Then and Now...

I was going through some old chats (from about 6-7 years ago) and realized just how much I have changed. And being mildly obsessed with lists, I wanted to know exactly how...

Then - I was innocent to the point of being naive.
Now - Obviously not so anymore...

Then - I had lots of friends, who I loved talking to and hanging out with.
Now - I have a few select friends that I spend most of my time with...

Then - I had faith in life, I thought it's all going to fall into place and that life is beautiful.
Now - I still think life is good, but I see the bad with the good, and I don't always have faith.

Then - I thought the universe revolved around me. I loved talking about myself.
Now - I hate talking about myself and my feelings. Sometimes though, the universe does revolve around me :)

Then - I was more forgiving. Though less open to differences in people.
Now - I am less forgiving, but open to differences in people.

Then - I cared about my friends, sometimes even more than my family.
Now - Family comes first no matter what.

Then - I was carefree, and didn't worry much about anything.
Now - I only hope to be that carefree, but can't seem to get there, not even when I am on vacation.

I could go on and on, but probably the most striking difference is how innocent I was, how non-sarcastic compared to what I am today.  I wonder which "me", I like more. I want to say I really liked the old me, when I was more open to being hurt, more open to life. But really, I am quite okay with the way I am now. I protect myself by hiding behind my sarcasm and refuse to share my feelings. It seems crude, but it works. It works for now. Thankfully though, some things haven't changed. I am just as socially awkward as before and often caught foot-in-mouth. I am just as rebellious, if not more.

One thing that I could borrow from the old me is all my old friendships and the ease with which I made friends back then. Some friends are missed more than others, some long lost friendships pinch more, not less as the days pass. If I could, I would be carefree and not worry about things that I have no control over.

Evasive and yet there's hope that someday the future me might catch up with the old me. Of course then, the now old me would be known as older me :)

Ciao!

PS - Been long since I posted. I make no promises to post more often, but do hope that I post more.

Counting my blessings

Reasons that M may upgrade from the status of "first husband" to "only husband" in my biography:

- Never asks me to cook. In order to eat at home (and not out everyday), we have cooking turns and we both follow them. This helps because this gives me a sense of balance and equality in our lives.
- Takes the trash out all the time (without me telling him to)

- Makes the bed everyday (ever since I told him it makes me feel calm and asked him to do it
- Hears my feminist rants with patience and agrees with me (most of the time anyway)

- Supports me and encourages me in my career
- Puts up with my hormonal mood swings

- Knows how to relax and enjoy life without worrying all the time - inspires me to do so
- Never says "no" when I want to buy something (although, my shopping demands are pretty reasonable too)

- Is my best friend (We have code words for danger and secret spots to meet-up in the event of an apocalypse)
- Is occasionally funny, but more importantly laughs at ALL my jokes, making me feel witty & smart

Later!

Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day All!

To show my man how much I love (to make fun of) him.....Here's presenting to you my love (Reference for the uninitiated, or in other words, new to the internet - "Hey Girl Meme")

Happy Valentine's Day Honey!

It's happening...

It's finally happening. We are just shy of our two year anniversary and I have finally started thinking of Mihir as family. Why did it take so long you ask? I shall tell you dear reader, but first, let's back up a bit to look at the bigger picture.

To me, getting married was almost anti-climatic, where I kept thinking, I am tying the knot with my boyfriend, but I don't feel like a wife. But once we started our married life together - my OCD self immediately wanted to run this marriage like a new car. Perfectly. However, did we have the knack for it. Hardly.

Now that we were running a marriage, so to speak, I was constantly pulled between all the things my "I-expect-we-are-expected-to-be-doing self" wanted done, the things "real me" wanted to really get-up and do, and things I wanted M to "get" in terms of what he "should " do, to help keep this marriage machine running flawlessly. The first couple of years of the marriage, were in fact quite the opposite of what people call the "best" years. It was a lot of learning, fighting, push-backs and tantrums. Mostly from me.

Hindsight is 20-20 they say. Let's hindsee, shall we? All I wanted was, our marriage to be picture-perfect. That's not asking much. To elaborate, I wanted our home to be spotless all the time. I wanted our laundry always done, folded and put away. I wanted steaming full-course meals on the table every night for us. I wanted both of us to be always laughing, gazing into each other's eyes, lovingly cooking together, while there's music in the background and we are dancing to it. I wanted us to lazily wake up on weekends, make and eat breakfast together in bed. On cold evenings I wanted us to sit wrapped in a blanket together gazing at a fireplace, or the sunset. And let's not forget the playing basketball together at home, where I beat him every time. Or something to that effect (for reference please watch my all-time favorite movie - Saathiya).

So imagine my surprise, when none of this materialized. Far from it, in fact. Our home was most of the time untidy and even worse, not clean. Laundry whether done or not, was always in the laundry basket. More often than not, we were eating take-outs from local restaurants. (On the upside though, I like to think we may have single-handedly saved some places from shutting down during recession). There was never an opportune time to gaze into each other's eyes or lovingly cook together or sing and dance along to a romantic upbeat number. To be fair though, there was indeed some sitting and gazing - sitting on our sofa in the middle of a messy living room and gazing too, but only at the TV.

I kept scores. I counted things I did versus things he did for our marriage-machine to run smoothly. I fought tooth and nail to not do things a married woman is "expected" to do. And this, when M was not even saying and expecting anything to begin with. I just put me in that position all by myself. You know when you think up all the expectations you expect people to have from you and your rebellious self basks in the glory of rebelling against them. Yep. Those.

And M? He kept on loving me the same way since the day we fell in love. No demands, no expectations, no questions, and no arguing or fighting back. He never analyzed getting married. He understood my every tantrum. Maybe that's a wrong word to use. I am pretty sure, he was quite clueless about why I was throwing tantrums all the time, but he took them. With utmost patience and love. Unwavering love that was almost annoying at one point. (Do you have any idea how frustrating it can be when you want to fight and don't get any response back.) Always understanding and always by my side. Always doing everything I asked him to do, without a question. Always willing to learn and adjust to make me happy. Always encouraging me when life was pulling me down. Always willing to take my sh*t when I was pissed off about work. Always attentive and responsive, when I complained we didn't spend enough time together like other couples (who I was talking about, I have no idea, cos what do we really ever know about others' lives, except maybe what's on Facebook). Always humoring me when I decided to be weird.

And then last week, after we had a dinner of leftovers (where we both tried to eat less so that the other person could eat enough), when we were sitting side-by-side on the couch, eating a store bought frozen molten choclate cake and watching "Parks & Recreation", it hit me. This is it, this is what being a family is. Sharing food, molten choclate cake and a laugh, relaxing in our home. Without saying much to each other, yet an unmistakable feeling of connecting, conversing. And this is what marriage has given me, someone who is all mine, my family away from everyone and everywhere. Someone to fight with, make love to, be weird with, get frustrated at, learn to be patient with. I am not giving up my perfect marriage dream boat yet. It's just that perfect is something different than what I imagined. It's this - here and now, time with my husband, my family.

Happy 2nd (as of the new year) Anniversary M! I love you!

Randomness

- My hair stylist has been calling me "Shupi" ever since she met me. I think I might have corrected her once, but haven't after that. I find it's a little awkward at this point, and also it's too much effort to explain how to really pronounce my name. I would rather have both of us put that effort towards talking about my hair, cos God knows, that's a big enough challenge. Am I the only one who has gone along with a wrong name out of sheer awkwardness?

- How good are Barfi! songs?! And how good is the movie???! In love... (Even though a lot of scenes were rip-offs, I like the idea of finding love in the most unexpected places)

- I know I say this wayyy too much already - but work's really crazy right now. And in all the madness around me, I am glad to have M around. He is calm, loving and patient no matter how crazy I get due to the stress.

- After we moved, I arranged all the big things for the time being, thinking the littler stuff can be taken care of later. However, the "setting-up of home and emptying the last 5 boxes" keeps getting moved to bottom of the list. Now I am thinking, I could just throw the boxes out without unpacking them. If I haven't missed what's inside them yet, I probably don't need those things.
 
- Fall's here, and the weather is perfect. It's not too warm. It's not too cold (my definition of too cold might have changed in the last 4 years). The air is crisp, but not dry. The temperature's perfect to wear a sweater and sit in the porch eating maggi! The past weekend, I sat in the porch in the sun, like I used to in my childhood during winter. Dhoop Khana....

Are you kidding me?

via

A story. Actually, let me re-phrase, story is too nice a word. It was an incident. Yes that's what I shall call it. An incident that opened my eyes to how lucky I am to have M in my life. I know I don't always say nice things around here about the husband, but this once, I will admit - he may have 100 bad traits but he's a good, generous, sensible man. A MUCH better man than most men I have met and come across in my life.

So the incident.

