A farewell feast is usually enjoyed by those who bid others goodbye. We are bidding 2025 a fond farewell with a mixed tape medley of many food recipes, conversations, learnings and more.
Some of my friends and family members are no more. And there remain a few others who are at pains to tell that they have been extremely busy through the year. Let’s see what this year actually brought for our disjointed and yet hopeful group.
Not touching upon their personal growth stories is difficult and yet it is an online platform where there’s much debate about privacy and people’s right to be disconnected.
Farewell Feast to a few friends who Helped
Disconnected and yet professing to be connected with good intentions is a difficult space. I’m choosing compassion for now as many of us have gone through such phases in life.
Life gave you lemons, tangerines, oranges and more. You thought sangria is the way and then inebriated you ended up making double the mistakes. Haven’t we all been there?
Ok, if not all- at least a few of us.
Some mistakes are very expensive ones as we realised later in life.
Was my marriage a very expensive and horrible mistake?
Was my trusting a few colleagues or friends earlier an innocent mistake?
Is trying to support my family through their difficult times (only to be buried under their careless abandonment and apathy later) an even bigger mistake?
After all, so easy in retrospect to be blamed by all saying you were a fully grown adult- so take responsibility while we escape.
Your mistake- was smoking and helping others. Our mistake was drinking and abusing others. So? How are we wrong? You are the one who must bear the consequences of our collective mistakes.
Farewell Feast to a few elders who advised
Ok- having started on this rather dark note, let’s turn our light towards a few happier tales from people with or without tails.
Did you grow up with stories of Love, Peace and Happiness? Gave to others unconditionally only to be stabbed in the back with conditional heroes and heroines later in life? Welcome.
You are now a fully grown adult. Irrespective of how cute you look or how innocent you pretend to be when push comes to shove.
If you are physically smaller- there may be bigger bullies around bullying or pretending to protect you from harm.
Now, how do you know which one is actually loving and kind? And which one is using you for the moment for temporary boosting of their own ego or material status in life.
Here’s the thing- you don’t know.
Farewell Feast to a few Positivity Gurus
From my life experiences, all I saw was people using and abusing me. I am silent and keeping my peace for the most part.
Sometimes, there’s not much you can do when you have all walked along on different paths.
So, here I am trying to sift out the grains of wisdom from the chaff.
- Randomness is often more powerful than individual or human intent
- We are all separated in thoughts, feelings or actions till there’s an impending urgency
- Nothing is urgent for those who seek peaceful death
- Life as opposed to death is far more fraught with war, dangers and negativity. This can be reframed by others in a more positive light to manage those who are still living
- Human emotions can be manipulated and is constantly being manipulated
- Humans are the ones who will help other humans and also destroy them
- Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself is a good thought- but doesn’t help when others focus on how different they are from you
- Not taking things personally is difficult when you are personally very invested in something or someone- that’s what differentiates a human from a machine
- Upside down is often recommended for looking at things from a different perspective
- Part of working with others is to lose and not to gain. The benefits of that are often misunderstood
- Choosing what you gain or lose is completely based upon life stages and external circumstances -a roundabout way of saying- often you don’t have a choice and yet you are held responsible
- Those who have mastered the art of being a machine with high disciplinary focus maybe more efficient or productive but are barely human
Farewell Feast to a few Gossiping Chatterboxes
Now, we are entering a chaotic field of dealing with uncertainty. Many start by jotting down their tasks to be done methodically and ticking them off one by one. They may be admired or respected by a few or many. They may be derided as well. That’s completely out of their hands.
Then suddenly there comes a time when they realise that didn’t give them any satisfaction beyond a point. So, they create another new set of task lists.
Again- see how there’s a focus on tasks and not much on people in their lives- especially those who helped them to rise up in life. This is the effect of a selective memory system that allows them to segregate humans as “useful” or “useless”.
A rather selfish and ultimately destructive force of the human mind. Observe sometimes, how these people dissipate their energies by charming others while vilifying or manipulating their close family members in private.
Farewell Feast for a few Teachers
A friend of mine narrated how there were very smart students in her workshop who had the best answers and were very alert in class. But when there was a field project to be done- they turned out to be quite useless.
Some of it was a deliberate attempt to shirk work and some of it was their own inability having never taken on such tasks before or done it grudgingly with a complaint around how it wasn’t “fun”.
Suddenly some of the others who were quieter in class outshone them.
My understanding is this is actually typical of a group thrown together to work. We have people with different attitudes and skill sets everywhere. There are always a few willing to work who get overloaded, obviously they make mistakes and then they get blamed as well.
Have you been in a situation where one person complains continuously about work-life balance- gets leaves, gets paid and another person picks up their extra workload?
Then weirdly the person who has the extra workload is blamed and abused by the one who actually had less work, got paid more and was deemed to be worthier?
Repeatedly happened in life and yet the person who has extra workload continues to work, continues to be abused, mistreated and derided by the more fortunate ones who sit and make fun of him/her.
You may want to read this post.
