I wasn’t going to write tonight.
I was sitting with a small mountain of things I hadn’t done yet — deadlines I’d been circling, ideas still in my head, a list that felt longer than the afternoon. A little stressed. A little tired. And still a little sore from the intense workout yesterday.
And then I had a session with Dr. Madhu Chitkara.
By the end of it, something in me had shifted.
The last year was perhaps the longest year of my life. It was also the toughest. And for someone like me — someone who doesn’t easily speak about the details of what I’m feeling, who doesn’t naturally reach out and say “this is what’s making life hard right now”; it was quiet exhausting in ways anyone can imagine. The most I could do on my hardest days was say: “Hey, I’m having a difficult time. Can we do something beautiful together?”
“I need to go somewhere to heal.” I said that to a friend, just before my birthday. And without any hesitation or asking a hundred questions, he scheduled and booked an entire holiday for me. We invited a few of our other close friends to his place, to his country, and he showed us around.
And the space. Oh, the space people give me when I am not ready to speak. How much I appreciate that! When I am still somewhere inside myself, still figuring out what I was even feeling. It is something I am always grateful for.
(I’ve also been ghosted, deleted, and blocked for the space I take when I need it and if you’re wondering, yes, I admit it finally, but it is one of the things I’m working on healing this year.)
In the middle of all of it, I also quit pole dance. One of my most favourite things to do. Something that made me feel strong and beautiful and fully myself in my body. I just… stopped. And I’m still trying to go back. And somehow it’s not easy.
Anyway I went to gym instead and I ran. And ran. And ran on the treadmill; headphones in, everything tucked away, moving my body while trying to outpace whatever I was feeling inside.
And somewhere between the aching and this treadmill, I started loving the gym. I started talking to my trainer; not about sets and reps, but also about life. Spilling things I hadn’t said to anyone else. That space, those unexpected conversations, healed me in ways I still don’t fully have words for.
Sitting in today’s session for the International Women’s Day Celebration; being invited to the platform, being seen and appreciated for the books I’ve written and the journey I’ve traveled; I felt something I don’t let myself feel often enough.
Gratitude for myself and everyone who has helped me on this journey so far.
I kept looking ahead so relentlessly that I forgot to turn around and see how far I’ve already come and who all were still walking beside me. I forgot my own milestones. I forgot that I wrote books (on days it was difficult to speak). That I built something from scratch. That I kept showing up, even in a year that felt like the longest one of my life.
Life really does come in a beautiful big circle, again and again and again, until we learn to see the beauty in the chaos.
Looking back at last year, parts of it feel almost silly now — the way hard things sometimes do, once you’re on the other side. But I know: if it happened again, I would cry again. I would struggle again. I would take up space and lose a favourite thing and run on a treadmill and call it surviving.
And that’s okay. That’s the circle.
Tonight, I just want to say thank you.
To Dr. Madhu Chitkara, for the session that opened something in me today. To every person who showed up quietly last year, who bought me flowers on a random Tuesday, who booked a trip, who gave space, who listened without needing me to explain. To the gym, somehow. To the treadmill that held my tears. To this strange, hard, beautiful year.
And to myself, for still being here. Still looking. Still trying to remember the milestones while reaching for the next one.
I promise I’ll try this time, to be genuinely grateful for it all.
S.