stop believing that you ran out of time to shape yourself into who you want to be! stop believing that its ruined! stop believing you don’t have potential! you are not a fixed being! you have endless opportunities to grow.
{05.03.17} 21/100 days of productivity!! sorry for the super long hiatus ahh i’ve been super busy in the last few weeks,, here’s a daily reminder: your grades do not define you. don’t let a stumble in the road be the end of your journey!! press on my fellow studyblrs!! ✨
My 13 year old cousin came back from a date with her boyfriend and said, “I can’t wait to grow up and spend sunday afternoons with him.” At first, I wanted to laugh (after all they’re just 13), but I remember being 13 and having the world in my hands. I remember getting excited to talk to someone about my dreams and wishes, and how happy these daydreams and fantasies made me. There’s this innocence you can only have at 13 and the world rises and falls and crashes and burns every year… until you do not think about quiet sunday afternoons.
So I asked her about the date and heard her giggle about bubblegum flavored ice cream, and how much she loves this little life. I think she makes me love it too.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire
The first boy who liked me told me how he thought I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen and how much he’d love to be with me. And I know that he was just a kid and didn’t mean any harm but it instilled this thought in me that being pretty was the only way I could attract people, that I had to give parts of myself to others in order to feel validated; it was almost like seeing myself as a token or prize whose worth is decided by the man who holds it. I began focusing on how much people would love to be with me rather than how much I enjoyed their company and that’s a big burden to carry at 11.
And after years of feeling trapped, I decided it was enough and tried to hate pink and makeup and skirts and everything I had loved as a child because I associated those things with the idea of performance. Again, I lost sight of what I liked and enjoyed, so I spent my 20s reclaiming barbie dolls and lip gloss, pink and skirts and everything I had once denounced for the fear of being ‘cringe’.
-Ritika Jyala, I love Pink, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire
It’s just how different suffering can look and feel. You see movies and shows where you see a character in pain but the lens makes it pretty, the suffering is beautiful and then you look at yourself and nothing about your pain is pretty, nothing is worth looking at. So you tell yourself this is not real- that your pain and your agony don’t really exist and you’re just being dramatic but if you could see what you feel, would you still be so harsh on yourself?
My mother never let me light candles when I was a kid. I thought it was because of the mess I’d make but last night she told me her father died in a forest fire and I finally saw how love protects and shields.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from Elle took a knife and carved her thighs
she has never said she loves me but I see her smile when she makes me coffee or tells me about her day- she bounces with excitement and blinks real fast. I never thought I’d believe in love, but I could drown in it now.
Sometimes I think this world is a bad place, but then I look around me and in all its chaos and mosaic of bodies and souls and dreams, I see beauty and goodness hidden behind kind eyes and rough hands.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire
Sometimes I think this world is cruel and unjust but then I remember how I dropped my wallet when I was on the bicycle 8 years ago and a homeless man ran 6 blocks to return it to me. Sometimes I think this world is lonely and grey but then I let the rain touch my body and hear birds make their way home at evening and for a moment, just a moment- I understand why Prometheus stole fire and laid it at man’s feet, why dying stars leave a trail of wishes, why I still love 6-year-old Erica I met on a summer trip a decade ago, even though I never saw her again.
Sometimes I think this world is a bad place, but then I look around me and in all its chaos and mosaic of bodies and souls and dreams, I see beauty and goodness hidden behind kind eyes and rough hands.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire
As a child, I had been obsessed with black holes. I wanted to know what it meant when people said they felt nothing, how everything- all of the universe and all of their life could fit inside nothing.
When you’re a child, you cannot fathom seeing nothing when there’s the sun, plants and broken parts of machines to look at, it feels impossible to be empty. I asked my grandpa if it hurt when he lost his left ear in the war. He tells me his brother lost his life. But did it hurt?, I ask again. Grandpa says it still hurts. I don’t know if he’s talking about his ear. Sometimes I see him drinking alone at night, tears rolling silently on either cheek and I understand how sometimes nothing can feel safer, how black holes devour the universe- and are still empty.
-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire
