NB: The first three embedded links below are better than my post. Click on them.
Six days later, I completed the first season of Homeland. I am proud and disgusted by this feat. This television show has inspired me to return to this blog and more importantly, to challenge myself to articulate the challenges, joys, and small moments of living successfully and (dare I say it) happily with a mood disorder. These adverbs have been a long time coming, which perhaps is what makes watching Homeland so empowering and vindicating. The Internet is full of haters who claim not to relate with Carrie Mathison (or, for that matter, with Mindy Kaling in her new sitcom, and this is awesome), but I empathize so fully with her that watching Homeland feels self-congratulatory at times. As a teenager, I felt a similar relief/elation/joy/inspiration when I first read "The Namesake" - when Lahiri wrote about the protagonist's wife, I felt that she could have been writing about me. I am self-aggrandizing enough to believe that if I keep writing, someday I can create a Moushimi, or a Carrie, or a Mindy that some bipolar or Indian or smart or chubby or Portland-born or outdoor loving or stubborn or confused or empathic young woman will hold close to and be comforted and think wow, that author knows me. I came this way, and she came this way, too.
Six days later, I completed the first season of Homeland. I am proud and disgusted by this feat. This television show has inspired me to return to this blog and more importantly, to challenge myself to articulate the challenges, joys, and small moments of living successfully and (dare I say it) happily with a mood disorder. These adverbs have been a long time coming, which perhaps is what makes watching Homeland so empowering and vindicating. The Internet is full of haters who claim not to relate with Carrie Mathison (or, for that matter, with Mindy Kaling in her new sitcom, and this is awesome), but I empathize so fully with her that watching Homeland feels self-congratulatory at times. As a teenager, I felt a similar relief/elation/joy/inspiration when I first read "The Namesake" - when Lahiri wrote about the protagonist's wife, I felt that she could have been writing about me. I am self-aggrandizing enough to believe that if I keep writing, someday I can create a Moushimi, or a Carrie, or a Mindy that some bipolar or Indian or smart or chubby or Portland-born or outdoor loving or stubborn or confused or empathic young woman will hold close to and be comforted and think wow, that author knows me. I came this way, and she came this way, too.
