Figures of speech

English is a wonderful language. It finds a way to make poetic the most basic speech and thought blunders. There’s a way to justify two seemingly contradictory sentences (paradox), there’s a way to justify exaggeration (hyperbole), there’s even a way to justify overpromising and under-delivering (anti-climax).

If we strip them of their romanticism, figures of speech could well be the justifications of the English world.  

Justifications. How I hate the word. Justifications are these mental parasites, eating away at the psyche till closure becomes a distant dream. They make you twist, stretch and manipulate facts till they can sit comfortably in our bellies, ready to digest…

At what point in our lives does it become okay to circumvent the truth—our own, people’s and things? At what point do we start toying with the possibility of finding an explanation that can redeem us from our very worst—thoughts as well as actions?

Who are we deceiving? Ourselves? The people we’ve hurt? Or all the judges who secretly terrify us? But the more important question is when does it stop?

I think it stops the day we can find the courage to look ourselves in the eye and say sorry. A little bit of your world rights itself the day you’re able to say, “I forgive you” and mean it. Because even while we love ourselves unconditionally, we don’t always like the person we’ve become. Sometimes, we need to forgive ourselves before we ask others to. And the day we forgive ourselves, it becomes easier to apologise to others.

For a while in between, I’d forgotten to say sorry. I was so engrossed in playing the victim in one part of my life that I forgot the other part completely. The part that was still living, breathing, talking, laughing and making mistakes.  I never went back to correct those mistakes… Never looked back to see the people waiting for me…to explain…to justify.

When I finally turned around, I found those people still standing there. Because when they said through thick and thin, they meant it…And despite the things I’d done and the expectations I’d failed, they continued to love me. That’s when I realised that these people deserved more than a justification…more than platitudes and half-baked theories. They deserved a simple, straight-from-the-heart apology.

The first few steps were difficult. There was that big bite of humble pie, the slow chew and the ultimate swallow that had to be endured before the words would come out. But the aftertaste is something I’ll never forget. It was like a shot of pure oxygen… It is that something that restores vitality…

I wish I’d done it earlier. But I’m very happy I’ve done it before it’s too late. Every day, the line of people shrinks a little bit. Maybe it’s a karmic debt I’m repaying, because I’ve been waiting for so long to hear one sorry…

Even as I say those sorrys, I know that I can’t make everything right with everyone again. There are things that can never be forgotten. Just like there are things that I can’t forget. Feelings have memories that are hard to erase. I don’t know if I can ever forget how much it hurt, but I know that a sorry helps. Because even if words and actions can’t be taken back, and sometimes the hurt is so overwhelming that it implodes instead of exploding; it helps to know that your hurt is regretted…

So while I wait in someone’s line, I’m making inroads into my own… I know some of them will decide they can’t forgive, forget and move on. I can sense that some journeys are on the verge of ending. But I don’t want to rob those travellers of the dignity of closure. Even if I fucked up, I don’t want our relationship to become a figure of speech in our lives. Some day, maybe some one will show me the same respect. J

Rumpled sheets

It's been a while since I slept with someone. No, not in that way. But in the way you do when you let your guard down... When you let all your defences slip and are naked in a way that's more vulnerable than even physical nudity.

I'm not exactly the cuddling and snuggling type... But even I can recognise that sometimes, giving up half the bed to someone, the struggle for the blanket, having someone's leg flung over you... It's all worth it. Because it makes the demons go away. Because when you suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, it doesn't feel like the darkness will swallow you. Because it's nice to have someone kiss your mind into silence. Sometimes, not always.

Sure, there's the morning breath, the scratch of of his beard, the snores, the oppressive heat of a body always denting the other side of the mattress. But for once I'm wondering, would all these things be quite so bad? A little part of me wants all these things. Or wants to want it. I don't know.

Today, none of the evils seem quite as evil. Maybe I'm truly growing older. Maybe I'm just a little bit regretful... Because the only time I stayed with a boy, I insisted on a separate room. I always had a bed to slip into if I was restless. I always had a blanket that I wouldn't have to share. If it felt too much like marriage and commitment. Again, the obsessive need for a fire exit...

I'm wondering today, if the time had been right, if I hadn't been so hasty in my exit, would M and I be together today? Do I really even want the answer to that question?

Right now, I'm looking at my bed, my comforter, my pillows... And none of it is making me happy. I'd much rather have the sheets rumpled... To hear his breathing, strong and even, just like M himself is, instead of the time bomb that's been ticking inside my head since 15th September. I want to know that if I was to reach out, I wouldn't be left clutching at thin air. Because that would just kill me... To know with absolute certainty that he's gone. And so is M...

Mum and dad have been married for twenty-nine years. That's over 11,000 days and nights that they've spent together. Like every dramatic and imaginative child, I sometimes wondered, after a particularly loud screaming match, why they chose to live together and make each other miserable? Why they put up with each other's shit? I never thought sleeping together would ever figure in the varying answers that would come to my mind... Today, the answer seems as natural as the way in which their bodies curve towards each other. Just the right degree of closeness... It must have taken papa months to figure out how to be perfectly placed so that mum is protected from the direct blast of his AC and still be close enough so that if mum was to turn to him, she'd find herself safely tucked away near his heart. And it must have taken mum equally long to learn to adjust to papa's freezing temperatures and many pillows...

Maybe if I'd stayed all those nights... Maybe if, instead of roaming around the house after he was asleep, I'd stayed and wriggled in his arms till I found my perfect spot, I'd wake up to rumpled sheets too, like mum will, tomorrow, and every other morning of their lives.

Courting Romance

I went on a date tonight.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I wasn't expecting to enjoy myself quite this much. And I certainly wasn't expecting to come back home giggly and with wine-stained lips. And I most certainly wasn't expecting to check my phone every 90 seconds to see if he had messaged. :)

If I were a different person, a younger version of myself; this feeling would probably be the indicator of a new relationship being just around the corner. But I'm not that person. So if this isn't a relationship and if I'm not in the market for a fling, what is this feeling? And exactly where are we going with this?

The answer is simple--it's romance.

I'd forgotten how good it felt to be wooed. To have someone call you 50 times a day, talk with to you till the sun starts to appear on the horizon and travel across town for a coffee date. It's a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling--knowing that you're worth ditching that meeting for. No matter how confident I am in my person, it takes romance to make me feel truly sexy. I suspect that might be the case for a whole lot of women I know as well. It was good to be reminded of all those things that I'd let myself forget, It felt good to come out of hiding. I'd forgotten there was a world beyond the rock I was hiding under. For the past few months, I'd been so hung up on love, friendship and all those BIG feelings, that I'd completely turned my back on the unassuming joys of the littler feelings like romance. I hear people complaining that the romance has gone out of their relationships. And I've never been able to empathise... Not because romance has been my constant companion, but because for me, when feelings linger beyond the death of romance, that's when I know I'm in trouble. Once before, it made me incredibly happy. Because I knew I was in love. The second time around, it petrified me. Because I knew this could and would end badly... Maybe I'm a product of faulty wiring, but that's how it is. In my head, love is such an overwhelming emotion, it doesn't even need romance to sustain it. Which is why I never fall out of love. I just learn how to deal with it, dilute it and lock it up inside.

But thinking about love and romance also made me wonder, if it's just about feeling sexy and being wooed, what would it take to prise me away from Mr T? If it's just that, isn't it entirely possible, even probable, that I'm just playing a waiting game... That I'm here, in this thing, only until the next guy comes along? Someone with better things to say, someone who makes me laugh harder, someone more intelligent, someone better at romance?

As much as I hate to admit it, the answer is yes. It probably would not take much for me to walk out of Mr T's life and into someone else's. I know I'm thinking like a selfish bitch, but stripped of the romance and what could be, should be, but will NOT be, this is my truth. For now, at least.

For many reasons, I don't have what it would take to fall in love. There is a boundary that the past has set and I can't imagine anyone crossing it in the foreseeable future. At this point in time, I don't even trust myself, let alone trusting anyone else, so I know this thing with Mr T isn't going to culminate in love and a happily ever after. Because I won't let myself fall in love and the day I realise he might, I'll walk away.

As far as relationships go, thinking the way I am probably doesn't bode too well for its future. I started this post thinking I'd write about something else entirely. While writing it, I was a little sickened to see how clinically and dispassionately I could analyse my feelings. But right now, I'm not feeling too guilty. I'm okay about feeling this way.

Because I've realised, it's okay to not think about the future, and it's okay to not make plans and then try to alter things to fit into those plans. Because life has a wicked way of making you want to wear lace when you really should be wearing woolens. And sometimes, you just have to get hypothermia before you quietly wrap yourself in a sweater.

A few months ago, I thought I had it all figured out. I'd decided to marry Mr Right, I'd decided I wouldn't expect anything from Mr Wrong. I'd decided this and I'd decided that and my life was going to be okay. Today Mr Right is married to Mrs Right and I still sometimes cry when I think about Mr Wrong and how things simply imploded one day... All the planning came to nothing, and I can't muster the strength to go through the process again.

So for the first time in my life, I don't have a future. It's scary, but it's exhilarating. This relationship might not have a future, but it has a present--he's courting me and I'm courting romance. :)

Putting a dream on hold

Yesterday, I made a very tough decision.

I love writing. It's my thing, it's what I know best, it's what makes me happy. It's the only way I know to emote. Things I can't say, things I won't say, things I don't say... Once they're on paper, they don't seem quite as terrifying as before. Writing gives me strength--to accept my feelings and deal with them.

So I like calling myself a writer.

And like every other self-proclaimed writer, I sometimes think I'm the cat's whiskers. On the good days, when I'm able to drive every other thought from my mind, I dream my childhood dream. I see a book in my favourite book store. I don't know what that book is, I can't read the title, I can't see the cover, but I can see the name of the author. It's mine.

I see copies of this book flying off the shelves, I see people smiling as they read it in coffee shops. I see the book making someone feel better. I see the book saying things that someone somewhere can't find the right words for. It wasn't a big dream but it was something to hold on to when I was sad, something that kept darkness from filling up my heart entirely...

For as long as I can remember, this has been my dream. A few weeks ago, I found myself on the first rung of the ladder that would take me to it. There was a chance, a good one at that, of the dream coming true. I was so excited, I wanted to stand on the terrace of a really really tall building and shout out to the world. I thought nothing could stop me now.

Except, there is something that is stopping me.

Last week I finished writing the most important chapter in my book. It was the thought that had been burning in my mind and heart for a long long time. The volcano that had been building up for almost three months found release in my book. And so I vomited out all the poison I had in me. I didn't even realise how much hatred I’d kept locked away in my heart till I read what I wrote. I hate someone from every fibre of my being, and it was showing.

I thought I'd feel better after I'd written it. It was supposed to be a healing process, a kind of catharsis. But things have changed this week. I realised that the hate was just one part of a much larger picture. There were so many more ways in which I had been affected... So many more wounds that needed to heal before I could hope to become my former self again...

I thought that if I focused on the anger, if I refused to acknowledge the devastating pain, I'd be okay. I thought I was protecting myself, but it didn't work out like that... Anyway, yesterday when I read what I'd written, I wanted to cry. It's not that it wasn't good; on the contrary, it is probably my best work to date, but it's just not me.

I've never been a hateful person. Bitchy, yes, but never this cynical. I used to believe in goodness, in love, in friendship... The person who wrote the chapter did not. This person is cynical, jaded and hell-bent on seeking revenge. This person doesn't trust anyone--not even herself. It terrifies me when I look into the mirror and see what I've become. And it makes me angry that this change is mine by default. That I didn't choose it...

But something Mr M said to me made me realise that I may not have had a say in what I've become, but I do have a say in what I do with the knowledge... So I've made a decision. I've chosen to keep my dream safe from the person who's made me the monster that I am today. She's robbed my happiness, my respect and my dignity, but I won't let her rob me of my dream.

My dream was supposed to give me joy, it was to be a memory that I can cherish forever... But the person I am today is not the person who saw this dream. Things have changed. I have changed. I don't know if I'll ever be that girl again, but I know I have to try. Because I can't let her become a part of my dream, or my life, forever... I have to try because unless I do, we’re going to be inextricably linked to each other for life. I can’t let that happen…

So I've put the dream on hold. Just until I find myself... Just until this cloud of hurt lifts... Just until M stops seeing the haunted look he sees in my eyes... Until then, I’ll keep my dream safe in its special box.

What do you do when you can't do anything?

Today was a strange day. There was drama, laughter, tears and an overwhelming feeling of sadness as I waited for the traffic to move on the way back home.

What happened was this...

Miss K had been suspecting for a while that her maid had been playing fastest fingers first around the house. After months of consistently losing money and trinkets from the kitchen, her cupboards and bags, she finally decided to put an end to it. And no matter how insignificant the matter, it feels good to have a say in what happens in our lives and to us. No matter how fleeting, the illusion of control is essential for our survival...

So anyway, together, we set up the web cam, left money in her bag and tottered off to lunch. In the one hour we were away, our minds kept going back to what might be going on in the house and what we'd see in the video. It was juvenile, but I was excited. Just one of those silly things that you do simply because it'll make for a great story some day. So exactly an hour after we left, we rushed home to check if she'd stolen any more money, and more importantly, if the camera had captured everything. Sure enough, the money was missing. But what we saw on the camera stunned us. So basically, before stealing the money, the maid had put the lens cap on. We could hear the rustle of money, but the screen remained a resolute blank. A few minutes later, the money was gone and the lens cap was off.

To say that Miss K and I were left speechless would be an understatement. We just kept looking incredulously at each other for a few minutes. This was like a slap across the face. I don't know a better way of saying, "So what you gonna do?"

Nothing.

The answer is nothing. Miss K will no doubt fire the maid and not pay her the month's salary. But it's not about the money... It's about the nothingness of the situation Miss K now finds herself in. Because beyond putting up a token fight, there's really nothing that can be done about the situation. It's bad enough when you know it. But it's infinitely worse when your opponent knows it to. Understandably, Miss K was upset. I was too, for her.

On the way back home tonight, I heard something very upsetting. It was a chapter I thought I had finished writing. I'd even thought that the ink would finally dry this time around. But I guess it was stupid of me to assume so. Because dignity doesn't come with a price tag. And some people only understand the language of buy, sell and auction. I made the mistake of allowing one such person access to my life and my feelings. And now I was paying the price. Which is fine, but I had truly thought my time in this self-constructed prison was over. I thought I'd turned the corner. That the worse was behind me.

And for some reason I thought of Miss K and the maid. And I realised that it might be a somewhat watered down version of the feeling, but Miss K was probably feeling what I was: a searing feeling of helplessness. Because when it comes right down to it, there's really nothing I can do about what's happening in my life, either. As a fairly intelligent and extremely stubborn girl, I was used to controlling my life and making the decisions that steered it in a certain direction. So the helplessness that I feel now is a new experience. Which brings me to the point of this post: what do you do when you can't do anything?

Since last weekend, I've been feeling like I'm sitting in the passenger seat rather than the driver's in the journey of my life. There are so many questions in my head. So many feelings, some of them rather self-destructive too, that I've been trying to deal with. But nothing seems easy or manageable anymore. There's a debilitating sense of sadness that just won't go. This whole week, I've cried myself to sleep. I've woken up with swollen red eyes, tried to bury myself under work and felt like acid was being poured on my insides every time I realised what a public spectacle my life has become.

When the sadness abates, it's place is taken by anger. Why should I be given this private trip to hell? How can this be my lot in life? I know it's churlish to look at the ceiling in the night and wonder, for the thousandth time, 'why me?'. Why should I become this non-trusting, cynical person because someone else thought I wasn't worth it? You think you'll find the answer in tears, you think you'll find the answer in anger, you think that if you ask the questions often enough, try and make some sense of what happened, you'll finally reach a place where it doesn't hurt quite this much. If such a place exists, I haven't found it yet. All that happens is that every time you torture your mind with the questions, the knife that feels like a permanent resident in my gut now, twists more painfully, it cuts me up deeper, makes me bleed more in places that I can't show to people. And in places that I won't talk about.

The questions hurt like hell. Not having an answer to any of them hurts even more.

After the fourth or fifth malicious rumour we heard about me, Miss N told me that when it gets this ugly, walk away. The other person may not have any dignity or pride, but we can never compromise on ours. It's sound advice. It would be the sensible thing to do. Except, how do I walk away from my own life. And if I walked away right now, wouldn't that mean treating myself like the dirty little secret that someone else has reduced me to? I can't just cut off a whole portion of my life, right? I can't pretend that it didn't happen. Because it did. Am I ashamed of it? No.

Miss N, in her nicer moments, says that I am an 'exceptionally mature' 24-year-old. But I don't feel mature anymore. I don't know if I even want to be that person for a while. For the first time in my life, I want to be taken care of like all other girls are. I want to be hugged and told that everything will be okay. I want to be able to believe it. I don't want to be scarred forever. The idea of giving up on friends and friendship scares me. I want to be able to behave like any other 24-year-old girl who got her heart broken. I don't want to be strong anymore.

So here it is: I lost. You won. You broke me. And I can't do anything about it. Congratulations. Isn't that what you wanted all along?

Miss N and Mr M :)

Today's post is dedicated to two people who've held me together like glue in the past 2 months--Miss N and Mr M.

Miss N is one of the most difficult people I know. She'll turn up her snooty nose at you, call you an idiot and bully you. If you survive all that intact, you've got a friend that will literally sit on people and pummel them if they hurt you, no questions asked. It's refreshing to have people like that in your life. People who will call your nemesis a 'chudail' without waiting for explanations. The other side of the coin doesn't really matter to Miss N. Unless you've committed murder or something.

I think somewhere inside, we all still cling on to our childhood need to be loved and accepted unconditionally. I have friends and acquaintances who say that every relationship is independent of every other relationship, but I don't see how that actually works. The only thing I see coming out of such an on-the-fence kind of attitude towards relationships is that you belong to no one. How can I tell you that it feels like someone drove a knife into my gut when I can't be sure that you weren't the one who handed her the knife?

With Miss N, there is no ambiguity like that. In some ways, she's the exact opposite of me. While she believes in wearing her heart on the sleeve and saying exactly what she feels, I'm more into keeping up pretences. I can't imagine expressing my feelings as openly as she does. Especially to people capable of hurting me. Any sign of pain, fear and need will be hidden under layers of assumed indifference, carelessness and, most often, a frustratingly uncommunicative attitude. In some ways, Miss N has helped me loosen up. She helps me talk about the things that hurt me instead of being vague and non-committal about them. She makes it okay to be sad. Whether it's around her or alone. And she's helping me wade through that giant, Olympic-sized pool called feelings. Thank you, N. :)

Next, Mr M. Mr M is THE most amazing man I know. Second to absolutely no one. He is uncomplicated, sweet and as strong as a rock. His feelings about things and people are as unambiguous as Miss N's. Which is probably why both of them approve of the other's role in my life so much. Mr M is just there for you. Always. Once he's decided you're important to him, there's no confusion in his mind that your happiness is his responsibility. No pain is too great, no effort too much to make. If Miss N makes it okay to feel sad, Mr M makes it okay to ask for help. I'm not someone given to seeking support and crying on shoulders, but with Mr M, it's easy to just let yourself go. It's easy to let him take care of things, and of you. Ever since he came into my life, I can't think of a time when I needed someone and he wasn't there. The only times I was alone was when I chose to be. For a life that that attracts drama the way mine has this past year, that's saying something.

But the MOST fantastic thing about Mr M is his way of dealing with changes. In the one year that I've known him this closely, we've gone from dating casually, to becoming friends, to me moving in with him, to going on a break, to getting engaged, to calling it off, to becoming friends again and finally, to him finding The Right One for himself. In a lot of ways, it was a waiting game for me. After every major shift in our relationship, I thought that this would be it, that our time was up. Left to me, our relationship would have collapsed after the very first 180-degree swing. But M is not someone who'll just leave it to you. There are few people I know who apply the 'if it's important, it's worth fighting for', rule so wholly in their lives. Long ago I'd told someone that I was the kind of girl who needed to be sought. I needed to be singled out. M understands this need of mine. So through the peaks and valleys of our relationship, he's made sure that I never question my importance in his life. He’s the only guy I’ve dated who is still on my speed dial. It isn't an ego thing for him, to be needed by a girl who is so constitutionally opposed to being needy in any way. For M, it's a friend thing.

I love the respect with which he acknowledges our relationship. It forces others around us to do the same. I wouldn’t have realised how much it matters if I hadn’t been feeling so cheap and trashy lately. Even though we didn’t work out, M’s treated me with so much grace and dignity that it’s impossible not to love him. Or feel the fierce loyalty that I’ve learnt to feel for him. I don’t know what the future will be like. I don’t know whether we’ll continue being such an active part of each other’s life in the days and changes to come. But I know we’ll always be friends. Because loyalty like that lasts forever.

Recently, I landed myself in a huge financial mess. I didn't know what I was going to do or how I was going to deal with it. I can't remember who I called first, Miss N, or Mr M. But unsurprisingly, both of them gave me the exact same advice. Today, Mr M took the whole sordid mess off my hands. And Miss N did her best to trump skankola, as we call her. Some day, I want to be a friend like these two. :)

The arrogance of intelligence

It's 4am in the morning and I'm at the Taj. I've just celebrated a friend's engagement and rebuffed a firang's attempt to get me in his bed. I should be happy for my friend, should feel a little sorry for myself because I'm not even close to finding The One. It should bother me I'd much rather be sitting alone in a coffee shop at 4am than go out and do those things that 24-year-olds do on Saturday night.

But I'm neither happy, nor sad. Is this the start of finding myself, or losing myself?

For a while now, I've been on a somewhat fractured journey to find the real me. I fell in love with the wrong guy, abused my body, tortured my mind, made friends with prostitutes, came close to becoming someone's bitch, cut myself, burnt myself and did everything I could to destroy myself. I'm surprised I've survived. God knows there are people more deserving of the shot at life that I've been given. I can't see it, but I suppose that there must be a reason I've been chosen to stay on. I thought if I experienced everything, if I pushed the boundaries hard enough, I'd find some answers. I thought I'd understand myself better. But that didn't happen. Instead, a kind of a fatigue has set in. My friend RD says that I've abused my mind so much that it can't do without the dizzying highs and the pitiful lows anymore...

But all of that has changed, these last few weeks.

I respect people who have managed to attune their minds to their hearts. And their hearts to their souls. It's a skill I'd sell my right arm for. Anything that can help untangle the million live wires in my brain is worth its weight in gold. I'm THAT tired of the constant whirring in my brain. And of a life that changes so fast, so often. I'd like to know what it feels like to be aware... To not question everything I do and say. Maybe I'm just getting older. In a way, it feels like I'm losing my mind. Because it resists things I’d learnt to accept. It’s fighting my treatment of it. It resists pain a lot more than it used to. It allows access to fewer people. And it asks for vacations--something that never used to happen before. I've never connected with minds that can empty themselves for any lengths of time. Maybe that is the reason I find it so difficult to fall in love, and once I'm in love, to fall out of it. Because I believe that even when nothing is being said, even when there's no physical contact, two brains continue to communicate.

