Motherhood

Motherhood happens to you, you can't choose for it to happen. Think about it, you may be planning but what guarantee that it will happen the time you want it? Also, you dont need to give birth to be a mother. Yes, I completely and totally believe that; having raised a niece and now a pup; my maternal instincts are established so my argument counts.

Coming to Murf, Murfa as I call him a zillion times, rush home just to be with him, check on the cameras countless number of times, fretting, longing and dying to just get home. This feeling, this is beyond what love/romance can do to you in terms of the intensity of the feeling. This urge to be there for a little one, even if he/she may not be needing you. You tear up the moment there is a fall, you fret over a sneeze, you are anguished if he doesn't come running to you. This feeling has to be the best in the world, for me.

Motherhood has changed me so much, it is always him over I, it is bending those little rules to make way for his smiles, it is to overlook feeling yucky while picking poop, it is to be relentless when he has to have his meds even if he does not want to. It is tearing up if he is unwell, tears which you don't even shed for yourself. One moment you are a tough cookie and the next your eyes have welled up for the tiny one. One moment you are constricting your shopping urges and the next you are splurging for those lil nick knacks for him. Motherhood, it allowed me to love with all of my heart, the broken, the scarred, the underdeveloped parts of me I never knew existed. And if it is possible, motherhood, it filled the lil cracks in my heart that had deepened over time with longing for love and to belong and where existence had a meaning.

Someday I will have my little one, but Murf you are and will always be special, one after my heart. You may not be born of me, but you healed me and you gave birth to a mother and taught me the greatest lesson of all times: unconditional love. Murfa, my love; I have never quite loved anyone the way I love you. You are the epicenter of my being. Love seems like a tiny word now.

Once a believer

Has it happened that you meet a person, a long time friend or even an ex after lengths of time and you forget the animosity and connect and then you both slip into normal lives as if this reunion meant nothing? At least for me, I was not the one slipping back to the usual life and I felt really disappointed with the entire experience and wondered at the futility of it all.

There was a time I used to believe that even after a relationship going caput the friendship remains because the foundation of all relationships is friendship. It might take a while to get over the emotions or come to grips with it; despite the effort that one might have to put in, the end result is totally and completely doable. I believed this with all my heart and to a large extent I thought it worked out for me as well. But I was wrong.

There comes a time when while fighting on inane things you realize why certain things does not feel the way you think it was supposed to feel. Why the idea of talking to an ex is something that makes you excited but the aftermath of it is disappointing. It took me a while, I expected things to be normal baring the emotions but it was the emotions the way they were then, that made that equation so special. The realization put a lot of pent up disappointment at ease. I remember the times when I was waiting to feel a particular thing, or I expected the equation to flow in to something that I felt was the next step when all I actually got in return is a distant feeling that made me feel a lil queasy.

Maybe sometimes an end is an ending for good. Had it lingered it would just rake up trouble that you would rather not deal with. And sometimes it is okay and not everything needs to end in happily ever after.

Unconditional

Sometimes in life you come across someone who reminds you of you from a lost time. You recognize the same vulnerability, the confusion gnawing at the soul, the same torment that you have once experienced. From a younger version of you to the older and wiser one that you are now, you have been through it so when you see a loved one in a similar strife; you just try to ease it out by extending some understanding. You know some bridges need to be crossed by people themselves and you can but extend your support during the journey. Words would just help you cope, at least I hope mine does. To better times that is bound to be the sunlight piercing through the gloom.

Dear U,

You free spirited, social butterfly with the heart of gold; know that you embody the intrinsic values that make a person stand out. You, who is mature, kind, gorgeous, the heart of a party and the most sensible among peers. Acknowledge, embody and revel in the intrinsic goodness of being called U.

I write this to you for I want you to have this with you in writing if such a day comes when the world feels grey and nothing makes sense and yet you are unable to reach out for help. This will be there for you to remember and remind yourself that “You will be fine” and this too shall pass.

U, the society has skewed notions of right and wrong; acceptable and unacceptable. Do what you feel right even if it is grey. I may not have made the right choices in life; and I am definitely not telling you to follow my steps. I am merely telling you that a path exists beyond the “accepted” or the “approved” and you have to set your own rules and stick by it. 

Know that the only fear or apprehension you are allowed to have in life is when you are doing something your heart does not permit. And we are never going to debate on if what the heart feels or wants is wrong because the heart is often our soul talking. Allow yourself to make mistakes but deny yourself for allowing it to break or defeat you. Tell yourself no matter what you will not be trivial in life, be it your emotions, relationships or decisions in your life and everything else will work itself out; it will.

Know that when we go through a tough patch in life, we are sent companions to help get through it. Years later too there will be someone to help you through your then reality; be it me or someone else; so allow help to come through and let it bail you out. Because it’s easier to believe someone else than yourself because the mind plays tricks.

