To Freedom!

The dumbest decision I ever made was to marry someone I knew for a short while, and the even dumber decision was sticking to that life for almost 7 years.

I tried it all to make it work. Talking doesn’t always help, neither does therapy or counseling. It was the greatest feeling when I left, when I walked out of my marriage. I had already found a humble house for rent. Took the day off from work, spent a few hours to box the necessary things (of mine) and by evening I had left the big, beautiful house where I had the ugliest memories of my adult life.

It was pure joy to live alone, to be in charge of everything,  most importantly to live where no one to strangulate me or punch me in my face.

Freedom!

The downside of it though, of living alone…A to Z of the household responsibilities need to be carried out by me. In a way it is fun, but sometimes it is such a pain in the ass. Going to work every day so that bills can be paid, paying the bills (itself is a task indeed ), making meals, getting things to make meals, but the most irritating task of all is to fix what is broken. And things always break – it’s either the fan or the blender or the door. There is always a new errand to run. You know how I see it? It is like God feels bad for all the regular problems I have and gives me a new problem once in a while to solve, to make life more interesting. 
It sucks, but I would never trade this life for what I had before.

Family : Now and Then.

I grew up in a family of eleven - my parents (both of them), my dad’s brother, his wife and their three children, and my two sisters, and our grandma! It was a complete madhouse most of the times. Everything was a battle, to get the remote, even to get a chair to sit in. Those days an average household had just 3 or 4 chairs.  You gotta be loud you gotta be fierce or you get lost in the crowd.

Family type started to change then, from a joint or extended family ( with dad’s sibling/s’ family, and with grand parents) to neutral family. Now, along with the type, the number too has changed so drastically low. Single parent with one child. My generation is witness to this huge transformation- Me from growing up in a family of 11 to possess a precious family of 2 including myself.

Sometimes it breaks my heart to see how our value system lost its luster. I don’t blame the increasing  divorce rate alone for this change. We are after money and we relocate without thinking about the family we leave behind for that. There’s also no point in reminiscing or blaming it on some reason.

Even if it is a big family, even if you live with your both the parents or grandparents…with the work set up we all leave in the morning and come back late in the evening. We spend just few hours with our loved ones. That is sad.

Solution: Quality time and variety of experiences!

My 12 year old daughter and I spend the morning hour to get ready to leave for school and work. It is the busiest time of the day for us, yelling and running are basically the routine. And in the evening we spend may be 3 or 4 hours before her bedtime. I compensate the lack of family members and the lack of our together time by spending quality time with her. Sitting on the balcony, looking at the stars while listening to our favorite songs with our choice of drinks in hand and candles all around us- a perfect example of a quality time with her! (of course we fight too over the songs ilayaraja vs something loud and dumb)

For no fault of hers she has no dad and I have to take the extra mile to fill the void. At least I have to try.

A few months back we took a long ride to Madurai from Coimbatore with her riding pillion. It was a strenuous 5 hour ride because of the snacks breaks and the pee breaks, but a new experience. That’s the ‘variety’ I meant earlier. 

With quality/variety we can compensate the missing hours, or even missing relationships.

Love is...

I remember admiring my akka’s feet when I was little, they were milk white and bright. Mine were dark and with even darker patches. Comparing my body to others did more harm than good to my self esteem in my teen – the middle child with a fairest older sister and an even fairer younger sister. I avoided looking at my feet as they did not give me any good feeling.

 I neglected them. This continued for years. 

After a pedicure from a professional they looked all healthy and shiny, but that lasts hardly for a week. Then back to the blackness. I couldn’t afford that personal service regularly and it seemed like too much work for me to do it myself at home. 

I did not want to let this bother me anymore. 

I started scrubbing my feet when I shower, with a natural loofah that costs less than fifty rupees... just for a few seconds, but everyday. After shower I sit on my bed with my foot above the knee of my other leg. With moisturized hands I massage my foot.  My slithery fingers gently rubbing my foot, one toe at a time. With both my  thumbs I firmly rub each toe from bottom to the nail end.