I thought I could control the trajectory of my life. I thought I’d be the one calling the shots at the fork in the road. Perhaps I was too arrogant. Perhaps I took my mind for granted. I trusted my intelligence over my instinct. I truly believed that no matter what else I didn’t have control over, I’d have complete mastery over my brain. I don’t know when it happened, but sometime in the last few weeks, I lost that power.

And again I wonder, is this the way to finding oneself? When decisions are made by default and you con yourself into believing that you had a say in them? Or is this the beginning of losing oneself forever? Because if you can’t be bothered to fight to regain the power, if what you stand to gain isn’t worth the fight, isn’t that the first step towards not being able to identify yourself in a crowd?

Is happiness an acquired taste?

When someone asks you what makes you happy, do you always know the answer? Can you put a pen to paper and list five things that unfailingly make you smile--with pleasure and completely and utterly selfish delight? I can't. Happiness is such a swiftly moving entity, such a volatile emotion, and such a fleeting moment in time, that I can never really put my finger on what makes me happy.

Which is something my heart understands and accepts, but my mind finds weird... Because isn't the point of all existence--every action, each achievement, each race, each breath even, to be happy? So by that logic, if I don't even know what makes me happy, what chance do I have of ever being it? So does that mean I'm destined to look for something that I don't know where to look for? It's a little bit like trying to remember someone you never knew, right?

Which made me wonder, if happiness is subjective to each one of us, if it is an intensely personal thought, an idea that our mind conjures up and our heart accepts; how come the world's most freely given but least used advice is always, ALWAYS, an attempt to help you find this happiness thingy? The reasons of the mind are simple enough--if you're poor, money must make you happy. If you're single, finding love must make you happy. And if you live in a shit hole, a big house must be the answer. They're all good reasons, all solid logical deductions.

Except, when you really think about it, all these assumptions are simply thoughts that have been drummed into our heads and stitched into our social fabric for so long that they've become a part of our collective conscious. Everything we've ever read, heard, taught and are exposed to, tells us that a small house, little money and being alone are bad things, and therefore, reasons to be unhappy. But are these beliefs really our own? And when our behaviour is governed by these thoughts, we don't make choices, we simply practise learned behaviour. By that logic, then, what we assume to be happiness, and things that lead us to it, must also be learned behaviour, right?

It boggles the mind, how certain we are of things that we have little or no understanding of. It is an uncomfortable thought, thinking that you really have no clue as to what the path to our ultimate destination is. And a humbling one as well.

I know I haven't been happy for some time now. People around me know it too, in varying degrees. But what bothers me more than the fact that I'm not happy is that I have no idea how to get there. I don't know what's missing. I don't know what I want and how I'm going to get it. That's a scary juncture in life. The day you realise that you're a cliche, just a number in a crowd, the idea of happiness takes on a new meaning. And you retrace your steps in your head, trying to learn more from your journey, from your many mistakes and few successes. At least that's what I think is happening to me right now.

I don't want my happiness to be learned behaviour. I want it to be an acquired taste. Like that perfect dress that you believed existed somewhere, but you were meant to trawl through several malls before you found it in a little store on forgotten lane. Or like the day when you discover that your poison is actually Breezer, a drink you had written off at 18.

Have I found that kind of happiness? No. I'm not even close. Will I ever find it? I hope so. Because it would be tragic if I don't. Not to mention terrifying, because it isn't easy to accept that you really have no control over such a HUGE part of your life. That your purpose depends almost entirely on chance. What if life takes me on a path that doesn't let me try on enough dresses to know which is the one for me? What if I never go on the road that houses that store? What is worse--knowing you're not happy, or assuming you're happy because you're not unhappy?

Does anyone have an answer?

The day a child died

A friend of mine believes that to be able to experience happiness in its purest form, you need to retain a part of you that brings out your inner child. And no matter how hard you have to fight to keep that light burning, it must be done. It could be their ability to see the the light at the end of the darkest tunnel, their ability to laugh at the silliest things in life, the simplistic way they look at the world… It could be anything.

When he asked me what was childlike about me, it took me a while to figure out the answer. I don’t remember how I found it, but I realised that my idea of friendship was exactly the way it used to be two decades ago. Was, because a few days ago, the last of my childhood was snatched away from me.

When I was a child, my world used to be black and white. There were colours, but no shades. No permutations and combinations. And definitely no greys. It used to be simple, and I used to be happy. I’ve always thought that relationships are like colours. Some are red—bright, unforgettable and hard to miss. Others are brown—dull, uninspiring and insipid. As you grow up, your understanding of relationships changes... Just like your understanding of colours does. Categories start expanding and we begin to slot colours, and people, into smaller and smaller boxes. So there’s no longer just a purple; there are violets, indigos, lavenders and lilacs. Similarly, the blanket called friendship begins to shrink, or perhaps our requirements increase as we grow. What once used to encompass the whole spectrum of people that we liked outside our family, begins to be divided into frenemies, acquaintances, friends with benefits, colleagues and whatnot.

Very few people escape the categorisation in our heads. Fewer still become our confidantes…people that we choose to share our lives, hopes and fears with. Understandable. The world we live in demands that we do it. Our instinct for self-preservation demands that we do it. I believe our expectations from people are directly proportional to the tightness of the categories that we slot people into. Just like we know exactly how we’ll look in a particular shade of pink, we have very specific expectations from people once we’ve assigned them a category.

My friend says that our world is more accepting, less judgemental, accommodating and all those supposedly nice things. I think we call these qualities ‘nice’ simply because we don’t have a choice. We can’t hold onto our childlike assumptions because we’re scared that we’ll find ourselves alone if we do. Are we more accommodating out of love, or because we're scared to ask for better? Because somewhere, we can't fathom why anyone would want to give us more...? We’re convinced that if given the chance, people will hurt us. And so we start all relationships expecting to be hurt. Is that acceptance or settling?

I do it too. I have incredibly little faith in people and their goodness. I’m suspicious, wary and a little autistic when it comes to forming close bonds. I expect people to fail. Most of them live upto that expectation. Except my friends. I set very high standards for them. And so far, I’ve been mostly lucky. There had been bumps along the road, but my car had never crashed.

I call few people friends, but when I do, I believe it will last forever and ever. All other relationships come with a shelf-life, a sell-by date, but not friendships. Sure, sometimes things turn sour… Close friends start to get on my nerves and it sometimes takes months for the feeling to pass. But eventually, it always does. Friendship doesn’t come with the guarantee that you’ll never be hurt, but I honestly believed that friends don’t hurt friends unless they can help it… That if they could, they would protect our hearts from feeling pain. I believed the natural instinct was to protect, to shield, to help your soul to heal… Not destroy whatever is left of it after the world is done sawing through it… It never occured to me to think otherwise. There was only this one definition… As timeless and unquestionable as E=MC² .

I live in a ‘me first’ world… A world where the selfish gene always overpowers the giving one. In all other aspects of my life, I’ve learnt to accept, even imbibe, the rule. But not when it comes to my friends. The birthday parties might have been replaced by bachelorettes, but I’d still do everything in my power to make an important day that much more special. It’s as much for me as for them, because there’s no better feeling than knowing that I put that smile on my friend’s face. That joy is pure.. Undiluted and unadulterated. You don't want anything from it but for your friend to be the happiest in the world for that one moment. That's how I felt as a child and that's how I feel even now.

I thought I was well within my rights to ask for presents and expect to get them… That if I want a hug, I should be able to demand it… I truly believed that friendship was the only relationship that came without games… That there was no artifice, no subtexts, no reading between the lines. It was the only part of my life that was still black and white… And the colours were all solid and dependable… No shadows or shades lurking to catch me unawares.

