Scribblings by Nancy

We scribbled homework on the bus, learned from boredom, and now raise humans with healing hearts. This one’s for us - the resilient Millennials. Lately, I keep hearing all this talk - Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha. I’ll be honest, I can’t keep up with all the lingo. But it got me thinking about my own tribe - the generation I proudly belong to. I’m a proud Millennial, born in the 1980s. Proud, because I think we’ve truly seen it all - from the no-media phase, to the one-TV-in-the-house phase, to today, where everyone walks around with a screen in hand. We learned to turn boredom into creativity. We had the perfect cartoons. We weren’t confused about who we were. Sure, we sat in ignorant oblivion - but we used our brains and felt everything with heart. We didn’t have AI to do our homework, or even Google to rescue us. We relied on each other. I still remember scribbling homework on the school bus! We knew what respect meant. We knew when to talk, and when not to. We weren’t perfect - bu...

Brace yourself, we’re peeling off some labels today! At the kids' church I’m part of, we’ve been talking about a big topic - identity . But truthfully, it’s not just a conversation for kids. It’s something we all wrestle with, especially when life doesn’t go according to plan. In moments of crisis, many of us find ourselves asking: Am I doing okay? Am I even good enough? Why do I feel so lost? I have to fit in somehow. I’m a failure. I feel invisible. Do I even matter to anyone? Sound familiar? You’re not alone. These thoughts creep in when our sense of identity feels shaky. Where Does Our Identity Begin? Our identity, the way we see ourselves often forms quietly, without us even realizing it. At home, in school, among friends, the labels we hear start shaping our self-image. A parent’s comment like “You’re so lazy” can linger for years. A teacher’s label like “naughty” can become a badge we never wanted. Society’s messages - be smarter, thinner, more outgoing can pile up silently....

  I love hearing people’s stories ,the quiet ones, the broken ones, the ones stitched with laughter or silence. As they speak, I don't just listen but I see. I imagine the creak of their childhood home, the shade of light falling through their kitchen window, the pause in their voice when they talk about love or loss. Their story becomes a little movie in my mind, and sometimes, it never really leaves. Sometimes it’s grainy and warm like an old home video. Sometimes it’s silent, all in black-and-white. And sometimes, a single moment from that story stays with me for days, like a scene that lingers after the credits roll. I’ve come to believe it’s a gift. A gift to see someone’s life, not just with my eyes, but with my heart wide open. It doesn’t matter if their story is joyful or jagged. What matters is that someone tells it, and someone else listens, really listens. Not to judge, not to fix, but to witness. Maybe that's what we all need, not just to be heard, but to be seen. M...

Some vacations are for rest. Others are for remembering who you are. It’s been a while since I wrote. The kids were on vacation, which meant round-the-clock duty for me so writing had to wait. But I’m deeply grateful to those of you who checked in, asking why I hadn’t posted these past few weeks. You reminded me that this space matters, and that means a lot. Lately, I’ve been reminiscing about my childhood vacations. Back then, holidays meant either staying at home or visiting relatives. We were in Munnar, where school breaks were different. Instead of summer holidays, we had monsoon holidays which means weeks off because of the heavy rains. And oh, how I loved the rains. The cozy comfort of being indoors, wrapped in my favorite blanket, sipping hot tea and watching TV while it poured outside and that was pure heaven. Even today, a rainy day still brings that feeling back. Once a year, our parents would take us to our native place. It was a big deal. We packed lots of clothes and alway...

When Pain Touches the Beautiful The recent attack on tourists in Pahalgam broke my heart, not just for the victims, but for the land itself. A land already soaked in pain, where locals and soldiers have long sacrificed their lives. And now, even those who come simply to witness its beauty fall prey to violence. Whoever it is - local, soldier, or tourist. It’s always heartbreaking. Always a loss of something deeply human. An article in The Hindu struck a deep chord in me. It suggested that perhaps it’s time we rethink our education system. Maybe we need to shift focus, not just on marks and careers but on emotional regulation, social responsibility, and secularism. “What if our children learned to manage anger before they learned algebra?” “What if compassion became as important as competition?” Rooted in Responsibility I owe a lot to my upbringing in the hills and to my alma mater, where we were nurtured to be socially responsible individuals. Community work was part of school life. We...

Dearest gentle readers, Ha! Don’t I sound like Lady Whistledown from Bridgerton? Well, well- I may not be half the writer she is (yet), but who knows? Someday, I just might get there. Now, let’s get down to business.This post is a follow-up to my recent one on breaking generational chains. So many of you reached out with heartfelt messages and questions, and I felt compelled to continue the conversation. Before we dive in, I want to make something clear: I’m not a therapist, nor am I professionally trained to say any of this. What I share here comes purely from my own lived experience, late-night reflections, and the bits of research that have helped me walk this path. I write as someone who is still learning, still stumbling, and still choosing- every single day,to be a chain breaker. Your responses moved me.Some were raw, others reflective, and many echoed the silent struggles we carry through generations.In this post, I want to revisit a few themes from my earlier piece, especially ...

  Amigos, I’m in my late 30s, and let me tell you, life has been handing me some serious revelations. Things I never noticed before, things I was too naïve to understand. It’s like the universe decided to slap me awake with raw, undeniable truths. And now, here I am, on this unexpected journey of healing. I know many of you have already walked this path, but for those still living in the comfort of ignorance, wake up! We have important work to do. Let me tell you what my wake-up call was. It happened in a simple meeting with our pastor -yes, you heard that right. He was sharing about his past, about the abuse he endured, and how it quietly shaped patterns in his life that continued into adulthood. Patterns that impacted his relationships in ways he didn’t fully realize. BAM. That hit me like a bolt of lightning. It all suddenly made sense. For the first time, I had a real answer to the “why” behind so many of my behaviors, why I shut down in difficult moments, why certain friendshi...