Remember, when we are put through strife we are also given the strength to get through it.

This too shall pass. Take heart my love, there will be a time when we will laugh at this, but never about what we felt.

I’m going to be your standby from now on. Always.

Lots of love
R

Grateful

They came into my life when I had least expected it. Like a dream, things fell into place and suddenly there they were, enveloping me in their warmth, filling my life with a lot of fun and teaching me to reclaim life the way I had always known it to be.

 

Maybe this is how friendship is. For as long as this may last, I am grateful.

Roots

What makes us the person we are? Is it the education? is it a place of belonging? Is it people? Or a place or the background we are born and brought up in? A little bit of everything I guess.


I guess as we grow older, away from roots or life as we were used to, meet newer people from diverse background, we move far ahead of time than what could have ever conceptualize that we stop to take a breath to feel, to let our reality sink in. At least this happened with me. Moving away from home, away from people I thought were my people, away from a place I call my motherland; I found my roots calling me ever so prominently.


Roots, those invisible bonds that tie you back to those little things that make up most of your being. Being away from all things familiar I keep my roots alive in the smallest of things; like making food the way I grew up having, incorporating lil nuances like the concshell in the temple, or trying hard to never forget everything that mattered something to me.


Sometimes all you can do is try, try to preserve your roots and not let time corrode it. To keep the fire simmering but not letting it burn you down. Someday I hope to pass it down, to recreate the beautiful ways that made me more than what I am, the soul rich in experience something that money can never compensate. Someday my little one, will experience it as if it is a way of life and not just as yet another experience to have.


Someday home will not be such a painful emotion.

30

Three decades on this planet does feel like a lot. I try and be happy or think about all the happy things that have happened in an attempt to be happy; but somehow I find it hard to recall (not because they donot exist but maybe the memories were not happy enough to be remembered) Nonetheless, I know even if momentarily I was happy. Be it getting a job, be it meeting my soulmate, be it making new friends or owning my car.

The thing with turning a year older is, I feel like I have lost time, I feel more alone than I have ever felt, I feel there is a sense of futility to this entire existence. It seems crazy but at the face of being 'settled in life' I have no one to call my own. I have material comforts but nothing that truly pleases me. I have family and people but none to call my own.

30, so many years on this planet yet none to cherish. There is a ring of finality, like there is no option but to grow up, to face your fate; live to inch closer to the end. Like there will be adult things I will not be able to overlook, duties that I will have to comply to, like this life will be about others and officially no longer mine, the fire that burns rebelliously to prove its individuality will eventually be extinguished and domesticated. A life which will be more about others and less about me.

I know not everything has to be a particular way because it is the norm. But at the face of rebellion, the disintegration is imminent even if slow. no amount of broad thinking, understanding partner or progressive society can stall the corrosion. Freedom, independence, equality are but jargons; words of consolation to appease the fire in you, until it can be eventually tamed and extinguished.

I say this not out of anger or reproach but as a sad acknowledgement. How many times have our mothers put their husbands, their kids to the forefront and forgotten their own needs, happiness or their own voice? How many times have they managed to retain their own identity and not be known as a wife or a mother? Few and rare times. How many times have their pursed their lips, taken things in their stride, muffled the voices that seemed to be loud enough to be heard? How many times have others stepped up / ahead taking into their stride her inability or failings? This is a fate we all have seen, turned away refusing to accept or fight so hard to push back but for a day, on her birthday. What happens when the day is over? 'Take her for granted' comes back in to the everyday life.

Pardon me, I donot want to sound cynical. Maybe I do, but importantly, i am but just stating the obvious. I am a positive person and would like to see the bright side but one must call a spade a spade; makes reality a bit more bearable instead of building an alternate reality.

What this new decade will unfurl I will but have to wait and see. But for the entire decade and more (11 years) of this blog being a part of my journey, for seeing me through some of the toughest times of my life, for keeping me sane, for being my only outlet! I am grateful!

This 30th year, I promise myself to find reasons to be happy than sad, to never indulge in my darkness, to take life as it comes. This 30, will be about healing!

Frayed bonds..

It is one of those days, I'm plugged to some amazing music. Music that takes me back in time to a part of my life which now seems light years away and puts me in a pensive, reflective mood. But of course there are other factors which contribute to this mood, like the fact that two important people in my journey of life is now quite present by way of communication.


Friendship has a way of coming back. Maybe it is one of the only ways how some people can be in your life despite the history you share. Maybe that is way the reappearance of S & HIM has been a welcome. It will be left to see if this will be yet another cause of heartache but I do believe in the essential goodness of people. Taking a leap of faith here, if I were to be proven wrong I'd know I tried.