But now I’ve realised that it’s time to let those beliefs go. That the blacks and whites were only a spectre of my imagination. People like that don’t exist. Even friends, given the right reason, will abandon you without a warning. I know now, because it has happened. Through all the warnings, all the doubts and all the inconsistencies, I refused to give in to the grown-up in me. I kept thinking that I’d given up on all relationships, I couldn’t give up on this one as well. And now I’m left feeling like a fool. And a trail of ‘I told you sos’ behind me. And questions that I’d never imagined I’d have to find answers for.

Right now, I feel raw, naked and exposed. And I feel a pain that I’ve never felt before… Because so far, this part of my heart had been protected by bubble-wrap. But now I know that friends don’t always protect you… That they’re not incapable of doing bad things to you… That if the stakes were made high enough, they would be okay with putting tears in your eyes.

In the last couple of days, I feel like my world has come crashing around my ears. I’d tried so hard, fought so hard to hold onto one part of me… I’d thought that if I could hold onto this one belief, stay true to one part of my old self, I’d be okay… That I’d be able to find my way back if I ever wanted to. But I guess it’s time to grow up. I guess it’s time to bury the child in me. Goodbyes always upset me… No many how many times I say it, it doesn’t get easier. But it’s only been this tough once before. How do you accept the death of the most treasured part of yourself?

I can’t remember the exact words, but Mark Twain once s aid something to the effect that as a child, I could remember anything… even the things that didn’t happen. As I grew older, I could only remember the things that did. Because they come with proof… I need proof too, now. There’s no blind faith anymore. No closing my eyes and jumping off the cliff, unless I’ve packed in the parachute myself…

It’s time to open up the door to let the greys in.

This is my last blog post… The last time I’ll let anyone peep into my heart and see exactly what’s in it… You’re one of the five people who will ever read this post. Because I think I owe you an explanation. And I know I’d never be able to say the words… Thankyou for living up to my sky-high expectations of you. I must’ve been a difficult friend, with all the dos and don’ts… Thankyou for everything you’ve done for me… It meant the world to me.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

I used to ponder over this question a lot while growing up. The problem was not that I didn’t know. The problem was that I knew too well. I’ve known from the time I was 13 that writing was all I really wanted to do. Even as mum tried to get me to pursue a degree in fine art and papa piled brochures of economics and MBA classes on my writing table, I always just knew.

I thought I’d stop asking myself the question after I landed my first job. It would be ridiculous not to, right? Because I’d managed to battle my way into the industry I’d wanted to be a part of. Small victory, but it mattered. And yet, the questions didn’t stop. Instead, their decibel levels just became higher.

Today, the sound of that question is deafening.

Because suddenly, I don’t want any of the things I thought I wanted. Suddenly, the definitions all seemed to have changed.

I’ve often been told, by people who claim to understand me, that I’m a very emotional person. The definition always makes me uneasy, but I’ve learnt to live with it. Because deep down, buried beneath the niceties, I think I’m a rather cold-hearted person. Because I find it extremely easy to detach myself from people—friends, colleagues, boyfriends, lovers…

There comes a point in every relationship when you throw in the towel. Decide that this is it, the person is not worth my time, energy and investment anymore. For some people that point comes after being repeatedly hurt by someone, after giving the person one chance too many, forgiving the person one time too many… For me, that point comes when the person starts to bore me. Emotionally or intellectually. And I think I reach that point too quickly, too easily and, a lot of the times, too painlessly. It’s frightening when you can immediately disassociate from people and your feelings for them. Out of sight and out of mind. It really is that easy. Which is why the definition bothers me… because THIS is NOT what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I wanted to be a good writer, good daughter, good sister, good girlfriend and eventually, a good wife even. But recently I’ve learned that it’s not easy being all these things, when inside, all you really care about is yourself and what you want from life for yourself. Not what your parents dream about for you, not what you think are the right aspirations to have, and certainly not what you’ve been told is the path to a successful, happy life is.

When you’re in an all-girls school, it takes you a while to understand that not all guys are like the SRK from the movies. It takes a while before you find out that most guys, are, well, assholes, to resort to cliches. But before you catch on, you go through the process of pointless discussions Love, or at least your idiotic idea of what it supposedly feels like, is a big part of all these many dreams and discussions. I went through the routine as well. At 16, I was convinced that I would marry my then boyfriend, make babies with him and live happily ever after.

Somewhere down the road, those convictions lost their grip. And I don’t say that bitterly, because I’ve realised that those convictions were never really my own. These were just the done things to want, to aspire to. Which is why, by the time I found out what really I wanted to be when I grow up, the question began to worry, and even scare me a little. Because the answer was not something that I expected.

I’ve been in a lot of semi-relationships. Lots of people meant lots of breakups. Predictably, at first it hurt terribly and I thought I’d never get over it. But then I learnt to be circumspect. I realised that I was only hurt because the person had taken away my idea of what a relationship should be like. I understood that the hurt was only about my ego, about the self-absorbed belief that every person I’m with should love me, that the universe owed me that. But most of us don’t understand that love isn’t an inalienable right, that it’s perfectly normal to go through life without ever truly being ‘in love’ with someone. And without having someone be ‘in love’ with us.

The fuckup happens when what you don’t have begins to completely eclipse what you do. How many of us can truly, and without a flicker of doubt, put love above all other things in life? I know I can’t. I’ve realised that unlike my mum, I couldn’t care less about finding the guy who I could make a marriage work with, that unlike my sister, I didn’t want a man who can take care of me, and unlike many of my friends, I couldn’t care less about signing and sealing the deal. I don’t care about the three big Ms in a single girl’s life: marriage, monogamy and money. The order might be interchangeable, but eventually, it generally boils down to this.

The things is, I like the rustle of money, but only when I’ve made it myself. I like the feel of power, but only when it’s mine. And I like being in love, but only when it’s convenient. This is NOT what I thought I’d be like when I grow up. I didn’t think running my show would matter so much to me, I didn’t know it would be so easy for me to dismiss people so completely and I definitely didn’t think I would be such a single girl—in my head and my heart.

And then last week, an out-of-the-blue conversation with a dear friend made me realise that self-discovery shouldn’t bother me so much. Because so what if the world taught you to live, speak and want a certain kind of things, so what if you now want the things you never thought of before, at least now you know what was going to make you happy. Imagine following dreams that were never yours. Imagine the crushing disappointment when you realise that after all the tradeoffs and tax deductions, you’re still nowhere close to finding fulfilment.

Why didn't I do it?

A couple of weeks ago, I really wanted to do something. It was that mad, impulsive moment when you really want something, and for once, that something is tantalisingly close... The opportunity was staring me in the face, all I needed was to reach out and make it mine...

And yet, I didn't.

Sometimes, courage fails you at the most inopportune moments. I'm not someone who suffers from confidence issues. Well, most of the time, anyway. And yet, in that moment, I couldn't get myself to take that leap of faith. Only because the idea of failing, of rejection, was too awful to contemplate. I thought it didn't matter. That it was just one lost moment, more would come along, but that really isn't true, is it? Because now that I realise I'm scared of the possible outcome, I know that the fear will paralyse me. And even if another such moment does come along, I probably won't do anything again.

Isn't love a little bit like that? We feel it, but don't say it--most times until it's too late. I truly believe that every relationship has a time and a place. And if you let that time and place pass, that relationship passes you by. I have friends who've ended up marrying their best friends and could not be happier. Just because they weren't scared to grab that one moment when their friend could have been something more and turned it into a lifetime of happiness. I'm not saying that that's the way to do things. I'm one of those girls that can't imagine marrying the guy who knows all my dirty secrets. But I do think that too many of us lose our best shot at happiness for reasons that seem too insignificant after life passes us by...

