Annual Retrospective 2016

2016 was a milestone year in several important ways- it was the year I turned 40, the first full year I spent working in an office after 2010 ; the year, after several years of wishing, dabbling, flirting with entrepreneurship, our venture (entrepreneurship is a major team effort, and I have a cofounder.) began to take wings and fly ; the first full year Ajit and I spent apart as a couple, and as a family ; the year our daughter attained puberty. I guess, if I was forced to choose one word to describe the year, it would be bittersweet. Turning 40 – leaving my youth behind was decidedly bittersweet, entrepreneurship with its highs and lows is certainly bittersweet, so is being the parent of a rapidly evolving child and being and having a weekend spouse. A second word would be balance – and constantly fighting to keep it, while fearing to lose it – not just between my various persona- as a colleague, a homemaker, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a lover ; but also inside me – between dejection and hope at events global, local and personal, between compassion and hardheartedness (especially at work with my young, loving wards) between laziness and perseverance, between trying to stay in control and wanting not to be, between going with the flow and holding back, between euphoria and detachment, between fear and trust. I revised a few life lessons along the way – that being hopeful, optimistic, and positive is often difficult, but there is no other way to be ; that when you give people your trust, not everybody will honor it, but the ones that do will make it worth your while; that the truest of friends will show up to celebrate with you, and they will also be there to hold you in times of despair ; that it is always important to keep your heart open to new kinships, because sometimes you find them in unlikely places, with the unlikeliest of people, irrespective of age, or gender ; that life will always have a trick up her sleeve and your best countermove is to go with the flow ; that the apparently superficial offers plenty, if fleeting, moments of joy, that the search for depth sometimes sidesteps; that laughter is not only the best medicine, it makes a bitter pill easy to swallow. Yes, on balance, 2016 has been a bittersweet, milestone year, that I will remember and cherish – the black, the white and the many hues of gray (pun unintended) in between – for a long time. I don’t know what 2017 will bring, but even if the mix it churns out is half as interesting, I am hooked.