M & I were visiting some friends who recently bought a new home and we, just like everyone else went to check out their place and be part of their celebration. Now, we live in Boston and this place was around 40-50 miles away from where we live. So we drove there and when we reached, the group of people who had reached along with out hosts, were standing on the porch. I rolled down the windows and asked where we should park, and after getting the answer from the home owner friend, continued to the parking spot to park. After we parked and walked over to the house, one of the guests who has recently gotten married, introduced us to his new wife. He went - This is S and this is M. And btw (pointing to me) she's the husband and he's (pointing to M) the wife. If this wasn't insulting(!!) enough, he continued by addressing M and telling him - why was she driving, can't you drive, should I give you "ghagra choli" to wear?

Yes, I was driving. Don't really see what me being a woman has anything to do with that? Don't see why M being with me should change that if I want to drive? These statements were disturbing at many, many levels. The fact that he implied "wife" is the weaker partner in a marriage. Did you just arrive here from the 15th Century?. The fact that only guys should drive their girls around but not the other way round. Bloody Sexist. The fact that being driven around by a girl implies that you are the weaker partner in the relationship??!! WTF! Or the fact that driving is a manly activity. Helloo? There's a break and an accelerator and that's it. Since when did pushing two pedals become a "manly" trait?

At this point, I wanted to punch the guy in the face followed by a kick in his b*lls. I did none of those things, I did not even show how angry his comments made me. M and I ignored him, and continued on to take a tour of the new home that our friends loved and bought. After seeing the house we all settled in the living room for some drinking and chatting. And this guy started grilling us again (He just couldn't let go of the fact that I was driving). We were speaking about cars and he turns to me and goes, this car is yours (as in mine only) right? I didn't really see his intention and I really thought that he was asking me if I was the sole owner of the car on paper. So I am like, no it belongs to both of us (meaning we both signed the papers, we both owe the loan). And he goes, but the car belongs to whoever drives it. (!!!!!!!!) And I'll admit, I didn't give him a good enough comeback over this. I only said - well really it belongs to whoever pays for it, so no it belongs to BOTH of us. I did not create any scenes, or argue with him, or even show that I was so so mad. Sometimes growing up has it's own disadvantages.

Later when we were driving back, I asked M - wasn't he angry, didn't he want to rip the guy's face off with his bare fingers (cos obviously I wanted to)? M, calmly told me that he doesn't care, and it doesn't bother him. He said, that's how that guy thinks - that driving is per-dominantly a male activity, and when he sees you drive, he draws conclusions and forms opinions about who might be more dominating (??!!) between us. But those are just that - "his perceptions", and that they don't affect me, cos it's only between a husband and a wife - the dynamic of their relationship. Other people can only draw conclusions from what they see.

To say that I was shocked to hear such profoundness will be an understatement. People who know M will testify that he is the biggest goofball of all times. He can crack the poorest of PJ's and silliest of jokes and never make a serious conversation unless it involves career aspiration crap. So these deep zen-al words shook me to the core. Of course, they didn't really calm me down or anything, I was still mad. And here I am after a fortnight and still, just as mad.

But this incident helped me realize that, what I have been taking for granted - the respect and equality that I receive from my husband, is not what every married girl out there can claim. I feel lucky to have a man who isn't afraid of a strong confident woman in his life. Who doesn't measure himself by puny standards of pseudo-manliness. Who is confident enough to not let such jerks affect him.
I feel bad for the guy's wife. And for him, I just feel like he needs to be punched and kicked thirty thousand times and then some.

Thoughts?

Long time no see!

Howdy folks! (Or should I say, is anyone still here? - in a slight Britsh accent)

Life's been pretty busy lately. Bullet points? Yeah, sounds like as good a plan as any...
- Moving this weekend to another apartment, we pretty much move every year (entirely circumstantial). Staying in the same city though. Been busy packing (and more over throwing) stuff at home. How did so much stuff end up at my place is a big mystery. I am going minimalist from now on...
- Throw that in with an already busy work life along with all the sh*t one has to do to run a household. NOT.FUN.
- To that point, home is only fun till one lives with parents. It stops being fun when the onus is on you to make it one. I get excited to travel for work, just for the simple reason that someone else cleans up after I have left and I get to come back to a clean, clutter-free room. That my friends is what "homely bliss" is all about.
- My niece has started talking to me on the phone. Nothing can make happier than when she asks to talk to me. Not that I am biased, but she has the sweetest voice I have ever heard.

That's all I can remember for now. Oh, and I'll leave you with some thoughts that resonate so much with my life these days (heck, someone wrote these after me) -

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Ciao!