I was talking to Miss K a few weeks ago about our play and she told me something a grandmotherly figure had said to her, while she discussed love with another friend. "Bete, tumhare zamaane mein koi mohabbat nai karta," is what she said. Neither of us paid much attention to it then, but somehow, grandma's innocuous comment has stayed with us through all these weeks. It's something I think of every time any of my friends talk about their relationships.

It's sad, but it's true. No one in my world loves in the way we all secretly want to be loved. That madness is missing. That devil-may-care attitude is missing. Nobody sweeps anybody off their feet anymore. Nobody suddenly takes off from a meeting to be with someone anymore. Some of my friend's would say I'm just buying into the crap that Hallmark and SRK have been trying to sell to us for years now... Maybe it is. But don't we buy it only because deep down, that's really what we want? Why would an otherwise sane, focussed, successful career girl fall for an illusion of a man? And more importantly, why does that girl then go on to marry the guy she can make a successful marriage with, but not lose her heart to?

It all boils down to our risk appetites. And in my world, when it comes to matters of the heart, there's very little of it left. Most often, the stakes are simply too high. The gamble is too big. And the water is too deep to dive into.

And so we remain in the shallow end of the pool... Safe and secure... But every once in a while, we look at the deep end... And wonder... What it would be like to be swept along by the waves, how would the water feel over our heads, what swimming with the sharks would be like...

But we'll never find out, will we? Because hamare zamaane mein koi mohabbat nahi karta.

The patterns in life

Last week, a friend of mine was telling me about her dating pattern. She's recently started seeing a healer and says that it's made a world of difference to the way she sees herself and her relationships. And she says she's finally identified the problem that makes her fall for the worst kind of men. And I'm not even talking about bad boys. Because bad boys are predictable and almost always follow a universal pattern. The way I see it, my friend seems to have a thing for emotional wrecks. Men who think they want something and the moment they get it, they want something else. So her dating, semi-dating and fling history consists of a series of men that have spent the best years of their life fumbling around in the dark. Nothing wrong with that, but only until you don't hurt other people in the process. And my friend's been hurt, multiple times.

Her newfound realisation about her dating pattern got me thinking about the patterns in my life. And the only unfailing constant in my relationships is that all of them are destined to fail. From day one. So my pattern seems to be impossible relationships. I seem to be incapable of being in a healthy, happy relationship. You'd think that the realisation would leave a bitter taste in my mouth. But it didn't. Because I guess it's one of those truths that my heart has decided that my mind can finally handle.

Thinking about this pattern also got me thinking about the reasons behind it. I don't know why, but all of last night, I wrestled with my comforter, almost like my mind refused to shut down till I found an answer. Like it was imperative I find this piece of the puzzle that very night. And so I did something that I haven't done in a long long time. I called V.

Because he's the only person I know who can make sense of my madness. Maybe that's the reason we lasted for as long as we did. Because I could cling to him every time the questions in my head scared me. Because he could make me believe that eventually, I'd figure it all out. I needed to know if he'd seen my relationship pattern before I had. He had.

V has a theory. One that makes sense but is too awful to contemplate. According to him, I have so little faith in people, particularly men, that I gravitate towards the ones that will do exactly what I believe they will--hurt me. And the ones that seem like they won't, scare me. Because then I'd have to relinquish some control over my heart. And because I am a creature of the mind, this is something I will simply not be permitted to do. And so I go along life, one hopeless date after another.

V also believes that my lack of faith comes from that time of my life that I never let myself think about. But yesterday, the memories refused to lie still. And V would not let it go. When I was 10, someone in my family did something bad to me. I was in his house, sleeping next to his daughter in her bed, when it happened. He didn't rape me, but I felt violated. I remember shrinking into the bed, confused, scared and guilty. Confused because family shouldn't make you feel threatened, scared because I didn't feel safe anymore and guilty for thinking such thoughts about a man who was supposed to be like my father. I stayed in his house for three more days and we'd go out every night. And every time we went out, I wondered whether it was pure coincidence or design that he happened to be seated next to me during the movie, at dinner, at the ice-cream parlour. Each time there was even the remotest possibility of him touching me, I would scurry around the place like a demented child. I didn't sleep a wink in the time I was there. But I'd lie huddled next to my cousin, pretending to be asleep, as still as a dead body, while he stood looking at us in the doorway. The tears would come only after he'd finally go away.

Time moved on and eventually, I forgot about it. Completely. I buried the memory down so deep that it was like nothing had ever happened. It was like someone had wiped that time from my memories. I still saw uncle at family functions and during vacations. He'd joke with my parents, praise my marks and I'd smile back happily. But somehow, I never went back to his house.

Then a year-and-a-half ago, while V and I were going through a particularly rough time, I went to a hypnotherapist to seek answers. And that's when the memories came rushing back. And now, every time I think of Uncle, all I can see is his large looming figure blocking the doorway, blocking my only route to escape, as I peered, petrified, from under the sheets. For all the years that I buried them deep inside, hoping that they'd die, the memories are now more alive than some of the people I move around with.

V says that the doorway is my relationship pattern, that I always have one foot jammed at the entrance, keeping the door ajar, in case I need to bolt. Which is why I only go for men that allow me to keep not just a foot, but one leg out of the door. Because I don't believe there can come a time when I won't want to run. V says that the closest I've come is with him, and although I'd let go of the door, I still had my eye on the fire escape. And when the time came, I did use it.

Is it time to finally leave my spot near the door? I don't know. Should I decide to do it, will I be able to, even? I sure hope so. A few weeks ago, I was in bed with one of the Mr Inappropriates. Our relationship, or at least one part of it, is over. But I was still somehow in bed with him. Because that night, I just needed to not be alone. And he's actually a nice guy when he wants to be. Sometime in the middle of the night, I hugged him. It wasn't a sexual touch, it was an intimate one. Because I wanted to be held. And I wanted to feel safe. It's surprising how often one has every luxury in the world but not a basic need. But he shrugged me away. And although it shouldn't matter, because I've been equally blase about relationships based on nothing in the past, that night it stung. Painfully. Maybe that was the cue my heart had been waiting for, a sign that it could now go ahead and tell my mind something that would cause it distress. That maybe it's time to make a conscious attempt to break my own pattern.

It would be easier to put it off for another day. Give myself some more time to accept my truth. But deep down, I know that it's time to let the wound heal. It's been festering for too long. And writing this post is the first step in that direction. I hope some day soon, it sees the light of the day.

Life is larger than logic

Life is larger than logic

It was a dialogue in a movie. But when I heard it, it first made me smile and then cry a little bit. Now normally I’m not a very tears person, but this year promises to compensate for the previous 23. The dialogue struck a chord. Probably because lately, I’ve been feeling rather down and out. A little useless and hugely untalented. And it doesn’t help when people close to you decide to pick such a time to tell you how illogical and juvenile they think you are.

Which made me wonder, what exactly does juvenile mean? And considering I don’t quite seem to see juvenile-ness where others do, I probably don’t understand what maturity means either. So I thought I’d define it. Does juvenile mean walking out of the house at 3 am because you’re too scared to sleep, or is juvenile the act of taking someone’s demons and converting them into social currency? Is it juvenile when you either never ask for advice or never take it, or is it when all you ever do is agree with a more worldly-wise person's views on how you must lead your life? Is juvenile the spoilt little princess, or the adult who resents her her accident of birth? Is it juvenile when you make a mistake knowingly, even if you’re prepared for the consequences, or is it when you’re so afraid of finding a glitch in carefully laid plans that you never take the risk? And most importantly, is juvenile a function of age, or a story we concoct so we feel better about the choices we make and the life we’ve chosen to lead?

