There are few things more sobering than realising you can’t find your glasses and your deadline is in one hour. This column is dedicated to one such weekend: a 24-hour rollercoaster of chaos, hope, malayalee lunches, misplaced eyewear, and reluctant maternal wisdom.
School Shenanigans
This week, I misplaced my reading glasses for the 426th time.
Spoiler: They were everywhere and nowhere. Much like my patience.
Starring: One teenager, one ginger cat, and one husband who believes “looking properly” means standing still and squinting.
It began innocently enough. A crisp Saturday morning. The kind of day where you wake up feeling vaguely optimistic, until reality slaps you in the face by lunchtime.
It was our daughter’s Term 1 PTM day. Also known in parenting circles as “The Hunger Games: Report Card Edition.” This was 10th grade, so both parents were summoned. My husband showed up, ready to be involved. Welcome to the party, sir.
We marched into school like well-dressed, emotionally repressed troops. My daughter’s class was on the third floor, a strategic decision clearly designed by school architects to weed out the unfit. Think Mario Bros. level 7, but instead of gold coins and powers, we got sweaty stairs and silent despair.
When we finally reached Class X-B, our daughter stood by her file like it was an abstract art exhibit, red ink everywhere, open to interpretation, definitely dramatic.
I placed my glasses on her desk and briefly got distracted.
My husband beats me and grabs the file first . Our daughter gives me a panicked look. I return her glare with an apologetic one.
As my husband reviewed her marks with a stoic nod, our daughter began to resemble a ghost attending her own academic funeral.
Meanwhile, the Teachers Were Lovely
To be fair, the teachers were wonderful.
Warm. Supportive. One even called my daughter “a quiet storm.” Another praised her progress in French. I grinned like a TED Talk parent.
We moved from teacher to teacher as the emotional temperature swung like a pendulum in a sauna: I played cheerleader. My husband played disappointed consultant. Our daughter? A Shakespearean tragic heroine trapped in a CBSE plotline. The more we praised her, the more she sank into an existential teenage doom spiral. Clearly, we were helping too much.
Lunch Therapy: Powered by Parotta
That emotional roller coaster finally came to a halt as we headed back home.
We finally agreed on one thing: It was lunchtime.
We went to our favourite place , a small, comforting Malayalee shack where the food comes with memories and the waiter knows our order by our face tilt. He took one look at our post-report-card exhaustion and skipped handing us the menu and rattled off the weekend specials : “Chicken fry, fish moily, parotta, appam, and stew?”
We smile. Yes, my friend. All of it. Feed the angst.
As the food arrived, something miraculous happened. A parotta-induced mood shift. My husband cracked a terrible joke, and to my horror, I laughed. Our teen daughter smiled. Smiled! She even ordered seconds. Dessert followed. My husband, who “never eats sweet,” devoured all three bowls of coconut pudding while saying, “Too much sugar, not good for health.” We said nothing. The man was in coconut heaven.
Flea Market Mayhem
Back home, the universe decided we hadn’t suffered enough. Our building was hosting a surprise flea market. Within minutes of us parking in the basement, we were swept into the local chaos. My husband bought his 100th workout T-shirt: “This one breathes differently.”
Meanwhile, My daughter was stocking up on hair clips like she was curating a museum exhibit: The Evolution of Accessories from 2012 to present. I bought nothing. Just hovered with bags in one hand and a migraine in the other, radiating silent judgment. By 4 p.m., we had finally entered our home and collapsed into blissful silence.
The Eye of the Storm
A 40-minute nap for the adults.
Novella and music for the teen.
Then chai and a mild crime series (Under-16 approved).
It was finally peaceful.
Until about 8:00 p.m. when my phone pinged loudly.
A calendar alert: “Submit column by 9:00 p.m.”
I blinked. Tonight?
Somewhere between that days emotional chaos and household diplomacy, my brain had clearly decided to log off and taken my deadline reminder with it.
Where Are My Glasses?
Panic mode activated.
I ran to my laptop. No glasses.
Not on the table, not in the bag, not on the fridge (don’t judge me, it’s happened before). Ten frantic minutes later, the house now looks like a low-budget crime scene. Pillows flung. Cabinets yanked open.
My panic escalating with every passing minute.
“Has anyone seen my black glasses?” I yell.
My husband sipped his herbal tea. “Don’t look at me. I never touch your stuff.”
My daughter: “Not me”
Enter: The Teenager’s Brilliance
Deep breath. I can do this. Ancy, pull it together.
Just as I surrendered to fate and prepared to complete my column with a zoomed-in screen and blind hope, my teen casually said,
“Don’t you have powered sunglasses?”
Of course. My spare ones.
I put them on. Midlife superhero mode: Activated.
There I was, at 8:30 p.m., hunched at the dining table, typing like a lunatic wearing black sunglasses. Cookie flopped beside me like an emotional support feline.
From the other room came the sounds of my husband and daughter giggling at the absurdity of me in siting indoors in black shades, flying fingers, and full chaos mode.
The Column That Lived
Somehow, the column was written.
My husband sent me a reel titled “Early Signs of Dementia in Women Over 40” with 3 laughing emojis.
My daughter hugged me goodnight and said something truly shocking ,“Mom you are intense and weird but badass with deadlines”, and just like that, my universe shifted. Move over, SRK. I just received a National Award equivalent, the only award that matters. A compliment from my teen.
Glasses: Found. Dignity: Questionable
Now in hindsight, losing my glasses felt like the perfect metaphor for how I navigate life these days: blurry, hopeful, slightly disoriented but still getting things done. Not because I see clearly but because even in my blurriest, half-blind, glasses-in-the-fridge days, life at home is unfiltered, real, and deeply ours and I wouldn’t trade that for 20/20 vision. That, dear reader, is why I remain The Luckiest Girl on the Planet.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to consult my teenager on the whereabouts of my missing coffee mug. I’m 73% sure it’s lying somewhere in plain sight. Along with my dignity.
P.S. The prodigal specs have returned. They were recovered from my daughter’s classroom, tucked away neatly inside her Term 1 file. Life has returned to its usual blend of clarity and chaos. Balance is restored and our family’s regular programming of mild confusion and strong chai has resumed as scheduled.
About the Author:
Ancy James is a former television producer who, after a fulfilling 17-year career, chose to step away from the relentless pursuit of output and certainty in favour of retiring from corporate life at age 37 to a slower and more intentional life. In what she calls her act of quiet rebellion, her toddler’s health scare ensured she followed through on this decision and she traded deadlines and huge pay packets for meaningful quiet personal life. Now over 10 years later, She truly believes that our identity isn’t something we prove, it’s something we shape with the decisions we take daily for our loved ones. She now keeps herself busy as an internationally trained Cake Artist and Chef Trainer with a culinary diploma and runs a FSSAI approved business “Ancy’s Sugar Art Academy, in Bengaluru, India. She discovered marathon running in her journey to reversing her bone health diagnosis at age 42. When she is not customising cakes or running, she is busy reading books across the spectrum or spend hours pouring her heart out in these personal memoirs.
Through her weekly personal memoirs, she shares raw, honest reflections on grief, resilience, motherhood, midlife reinvention, and the quiet beauty found in overlooked corners of everyday life. At 48, Ancy writes not to impress, but to connect, believing that vulnerability is the birthplace of both healing and growth. In a fast and AI driven world she believes these memoirs are an honest attempt to stay real and relevant as a female writer who is a 100 percent invested in her journey of “Becoming”.