This is an e-mail from my sister when I sent her one telling about the things that were going unbalened in my life. Just wanted to share. (Un-edited). Dear Manasik Sthithi Thik Nabhayeko Manchey ( also known as Harakhi ), I was wondering if you have mental illness but now that you say you don't, I'm convinced you do. He he he.. Last year when I went to get my drivers license, they told me I couldn't get one because I didn't pass the eye exam. I went to an ophthalmologist right away and got glasses. Before the doctor gave me the glasses, he took me outside, gave me the glasses and said 'try this, it will change the way you see the world'. I had no idea what he meant until I actually tried the glasses. I could read the name of the shop across the mall, I could see the fine prints on the poster in the doctor's office, all the lights seemed to be brighter, walls looked like it was freshly painted, I could even see the little dust on the stairs when I was walking down and nothing seemed like a blur anymore. It made me think of how the world I was seeing was different than the world someone with perfect vision was seeing. I had accepted the blur I see thinking that it was what everyone saw and it took glasses to make me realize that I was seeing the world just a little differently than most perfect vision people were. It made me wonder if a painting that I thought looked good looked as good or better or worse to others if I have been seeing things in a bit different shade than they have been. If just a physical thing as sight makes such a difference in what you see, Can you imagine how much perspective makes a difference in what you see? Or do you realize that what you see depends on how you choose to perceive it. I have come to realize that what you see or what you feel almost completely depends on how you choose to see and feel it or how you choose to react to it. Take our childhood for example. We grew up between fighting parents, alcoholic grandfather, manipulative grandmother, a father who considered us an investment, relatives who couldn't wait to take advantage of us, rich friends who made us feel smaller. There are some little memories that bother me to infinite extent. I always felt guilty about going to the best school and making Dad pay 6000 per month for me, while at home you ate rice with little tarkari or dal, while you had to embarrassingly go to the shop and ask for one kilo of rice saying you will bring the money later, while I made you walk all the way from kathmandu to save 5 rupees to buy an egg for Ba. When there used to be heavy rains and I would be at school, I would go to the bathroom and cry because I thought our home would blow away while I was staying lavishly in a stable building. Sometimes I think about Ma and it makes me wonder how it must feel to have raised kids, grandkids, done so much for them and at this old age when you really need someone, you have no one with you. I think about Mom and wonder how it must feel to want to eat chicken and not be able to. I think about Dad and wonder how it must have been to do everything you can, try so hard and yet to have it seem like its not working. I wonder what made Ba want to blur the world so much that he got drunk enough to actually blur the world. It makes me wonder why everything is so wrong with our family. And then I look at us from a different perspective. If you think about it, we are one of the lucky few people in our place, who being girls, got a superb education and are pretty intelligent [ =) remember I told you my IQ test told me I had higher IQ than 99.7 % of the people, and you’ve got the highest result from the day you joined school till today]. We have no serious disability ( except we are both psychos but that is ok), we had a house to live in, a family who cared about us and we never went hungry. In a society where girls weren't thought of as much, Dad tried to give us the best education so we would get a chance to prove ourselves. We had a grandfather we truly cared about us and bought us pineapples every time he came to pick us up when we went to School. We have a grandmother who bought us guaramari, who sincerely prayed for us and who saved us when dad put us in the drum with water. We had a grandfather who is probably the best hearted person I have ever met in my life. We have a grandmother who is so shrewd and clever that even at this old age she manages to live alone and make people do what she wants. We had Mama-Ba who would take us to the hotel to eat once in a while and show us how to use chopsticks. We had Mama-Ma who would always try to send some food or something back for us if we didn't go the nakhtya. We have a mom who was cute enough to play videogame and move her whole body trying to just move that Mario. We have a Dad who had enough sense of humor to take a picture of mom when she was playing videogame. We had parents who cared about each other – Dad who would buy a 150 rupees crème for Mom, Mom who would stay up late ironing Dad's shirt, Dad who took such care of Mom when she had that operation, Mom who tried her best to made adjustments in her life to keep Dad happier. We spend time laughing watching hijo aja ko kura. We called Dad Hero and Mom Heroin. We went out to Sumai and ate momo when we got good results. We had a Dad who polished our shoes and taught us how to make a tie and Mom who ironed our clothes and combed our hairs. We have a Mom we can call Jhomicha, a Dad we can call Had Bahadur and who would call us ullu ke patthey. We had a dad who would pillow fight with us – and ask us our opinion on things like buying land or shares or other things kids our age was rarely asked in Nepal. We have a Dad who was so concerned about our mental status that he rented a room for us to stay at so we wouldn't have to deal with the fightings. We have a dad who now calls us every week just to make sure we are ok ( and says over after every sentence) and a Mom who thinks we haven't called for a month when we just didn't call for one week. We are as lucky as it gets. And yet we barely appreciate it. From your email, I got the impression that subconsciously you are a little sad or even angry ( even though consciously you wouldn't admit it). And I completely understand why. All I would say is, how you feel, what you see or what you remember depends almost completely on you. It is your life. You live it the way you choose to. You decide how you perceive things. For me, I could choose to remember Dad and Mom fighting at home and be sad or choose to remember us all walking to Bangalamukhi and you and me walking together so we could make Dad and Mom walk together and smile about it. I decide what to remember. I decide how I want to feel. And I decide how I would perceive anything. You were talking about change. Change I think is just looking at something from a different perspective. You start looking at things differently. People think differently and agree or disagree depending on how they perceive a situation. Sometimes there are no right or wrong perspectives, they are just different. A person's point of view is influenced a lot by their past experiences. Dad may look at you calling home and think of it as not the best use of money. We both know Dad had a hard life financially. You may look at calling home as something emotional and not even worry about the money. We all just need to realize that people may view things differently and accept it if people view things differently and not get hurt or angry if they do. Especially with Mom and Dad – you know that whatever they are saying or doing is for our best interest and in no way is meant to hurt us even though they may think of something completely differently than you or I do. Today I want you to look back at your life and think of all the great things in your life. I want you to accept that your life is not perfect and realize that nothing is ever perfect – We are Human. I really want you to stop thinking about things that make you sad – there no point spending time on making yourself sad. I know you have been through a lot and you have a positive outlook on life for someone who has been through so much, and I want you to continue that positive outlook. And I want you to be glad for everything that happened in your life, cause it makes you who you are. If we were born in lavishly rich family, we may have turned out to be snobbish brats and you wont believe how glad I am that we weren't born in such kind of a family. I am glad I went to Wesleyan because had I gone to Harvard, I may have turned out to be a arrogant elitist looking down on everyone. Every experience, even if you may think of it as not a good experience has consciously or subconsciously taught you something and made that little change in you which makes you YOU. You are who you are because of everything you have been through. Even though you are younger than me, there are a lot of times when I look up to you. You should know that we are proud of who you are and You should be too. So be high, be happy!! Ha ha ha… WARNING: If you don't do what I say ( You have to do what I say because Im bigger and older and smarter and wiser and everything than you) – well anyway, if you don't do what I say, I'll make Dad sad by buying an air ticket from your place to Nepal, have a reserved taxi waiting for you at the airport and instruct that taxi to take you directly to Patan Mental Hospital. He he he…I may even remember the mental hospital phone number - he he...