quick ramblings on turning 26

wow. i can’t believe i am 26. so much has happened over the past year. here are some huge events happened since 25

• went to india to celebrate diwali in india in ‘23 with family. this was my first time actually visiting in like 6 years as a full blown adult. i technically did go in 22 as well but only went for 5.5 days which was not nearly enough and it felt mostly like a blur. also the sole purpose of that trip was for performing last rites for my grandpa who passed so nothing felt real.
  • first time going back for a festival since immigrating to canada. had so many feeling but overwhelming one was that of change. the india/delhi i knew is now merely a figment of imagination. every now and then, i would get pangs of nostalgia; an ode to simpler times. but the vast majority of experiences felt uniquely dissimilar to what i had propped india up to be in my head
  • being with family for a festival was another first in a while and was really fun! enjoyed hanging out with everyone and really cherished their company
  • growing up, any time we’d visit back to india, it felt like most of our time was spent doing chores/paperwork related to banks/govts/property and other random stuff. this time was no different. however, having tasted american and canadian systems, india was a whole different level. the rules of the games are just quite simply different. bureaucratic red tape takes a whole new meaning there.
  • my outsider/insider perspective was that just throwing money at the problem of for example opening a bank account was not sufficient. the only way to get things done fast there was knowing someone in the system who could expedite internal processes. idk the exact cause but likely downstream of being an insanely huge and relatively young country
• hung out with frens @nyc after coming back. saw the squad. was really nice to see a lot of folks from college. it was very cool to see the life the people i knew incredibly well had built post uni. after uni, the suspace of life paths/action space truly proliferates in theory. however, entropy can take over and lead to these not being explore. so granted that, it was delightful to see that some friends were yet carving their own paths and truly leveraging the choose your own adventure phase of adulthood.
• went back to canada for holidays and had a good time with the fam. fam’s first holiday szn post move to calgary from grande prairie so it was cool to help them explore the city together. it was very heartening to hear that both ma and pa enjoyed calgary as a city a lot more than gp.
  • quick context: earlier in 2023, through not small feat, i convinced and helped parents move from grande prairie to calgary in the hopes that they would be much happier than before.
  • some memorable moments: mom being wiped out by a small kid on a bunny hill/ going to an outdoor pool in -20 celsius weather, going to sulfur mountains, going to normal mountains,
• going to playspace (node of socratica in sf) for the first time. this was a meaningful moment for perhaps non obvious reasons. socratica was an org i started with aman while in uni in our final term. since then, ti’s grown massively (due to the fantastic ppl that are involved with the org now - truly a labor of love from the team/all invovled). however, living in sf, i’ve only been able to see the growth from afar. this was the first time i was able to feel and observe the impact with my own two eyes. that something i had worked on had grown so much and ppl were self-gathering/node-creating to spend time making things meaningful to them. <3. definitely a crazy moment
• running the golden gate half marathon. yet another pinch-me moment. had my eyes set on this for a while. my first (and longest) racing event since high school. prior to this, i’d ran x-country but longest distance was 10k. so this was a significant step up. to add on to this, i didn’t realize until a week before the race that what i thought to be a flat course actually had some 2500 ft of elevation! note to the reader: def carefully read through things before signing up for them. so that was something i hadn’t trained for. my goal went from trying to aim for sub 2 to just finishing the half. to add on that, sf had a crazy amount of rain and this was in marin county badlands by the golden gate bridge, making the entire course super muddy. happy to report i did finish! the race had turned from a normal half to a tough mudder lol. this was the first time in a while that i’d felt this proud of myself. meant a lot to me and i felt so good.
• housewarming party: hosted an intimate gathering with close friends for the new house that R and I moved into. albeit it was 8 months late, we got it done. had a great time! highlight was playing phone ping pong on the dining table 😀
• dad diagnosis: dad was diagnosed with a 80-90% blockage in his main coronary artery. this was crazy and changed everything. life felt like it flipped upside down in that moment. the next ³⁄₄ months are hazy because so much stuff happened. to add on to woes, work started to go through the ringer. needless to say, this was one of those shrugging me back to reality moments and things changed. dad had to get a bypass.to make things more interesting, mom had a health scare during this as well. so much stuff ensued and i still feel myself getting emotional just thinking about this time again but safe to say this was the hardest 3 month period of my life so far. i could talk about this so much more but tldr was this made me deeply question everything i knew about life. coming upfront with the very concept of aliveness made me realize just how fickle existence is.
• quit my job: one of the realizations had from the last instance was that life is short and i should really do whatever the heck i want to do. while i did like my job, i so ended up putting in my notice in july for quitting my swe big tech job! had no immediate plans but knew i wanted to explore new things.
• solotravelled to cdmx/puertorico: felt like i needed this trip to give myself some breathing room after the big changes. this was so fun. i love travelling. it makes me feel come alive. i came back to sf refreshed and with more clarity. this was also momentous for so many reasons. the first time i took time off in the midst of so much uncertainty financially/emotionally/professionally/personally.
• building things: bufferring …