Few days back S reached out to me out of the blue to talk. I don't know what propelled him to place that call but in some ways I was truly happy that he did. After all we had such amazing history and it is a pity we had to give up that friendship. Maybe we will take those baby steps to be in touch and maybe, just maybe we end up rekindling the friendship. What makes me jittery is that I see him contemplate what we were, regretting not making it work and constantly comparing his present to his past, which is unfair. We were young, carefree and probably at that point we had an impactful relationship. But times have changed since then, we are happy and settled in our lives now.


HIM, well we do our tiny bits of conversations now and then but nothing to write about. However brief the conversations are, I try and connect to my intellectual solace that he was to me. I crave for our length conversations, I crave for him to be there to understand what I am going through but that never happens. And the person that I have now become, understands and recognizes and makes peace with what I can never get.


Must all lovers die when their relationship ends? I'd rather evolve it to friendship but I do understand that it is easier said than done. Maybe you truly need to heal to be able to start afresh keeping the history behind. Maybe I have done my healing hence despite being reminded of my painful past I can choose to look beyond it to be there to be friends.


In life we rarely meet people whom we connect with, and if we do, can we just take them along in our journey of life?

Gender Equality And All That Jazz

Okay it's about 9:24 am and I am having a bad day. Yes already! Running a temperature, sore throat and body ready to give up. So why am I not home? Well because a women gets less care and attention as compared to a guy. When the guy falls sick you are all over him, running his errands, attending to his whims and fancies, giving him to care to nurse him back to life. What happens when it is you? You do get the words, but never the recognition. I hate to generalise, I hate it, I find this attitude regressive but if I am honest to my self, I know it is a reality I am in. So this is going to turn into a rant but I guess I am allowed a rant once in a while right?

Gender inequality is totally a thing, let not anyone tell you otherwise. Just think of it, no one really turns around and scolds, okay even realizes that you haven't eaten breakfast but you, the nurturer always notice the little things, you feel guilty for not being around enough, to shower your love enough, to be there, you feel guilty even for the times, you genuinely can't be there for people. But men? They are a strange creature, even the best of them. I know there are exceptions and I am happy for those who are lucky to have these exceptions in life. But mostly men, are 'takers' or maybe the ones in my life have always been takers, or maybe i am too much of a giver.

Isn't it strange how times have evolved now? People are warming up to the fact that women have careers and they contribute to life and lifestyle of a family, but they equality turn a blind eye to her taking up more than her share of work at home, be it cooking, cleaning, providing, or just helping others doing their thing.

Maybe it is a bad day, but maybe most women go through this, never say much and take it in their stride. maybe it is just me, maybe but maybe not! 

Disillusioned

How you do it?
Pick yourself up
time and again.
To resolve
To fight harder
To never give up?

Days turn into weeks
And then to months
And years.
Struggles remain
Magnitude change and
With it the pain.

Rejection,
Hurt
Anguish
Wallowing in self pity
How do you do it?
Pick yourself up
Resolving to
Start from scratch
once again?

Reunion

If you told me even a year back that there would be a time when we would meet, healed or pretending to have healed from the ravages of our past, as normal people would meet their loved one, be a friend or a colleague; I'd have disbelieved you. I still cannot overcome the overwhelming feeling that comes associated with the fact that we met, a lil over 3 years later, damaged, alive and willing to preserve our bond given just how drastically our lives have changed. You have welcomed the lil one in your life and I have found my copilot for life.. We have moved on but we found reasons to reconnect; can't thank God enough for this.


This is what I wrote in Jan 2015, which now seems eons away...

" Sometimes I really wish to secure sometime for me and you and talk my heart out and tell you things the way they are with me. But there is just so much history that I dont think we can get past to be there for each other. And if someday we could, I'd tell you that I long for the you I had fallen in love with, I miss my soulmate and more than which I miss our conversations, those hugs that made me feel secure and the life that was ours.
Life has changed, we have moved on but must we give up on the love that fueled our soul?"

I don't know how we did this, how did we convert your popping in and out of my life every few quarters to an almost believable more reliable once in a while correspondence? How did I manage to confide in you about the changes in my life? My struggles and shortcomings and you heard me out and was there. How did we manage to convert our telephone conversations to that one historic meeting? It is nothing short of a miracle for me and something I am tremendously grateful for, as it healed me and I probably found You anew in a way I know I will never lose You. 

The past few days has been about rewinding events as they happened and I stopped short because this is exactly what I used to do before as if to memorize everything just the way it happened, lest I forget and it made me really sad. The fear of losing, of running out of time, of not being around You have damaged me in ways that I had not anticipated. That wave when you first spotted me, of the way you kept looking at my face as I spoke to you, more animated than my usual self trying to make you believe that I had not changed over time, to preserve what is remaining of what was just ours. But what mattered most to me was, when we left the cafe the other day I knew we had forged something which we will never shy of admitting, something that is more durable and more true.

To a new innings...