.
But I'm going to fight those voices with all my might, as long as I can, because why should I set lower goals for myself than the absolute extreme?

I should stop writing traveling posts.
But they're just happening to me these days. Even on what was supposed to be the most theistic and annoying trip of years, I managed to find something that moves me.
We saw a touch-me-not plant, which is the first of the amazing things that happened. It still surprises me that they actually shrivel away from your touch; reminds me of a certain friend I have :D I finally got to see something that my mom's always told me first hand stories from her childhood about.
And then we saw windmills- no, not far off in the distance on some mountain like we normally do, we saw the parts being carried on trucks. A single vane was longer than the longest truck I ever remember to have seen. We drove past it at around 100 kmph while it was stationery, and still took us a good three or four seconds to reach the end, where the vane was sticking out a few metres longer than the truck. How amusing that I used to make tiny paper windmills when I was a kid and think they were magnificent creation; if only I'd known the magnificence of they were depicting.
We even happened to see a Primary Health Centre and a Centre of Excellence. I hate reading Community Medicine, but I honestly wanted to get off the car and check out those places, and see more of what I'd been reading about all along. In postings we do the same thing, but this was different; it was a real Primary Health Centre in a real village! I felt so Julia Roberts-y from Eat, Pray, Love in my own country.
Stepping right into fog after a homam at six a.m. was pretty surprising too. We shivered as the cold hit us right down to beneath our skin, but didn't leave because we couldn't believe how unexpectedly beautiful it was. Who would've thought I'd get amazing pics in this trip? My little cousin turned into quite the photographer.
Sitting in the backseat of an Innova alone with the rest of my family asleep, taking pictures of random mountains and houses and motorcyles along the highway- this feels like a small preview into how my much awaited big-girl trip all alone is going to feel.  My friends say that a trip alone would only make you think and then overthink, making you depressed. Au contraire, I'm having the best time of my life alone; it's how I've always liked to be.

Looking out, with the sun in my eye
At the wide roads that fly by,
Oh, these sceneries that make me sigh
Right now, this is where I could just die.