A Christmas of eat, pray, love (for beginners)

Here is my wish for women everywhere this Christmas. That by all means, they should have a lot of eat, a lot of pray and a lot of love. Because wow, they are mad. They are mad about a lot of things and I take nothing away from that. Social injustices, gender discrimination, patriarchy, being judged for all these things or not being all these things or being so much less than all these things and so much more. They have to deal with societal norms and the neatly carved coffins (for some of us, for others they represent beautiful pots to blossom in and that’s okay too) and the pressure that these norms impose on us in a nonchalant, lacklustre fashion, but still, their presence is so real — so very real.

And the way these pressures present themselves — sometimes in the fashion of our more conventional friends with their sort of judgy eyes (followed by the introspection of knowing that perhaps we’re just judging ourselves), with me — it’s always in the face of my mother … always. And feelings. So much of “catching the feels”, everywhere. On blogs, in papers, on dedicated sites, in comment sections, in sub tweets, in life, in everything. Catching feelings and spewing forth the mad — the only thing women are not mad about it seems, is life. They are not mad about life in the “crazy about this life thing” kind of way. They are mad as in rage, against it mad. And that’s okay. Again let me say, there is nothing wrong with that. Please, by all means, I myself am known to go forth and Joan of Arc the living daylights out of things on a daily basis. The last thing we need is the fake painted smile, rainbows, butterflies, unicorns (vomit) etc.

But happiness, happiness is not a stereotype or momentary contentment for that matter, and while the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow might be, it’s definitely not sex specific. So go, go out there and get your treasure this holiday. Remove the pocket rocks Virginia Woolf, rip out your Sylvia Plath braids — slowly untie them if you must and let your tits out in the wind. Take a trip to an art gallery in the south of Asia without getting cross at the male artist who perpetuates archaic roles, and laugh at it him instead — just for a little bit and then … when you’re done, go out and get a pizza. Wherever they sell pizzas in the south of Asia. Have one. Consume it without doubt and guilt and question. Bite into it as though it is life itself and let that oily cheese juice stream down the sides of your face because you just cannot get enough. But mostly, “definitely mostly” (Rain Man voice), love yourself! Love yourself so much that you wear it like a badge of honour. Let your blog, even just one post, one sentence, be the version of those men in the gyms who love ogling at themselves in the mirror while they lift things heavier than their brains. But do it in a way that’s sort of … less gross. Because … ew!