Great Dame’s Danish Pudding – Melting Lemon Drop
Farewell Feast for highly confident Fortune tellers
Now somehow, this person quits his/her job and using this example, others negotiate better pay, better benefits, higher education and pretend to give him/her words of empathy/sympathy.
What kind of Secret Santa are we talking about here?
This is a manipulative person simply trying to save face by hiding their own misdeeds. Do you think they will ever admit in any kind of confrontational situation? Never- not till the day they die. Things done out of apathy are clearly buried with the help of others to make them shine further in life.
You want justice? You simply go and cry secretly.
Find a way to let them continue with their ugly deeds- they will face the same injustice at some point in their lives.
It’s simple. Did you look upto someone when you were younger? Only to find later feet of clay? That’s how it is eventually- so you simply take home your learnings with gratitude.
Farewell Feast to Grandparental Odes
In fact, most people who are high on IQ turn out to have lower EQ or vice versa. And then there are those who have a good mix of both but are somewhere in the middle. Life gives them weird ways of huddling in groups, and they perhaps enjoy more of life anyways.
It really depends- what you describe as success, failure, ambition, happiness, peace or whatever turns out to be the new driving term or mantra. (Love or hatred is not rational- so beyond the scope of definitions).
Humans have their own ways of justifying their work and rising up beyond the smaller skirmishes in life. There is always a tribe or group that will take care of a lost person.
Last 3 years of my life at least showed me how kindness of strangers perhaps saved my life. I have no way to repay that kindness- so I try my best to pass it forward.
If you feel like you haven’t lost enough in life to reach that level of understanding- there’s scope for more learnings or growth.
Farewell Feast for Storytelling Creative Children
I’m trying my best not to take advantage of kinder people here. Sometimes, it’s not in my hands. I see there are others who have lesser qualms and yet when I point out- I am deemed to be the person who is wrong. So, what do I do?
I stay silent but then, doesn’t it mean that I am colluding with others who are bigger or wilier bullies? In a way yes.
So as long as I have this life- I choose for now to speak up against what I see is wrong. Sometimes, it doesn’t help at all. Because open confrontation is often messy. There are quite a few people who wish for positivity instead of negativity in life. When it comes to doing something positive for others- they are strangely missing.
I am also left a bit perplexed about what exactly was the point of those messages when there wasn’t much done at the end of the day.
When push comes to shove- there is a missing link somewhere and I’m returning to the point about choices.
Here’s me trying to highlight again work that was done so that there is some understanding of the number of people worked with and collaborations used here for a simple website, YouTube channel and social media presence.
Questions for Matriarchy and Patriarchy
Did I have a choice to disbelieve someone who lied for 10 years?
Did I have a choice to not be born a woman?
Was I given a choice to not be born into the family and circumstances I was born into?
Did I have a choice around the education I received and the work I did?
You see- how all of these questions pertain to the past and yet- they have molded my present.
They are likely to have bearings into the future.
For all those who say wipe everything out clean slate– I would like to help them in some ways. Just like a few kind strangers helped me. Somewhere they need therapy as much as they suggested magnanimously to provide free advice or therapy.
Here’s my conclusion- there are those who show intent and there are those who actually do something to help others. For now- I am thwarted in my attempts to help others by their own suspicious minds or their own inability to accept or return the favor. Who knows.
Overstuffed stockings with difficult people
2025 was a difficult year for many and yet a good year because in some ways, we grow more when life throws us challenges. I have lived a more comfortable or easier life earlier and saw myself as a person with no positivity. This was despite everything I did to get out of that rut- I was constantly abused and drained to start believing otherwise.
Irrespective of how others see me today, I have a strong powerful hope for those who are trying their best to make things better, brighter and change the old ways that may not be working.
Many of us will not be alive to see the fruits of our efforts. Well, here’s me going upside down and suggesting- perhaps we are the ones who need to be removed to help those who don’t have a voice.
I still have my half-forgotten bucket list somewhere. There are many who have better ones and deserve a shot at it.
Here’s another version of a sweet dessert that is a no-bake easier option. Also makes use of a few leftovers from Christmas holidays with or without kids in the house. 🙂
Footnote
Heads I win, Tails you Lose
For all the mothers who cried intentionally
My birthday was not celebrated for many years
The expense related to my upbringing was questioned
My protection came from many kind strangers
And my mother was a self-obsessed tyrant
Who drove her unfulfilled ambitions
Through intentional use, abuse and discarding
Of children at various times
If you doubt my narrative, hear this as well
I still served and tried to repay the kindness
For a life lived through various means
It didn’t give me love, rewards or recognition
It merely helped to distribute some of the wealth
Which I got from a life lived over the years
The wealth was paltry or enormous
Depended on who was around
What I got from this life was a memory
Of moments filled with people, places and creations
Some were useless and some were useful
It didn’t matter end of the day what was the label used
If you had a different experience that shaped your outlook
It maybe finally your word against mine.
So, I leave it alone because violence and apathy
Are two sides of the same coin being flipped repeatedly
By those who are paying for self or others of their own kind.
Melting Lemon Drop 28.12. 2025
