16 Months

16 months, and still standing.

I hate to say ‘time flies’ because it makes me feel like I’ve been left still in my position, lagging behind the whole world as the grandfather clock insanely tick-tocks away.

More likely, I think I was the one that flew. Riding on a whirlwind. Much of it in pain and in frustration, but in equal parts too, fun and joy – and even a little bit of happiness. Sometimes it’s a big blur, other times a little too slow for my sanity.

Some of it surreal and dreamlike, the rest of it pure hard cold reality in my face.

Two months into my new life, I’d questioned myself, I’d wanted to leave.

Culture shock? No, not that much of an issue of living in a new country, I have absolutely no qualms living on my own, in my own space.

It was the work-culture shock, the brand-culture shock that shook me. I ‘grew up’ surrounded by passion. I lived, ate, slept, breathed the brand. I had lunch buddies. I had friends. There was quite nothing we never did together.

Here, no one talked to me. The business left behind was in such a mess that ‘shit’ alone couldn’t even describe it. No one seemed to love the brand. Everyone just came, and then went.

I did everything alone. Literally. Including cleaning up the shit. Especially cleaning up the shit.

But I didn’t budge. I didn’t leave. I am not a quitter. And somehow, I found some reason, some inspiration to stick it out and make it work.

I’m not sure if I’d made the right decision, still. Obstinate as I can be, I preach and I rave and I dream, and then I work. But as my dreams crash, so do my efforts, my faith and confidence.

Still, I stuck it out.

One fine day after 16 months, and it happened in the midst of sleepless nights at the long, tedious meeting last week, I realized. That sometimes when you work hard to your beliefs, you stick it out to your dreams, when you trust your heart no matter how painful it may be, things do happen. In big ways or small, things do happen.

I’ve made new friends, not many but enough, I hope, to last a lifetime, and crazy enough to give me immense joy. I’ve got a heart that had died, got revived, died again, but now pumping strong, all thanks to the kick-ass runs I’ve been clocking at the gym. I’ve been to places, many times ‘forced’ by an urge to run away from this ‘evil place’. I’ve had a blessed palate, sustained by an insatiable stomach and the all-encompassing openrice.com. I’ve made and shown off stuff this company is in dire needs of, and hell – I had gone through 16 months of hell for this.

All in all, give and take, plus minus this and that, put ‘em all on my Libran scale, I think I’ve had it good.

Sure I’d wish at times some things would’ve been better. But I really can’t complain. I don’t even dare to wish for more.

Everything else is already good enough.



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