I was talking to my friend Z the other day and she said that as often as they’ve landed me in trouble, she would have loved to make some of the mistakes I made. Now Z is a girl who has spent the better part of her life trying to get me to “mend my ways”, as she calls it. In kindergarten, it was by getting me to sharpen my pencils before class; in middle school, it was by ensuring that my homework was done; in high school, she’d stop me from needling my most-hated teacher; in college, it was by calling me five thousand times a day to remind me of all the horrible things that would happen if I went out with the bad boy. Ever since I turned 18, she’s been terrified that one day, I’ll fall in love with a man twice my age and end up pregnant and barefoot in his kitchen. She often jokes that hopefully, when that day came, at least I’ll be married to the asshole and can claim the one-bedroom apartment in the chawl that we’ll no doubt live in. She is like a mini-parent, but in a nice way, because she won’t embark on emotional onslaught to get me to do what she thinks is right. She’ll just sigh and mutter “sudhar jaa” 500 times, every time I tell her about my latest adventure.

Considering all this, I was rather surprised to hear Z say that she envied my “mistakes”. Because Z is one of the most practical, poised and perfect people I know. Her responses are always measured—whether they are to people or situations. She does what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. I have never seen her as grossly underprepared for exams as I usually was. Nor have I seen her lose her temper over nothing issues, stamp her feet in irritation or be impolite unless it can be helped. The one time she called me up at midnight to cry and wouldn’t tell why, I decided that either she was pregnant and didn’t have the money for abortion, or was being blackmailed by an asshole ex-boyfriend over a vacation she may have lied to her parents about. I remember furiously calculating how much money Z, D and I could raise for the abortion/ blackmailer to shut up, if the three of us didn’t shop, eat or go out for a couple of months. I can’t recall what the “emergency” was, but I do remember laughing my guts out when we finally found out, huddled over a corner table at Barista the next day. We were 17 then. And I hadn’t still figured out that such situations simply didn’t arise in Z’s life. She was much too sensible for that. These things were more up my alley. Not quite, but close.

I must admit that it felt good. After the battering that my confidence had taken at the hands of my more “mature and together” friends, it felt good to hear someone like Z tell me she envied the very thing that was making me feel like the black sheep of my social set. Because she’s one of the very few people that I have ever respected. We may not always agree and our way of living life might be diametrically opposite, but the respect I have for her is impregnable.

When I asked her why, she went quiet for a few seconds. And then asked me, “When was the last time you did something stupid and regretted it?” And I didn’t have an answer. Because I could say that I regretted having gotten involved with some people for all the heartache it has caused me, that I regretted picking the bad boy over the nice guy, that I regretted quitting my job without finding another one first, and I regretted running away from home every other weekend. But the truth is, I don’t. Because even while I was making these seemingly wild and pointless decisions, I knew why I needed to do it. “So as long as you know why you did what you did, the reasons make sense to you and you’re prepared to deal with what the ‘morning after’ will throw at you, why the fuck do you care what anyone thinks?” she said, almost as if she was bored of the conversation, because the answer was so painfully obvious. “Of all the times that you refused to listen to anyone, you decide to start now, when you’re finally old enough to make decisions and not have them questioned by the world and its cousin?”

Again, I didn’t have an answer to her question. Why did I care what anyone thought. I never have, then why did I suddenly start? And then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Sure, there are people who’ll think twice and then reconfirm before making a decision, but amidst all the thinking, we miss out on the feeling part. You don’t. Which is fantastic. It might be illogical, crazy and wild, but people who know you, know that when you feel something for them, it’s one hundred per cent true. You know how loved you made V feel? Why do you think that idiot can’t stick with his wife? And D and I can’t imagine you cheating on us. You know how rare it is to feel this sure of someone?”

And that’s when I teared up again. It feels good to know that someone gets it, gets you. Because no matter how much you tell yourself that you live life on your own terms, everyone needs someone. Like I’ve said earlier, up until a while ago, I didn’t really believe in soulmates, but maybe such a thing exists. In my case, my soulmates are my friends. There’s B, who’s long accepted that asking me not to overthink and overfeel is a massive waste of time. Then there are D and Z, who, after almost two decades of friendship, still don’t know what to do with me. So they just love me. Without questions, judgements or conditions. Illogical, as my relationships might be, they’re precious. Because life is larger than logic.

Monday, motherhood and men

Last week was a week of many firsts. It was my first week as the editor of a magazine, the first time I felt like a parent and the very first time I’ve looked at sex as something more than the union of two bodies.

Lets start at the start. On Monday, I started my new job as the editor of an upcoming webzine. To say that I had had apprehensions about the job would be an understatement. In a fit of stubbornness, I hadn’t discussed the offer with any of the people I would have normally turned to for advice. So I’m incredibly thankful and relieved that the job is everything I had hoped for after one-and-a-half-years at a boot-camplike job.

Next, the part about feeling like a parent. My office has a little stray kitten who we call Ek, for no reason more intelligent than the fact that he was less than a week old when he was found abandoned in a dumpster. And now he’s part of a loving family of three dogs and two very moody cats. Ek is a little brat, spoilt by the loudmouth Janice and the picky eater Naomi, and watched over by Tyler, the fatty of the house. The kutta-log, as we call the three dogs, are Ek’s protectors and pamperers. Ek scrambles around the house, mewling loudly when he feels ignored, while the three dogs tiptoe around him, careful not to hurt the six-inch-long ball of fur. And every time I look at them, my heart melts. Maybe it’s got something to do with playing the editor of a parenting magazine, or maybe it’s the aunt in me reacting to the separation issues I'm going through at the moment, but my world seems to revolve around babies these days--human or animal. The first time I fed the screaming, kicking Ek, I felt my heart squeeze and morph into a big blob of mush. Yes, me. Imagine that. Suddenly, all I want from life is a baby. A gurgling with laughter, running around the house like a mad puppy kind of little girl or boy. No? Then at least a little puppy or kitten who'll rush excitedly to the door when I come back home.

And last, the part about sex being more than just a physical thing. We’ve already established that in that department, considering what my friends have to say about their sex lives, it would be fair to assume that I’ve been pretty lucky. But even so, sex, although an intensely pleasurable activity, has been just that--an activity. I’ve never been big on all the spirituality and soul mates talk. Turns out, there might be something to it, after all.

Last week, I went for an alternate youth culture party (Make what you will of that!). I met a very interesting person, let’s call him Mr A, there. I don’t know whether he’s single, married or in a relationship, but I can say one thing for sure--if there’s one man who knows how to make a woman happy, it’s him. No, I don’t know this because I tumbled into bed with him, with some people, you just know. The way they look at you, the way they listen to you, simply the way they hold your hand while steering you in a crowd, positively screams eroticism. And not in a trashy, booty call way, but in a way that makes you feel like you’re being wooed, like you’re a treasure that needs to be explored, cherished and only then plundered. A considerable number of drinks later, my brain to mouth filter had all but vanished and I told him how hot I found his attitude. And that’s how we got talking.

And talking to the man was by far the most intensely erotic experience I’ve ever had. Barring nothing. The men has refined the act of sex to an art form. I have never met a man so in tune with a woman’s responses. We’ve all had times when we wanted our men to stop fumbling about, to take us like cavemen, against the door, by the bed, in the kitchen… yes, for the men who didn’t know, sometimes, we couldn’t care less about foreplay. For some of us, tender is highly overrated, altogether dispensable even. But that lends itself to another post altogether.

Anyway, I would be very surprised if any woman with Mr A has ever had that problem. The man seemed to know bloody everything. He even knew what I was imagining doing to him, at one point in the night. Our only real physical contact in all the time we were together when he took my hand while navigating through the crowd, and again, when he hugged me goodbye. I’ve read about exquisite torture, but you don’t really know what that means until you meet a person like Mr A. He’s not the most good-looking of them all, not even the funniest or the most charming, but there’s something about him that will make you look a second time. In my case, it was because he was the only one in the group who understood the reference to what I was saying. (Yes, I‘m deliberately being vague here.) We were going to meet at a party the next night, but as luck would have it, I didn’t end up going. I don’t know what might have happened if I had. And I guess I’ll never know. But that doesn’t bother me much. For a while now I’ve been telling my friends that I’d love to meet someone who taught me something new. Or someone who made me break my rules. Mr A made me do both. Without even touching me, he‘s got me so tightly strung, I could snap any moment. It‘s not a feeling I’m too familiar with. And I’m loving it. If this is foreplay, perhaps it isn’t so bad, after all.

