As I sit alone in my flat on one of the rare weekends where I am not working, my mind is in a 1v1 battle between two productive thoughts - studying knee anatomy vs participating in a recreational activity. During this battle, I realised that if I go with the latter, I have no idea where I would start from (and if you’re wondering why in the world would I study knee anatomy, I shall leave you curious and save that story for another blog). For the past 6 months I have only been trying to keep up with corporate life and that includes figuring out the answers to thousands of questions - How does this work? How do I go about doing this? Is this the right thing to do/say? Am I heading in the right direction? What happens if this goes wrong? And so many other questions that I have lost track of.  But recently, I have been thinking about this particular question - “Who was I before I started working?”

Well, there is no place else where I would rather go to answer this question than this blog, which I have neglected for quite some time but now I’m back babyyyyyy! (or am I?)

Figuring out the answer to the question was not as tough as I thought it would be. All I had to do was scroll down my gallery and look at what I had been up to at the start of 2024. Scrolling down my gallery is my favourite thing to do, at least it used to be when I captured every moment of my life no matter how insignificant. After becoming a corporate girlie, I have little to no memories of how I have spent my time (note to self: add this to your 2025 resolution).

On 12th March 2024, as I boarded the plane back home with a second degree in my hand and with my eyes full of tears, I felt like I was leaving Mumbai forever (pfft, little did I know that I would be back in the same city in less than 2 months) . More than that, it was the end of an era and the start of a new one, which I was excited about but was also two months away. All my friends who had already spent two years grinding in the corporate world had warned me that I would never get this time back. That entire plane ride I only thought about what I was going to do and how I was going to spend my time.

Spoiler Alert: These two months have been the best two months of my entire life, so far.

My strategy was to attack every single one of my hobbies and add on some new ones along the way. I had my list of goals that I had made at the start of 2024, which acted as a skeleton of what the two months would ideally look like. Let’s get into how I spent these two months:

Reading:

I excessively started reading books. In the first 4 months of 2024, I completed 7 books which is a big deal considering I had completely stopped reading during my MBA. I was reading while having breakfast, while watching the sunset, before going to bed and on some days, that’s all I spent doing the entire day. I was reading autobiographies, fictional stuff, marketing stuff and anything and everything I could get my hands on. I have always said this and I will say it again, reading makes you escape reality and that’s an experience you always want to keep going back to.


At the start of the year, I had set my Goodreads reading goal to 12 books which was the bare minimum I had to achieve. Well, after the 7 books I read before my job started, I have not read any book which is disappointing (and embarrassing) to say the least.

Health:

Focussing on my health was the theme I had set for 2024. Initially, my goal was to incorporate movement into my life but slowly I kept redefining the goal. I started by going on a walk every day to hitting 10k steps every day to starting the C25K program. I surprised myself by keeping up with running and completing the C25k program and for the first time EVER, I ran 5K!


There was a time when I was super reluctant to run and then there was a time when I looked forward to going for a run, and that was probably my biggest achievement in 2024. There were other things I did for my health too which included - getting back into swimming after years, watching my diet, cutting sugar as much as I could, and sticking to oats and black coffee for breakfast every morning.

Dancing:

I had not explored dancing for a long time. The last I remember is the dance class I joined in 2008 post which I have only danced half-heartedly at weddings. At the start of 2024, I came across a dance page while doom scrolling and that’s how I re-discovered my love for dancing after nearly 16 years. I enrolled myself there and after a month, there was a significant change in my mood and my confidence. In the initial few classes, I was shy and awkward to look at myself in the mirror while dancing but by the end of it, I found myself grooving to music with the right facial expressions. I was allowing my body to move in ways it had not moved in a long time. I started chasing the endorphins and with time dancing became a part of my routine, without which I felt incomplete.


Let’s not forget that being at home gives you a comfort that is unmatched. You’re around your family every day, get to meet your friends every weekend and most of all, you’re in your safe space. For those 2 months, I wasn’t witnessing the lives of my parents, brother and friends through a 30-minute video call each day. I was witnessing it through my own eyes and our interactions weren’t limited to a phone call or a video call, which in my opinion is the best part about being home that a lot of people take for granted.

So, who is Arushi beyond work?

There is an Arushi beyond just work and the daily stresses of life, an Arushi that might be hard to find on some days and an Arushi that has more hobbies than what she thinks of. This blog will be a constant reminder to her that this Arushi exists and will always exist but it might take some time and effort for her to surface back.

With only a few days left till the end of the year, it’s now time to get working on the 2024 rewind where I will probably be elaborating on these points a little bit more.

Until next time!

Note: This blog was written sometime in October-November of 2024 but was only published in 2025 because of well, work.