 I do this only for a minute,  but my entire body feels incredibly relaxed.

Someone said “Love” is “Paying attention” We pay attention if we truly love it. You have a plant, if there’s love then you will water it daily, check if it is getting enough sunlight,  clear out the dead leaves from the pot and so on. That is how you watch it grow, not by abandoning it. 

 Let's pay attention to the body part we have been ignoring for years and change its story.       

 No naughtiness intended ;)

The Bug!

A small mistake can bring about disastrous consequences.

I love Animals! I was ecstatic not when I had sex or when I gave birth to a baby girl (no offense Ela, maybe it was the heavy sedation that didn’t let me feel anything). I felt so alive and sensed the force go through my veins and all through my body, when I held a snake in my hands. It was non venomous, but a big one. When everyone was looking curiously at the snake but cautiously standing away, I pleaded the snake catcher to give the snake to me for a minute. The snake wrapped around my arm and it was so nice to feel that beautiful but very strange creature so close to me.

I always find it easier to be around animals. I don’t even kill geckos at home, as they feed on mosquitoes. 

Last month Ela and I started to get small rashes in our arms. It was very itchy and we scratched the hell out of our skin. After a couple of days we were fine again. Later, I found out that it was because of a tiny bug. So every time I saw that in the house I scooped it up and threw it out.

One day when I was already exhausted cleaning the house I noticed this bug under the sheets. It made me so angry that I just squished it with my fingers, and went with the cleaning work.

The next morning…

 

 

Thinking it would be fine soon I went to work. The swelling got only bigger and worse. People at work were grossed out as they thought I had conjunctivitis.

                                                 

 

  The pain, the itching, the classic black eye look that i had adorned several times in my married life and having to deal with it alone,acting like everything was fine... It felt like I hit rock bottom.

After spending  a few hundred money and a few more days of hiding from the public eye, it got better.

A tiny damn bug…was not the problem actually. I will not blame the bug.

 I killed it with my fingers and didn’t wash my hands and that had brought all the trouble. Small mistake of mine that caused me great stress.

 Snakes I can handle, but some devious tiny “bug” I scream.

Me and Them.

                   Picking a side - how hard is it?! It is always  a struggle for me. At work, at home, you have to be with someone, be part of a group, stand with them so that they can stand with you too. I can’t and don’t want to be identified with others. I function better alone. And I hate that. This is not because I lack people’s skills, I think. I need my space, and my ways.  

                   Seeking good friendship was the biggest step I took recently.  Have you ever had the feeling, when you are with a group of people, of being not like them, and wondered what is wrong with you?  If the answer is yes then, Good, I am not alone. It can do a lot to you when you don’t feel ‘at home’ with anyone, be it friends or family. You feel special but at the same time, also like a weirdo.   

Yesterday when Ela was talking about her day (which we do every evening) she was telling me how her friend yelled at for a simple mistake. She had dropped her friend’s book and when she picked it up she touched the book and her chest only two times and not three.   

 (btw if you don’t know what I am   talking about….It is a thing we do in this country…when you drop something, especially a book, you need to feel sorry that you dropped it, you touch it and then touch your heart ideally 3 times and that's how you apologize to the book.)   

  This had upset her friend. She thought I would be on her side and be mad at her friend for her bossiness. Instead I was displeased with Ela, I said why did she even have to do something meaningless and silly like that, twice or thrice that didn’t matter. “If you drop something, all you need to do is pick it up,” I said to her. She looked at me for a few seconds and asked me,” Why do you have to be different? Everyone in school does it. Everyone in our family does it. Only you don’t!” She was not mad at her friend anymore. Her question left me frozen. I didn’t know what to tell her.

My dad told me once, when I was 14 or 15, that it is okay to want to be “different, to not to comply” but then everything that follows will also be different and you should be okay with that.  Now I know what he meant.