What is self-destruction?

As usual, this was a question that came to me while talking to a friend. Mr K, in this instance. Am I self-destructing by hiding my feelings from Mr D? Seeing him going through women like we’re an endangered species, while dying a little every time I see the overcrowded notches on his bedpost? Would it be better if I just blurted it out, let him deal with the daunting prospect of our relationship never being the same again? A part of me is sorely tempted to do just that. After all, it’s at least half his fault that I’m so hopelessly in love with him. Why should he not have to deal with all the baggage that comes with an impossible love like this one?

Another part, the one that’s completely at the mercy of my pride and ego, won’t let me say it. How can I possibly let something as ephemeral as an emotion get the better of me? That’s the part that believes that licking your wounds in private is infinitely better than having to ask someone for balm. This part of me would die, actually die, if I ever get around to saying ‘I love you’ without a 100 per cent guarantee that the sentiment will be reciprocated. With more intensity than I put into it. And so I suffer. Not quietly, as many of my friends, particularly Ms N, will attest to. But I do. And I continue to meet him. Every fucking time he wants to. Again, a saner and smarter person would probably remove themselves from the presence of their torturer. But not me. I’ll dig my heels in and stand taller. Is that self-destructive? Mr B thinks so.

Mr B also thinks I have a disgusting propensity to seek disaster. He says I’m one of those dumb idiots who’ll cut off their noses to spite their faces. Not surprisingly, his declarations are followed by icy glares and long silences on my part and rolling of eyes from his. But every time he holds up the not-so-flattering mirror and forces me to look into it, I have no option but to confront the disconcerting thought--am I self-destructive? Maybe I am. Okay, truth be told, there’s no maybe about it. I am an idiot. Consider Exhibit A: He’s well-read, well-dressed, well-educated, well everything. He’s environmentally conscious, sensitive, perceptive and great in bed. Check, check, check and OMG, check. He’s the forever kind of guy. The Jacob Black of the boy world. And sadly, like Jake, he’s always going to be an option, not a priority.

So what is he doing wasting his time with me? My guess is as good as anybody’s. Slumming it out, I suppose. Or he’s just as much of an idiot as I am. Ms N and I have dedicated many BBM hours wondering how such a guy hasn’t been lapped up by the very hungry, very deprived and very predatory population of intelligent single girls in the city. And after I’m done feeling pathetic and guilty as hell for kicking around a guy as great as him, Ms N and I just decide that it’s one of those rare strokes of luck. The few things that get past Mr Murphy’s radar and happen to you. Although deep down, you feel like you just don’t deserve it. And deeper down, you know you don’t. Which is why you should stop at the second electric blue iced tea. The minute you order the third, you’re in trouble. Because that’s the one that will take you past your ridiculously happy reality and into the scary, dark place where all these uncomfortable truths lie dormant. But that’s besides the point. Coming back to Exhibit A. I was with him last night, helping him pack for London, when the differences between him and Mr D became so startlingly obvious, I wanted to yank my heart out of the rib cage and smack it against the wall till it was ready to listen to reason.

Mr D is messy, selfish, obnoxious and always broke. Which would have been okay if he was a student. Except he’s not. And hasn’t been one for a while. He’s Barney Stinson. But without the money. And yet, every time he calls, every time he messages, I light up. It doesn’t matter whether I talk to him for 15 minutes or 1 hour 15, but talk to him, I must. Everyday. I try to pretend that it doesn’t matter, that he’s just any other friend that I’m happy to talk to at whatever time of the day or night, and that I don’t torture myself with thoughts of who he’s serenading on the nights he doesn’t call me, but I know that that’s not true. For someone who’s always had more pride than needed, it’s a rather large helping of humble pie to digest in one go. I’ve broken pretty much all my dating-dance rules for him. Except one: I simply will not call him. No matter how much I want to hear his voice or see his face, I will never ask him to meet me. The ego won’t allow me to become one of those needy, clingy women that come with the ‘Fragile. Handle with care’ signs screaming from their foreheads. So he has no idea that I wait for his calls with a longing that borders on desperation. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?

A week ago, after 3 days of not having heard a word from Mr D, I called up Mr B in a stinking, foul mood. I hated him for what he was doing to my head and I hated myself for letting him do it. Except, since he had no idea, in all fairness, his behaviour was completely in character. Mr B heard me rave, rant and bitch. And then calmly told me to stop behaving like a 16-year-old girl with raging hormones. That hurt. Big time. And so I decided to give him the silent treatment. But in the way that only your very closest friends can say the nastiest things to you to jolt you back to reality and get away with it, I realised that Mr B was right. I really did need to make a decision about this idiotic situation and see it through.

I had two options: either tell Mr D what’s going on and see where that leads, or, if I was convinced that nothing could be gained by going down that road; to cut him off, wait till I stopped feeling quite so much and then get back to our friendship. And if I was brutally honest with myself, if I did go cold turkey, Mr D would probably just be surprised, maybe ask me why I was being weird and then decide that I would come around eventually. He’d probably just get on with it, onto the next girl and onto the next level of his grand seduction game. So where does that leave me? Exactly where I started. In the middle of a mess of my own making.

I hadn’t decided what I was going to do, and then something else happened. A few of us friends were out for dinner a couple of nights ago. One amongst us really wanted to meet the current flame. They’re in that strange space where you’re intimate enough to know that friendship is a milestone you crossed a long time ago, but you haven’t quite reached the relationship stage yet. Now if you’re both happy enough to be in the middle ground, this no man’s land of the dating game, it’s fine. But if one of you wants to move in one direction while the other wants to stay put, it’s a problem. A big one. And in this case, until that night, I was under the impression that this friend wanted a relationship while the boy was happy to be in no man‘s land. Which is why I kept ignoring her fidgetiness and distractedness over dinner. I was not going to encourage her to go meet him because I thought it was going to screw her up eventually. Yes, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. But then again, it’s always easier to hit on the solutions when the problem is someone else’s. But as I ignored her restlessness, another friend, who knew exactly what was going on as well, decided that self-destructive or not, if she wanted to, she should go and meet the boy. Now this guy hates the boy’s guts, for whatever reason, but he still held our friend by the hand and took her to meet him. All because that’s what she wanted. It might not have made sense, and he’s probably going to be the shoulder she’s going to cry on if, or when, she realises that she’s in deeper than she thought, but he still did it. And although we had a mini-argument about him sending her off, I couldn’t help but thinking that maybe I’d be better off if I didn’t have quite so many rules, if I didn’t stop myself every time I wanted to pick up the phone and ask Mr D to meet me.

Maybe, at the end of this road there is heartbreak. But it’s not like my cup is overflowing right now, anyway. If it’s my lot in life to be miserable in love, wouldn’t I rather be miserable with him than without? Because cliché as it is, pride really is a very cold bedfellow. And I know that despite all his you-have-to-grow-up speeches, when the chips are down, Mr B will be around to help pick up the pieces. Because he’s used to me not listening to him and landing in trouble. And after the fifth I-told-you-so, he’ll forget about being angry with me for being an emotional pushover.

Yesterday, Mr D asked me to go away with him for a mini-vacation. I think he needs a break from all the sex he’s been having. Do I want to go? Hell, yeah. Will I actually go? I think I just might.

So yes, I most certainly am self-destructive. But if I wasn’t, I’d hardly be me.