Life and those not in it

At Jaipur this year I met this girl. It was brief and drunken but she seemed fun. And then she added me on Facebook and we began to chat and it got funner. And so we hung out a bit. Which became a lot. And then I realized that I had met the person missing in my life. Well one of them anyway heh. She's my age, and has my problems. This hit me like a bolt when she began to tell hilarious stories of her misadventures in love and lust, and I listened to her wisecrack about the boys and what they said and what they did and how ridiculous it all was and I could hear and see myself in her. I could hear the hope that cynicism was trying to douse; I could see the despair that strength was trying to banish. And it melted me. And I rejoiced that I would finally have a friend who was:
1. A girl
2. My age
3. Physically present in my life
and most importantly
4. Would always always ALWAYS get where I came from without my having to explain it because she too was single, didn't want to be and came with her baggage of body image and weight.

Here was someone who would instantly understand the history behind a statement, and never ever say to me with the best of intentions and all the love in the world 'I wish I had your life' 'You don't know how painful it is to be married' 'God I miss being single' 'Don't worry you have time' 'You have such a great job' and all the other kind, well-intentioned and infuriating things most of my friends and well-wishers who fit the criteria of 1,2 and 3 usually say to me.

Of course there is a complication, which is largely my own fault but more on that another time. The point here is to articulate what it is I find so immensely frustrating about talking to my peers about my life, and what's not in it.

I started rereading Venetia today, a favourite Heyer of many aficionados I know, but one that has never captured my imagination. But somehow it did this time. So I wrote to my only school friend, with whom I bonded over Heyer after all, and who LOVES this one, to tell her I was reading it and it made me wonder if I'd ever find my Damerel. And she, who has her own host of problems and trouble of course, wrote back to say that Damerels don't exist, and we women are raised to think we need men, but only she's beginning to think we don't need them--they just exist to make us stronger. And for some reason that straw broke the camel's back and I proceeded to rant all over the poor girl.

You see, I was raised to think that I didn't need men at all--only I discovered that I do. And I'm not talking about boinkaboinka. Then I struggled with guilt for years for daring to be so weak and pathetic, before coming to terms with what I wanted, and understanding that everyone wants different things. Sometimes what we want is because of what we've got and haven't got and sometimes we just don't get what we want, and sometimes we get what we want and it's painful and horrible and not nice at all, but there's no way of knowing how it will turn out for anyone. My sister and I often end up unable to say anything to each other because she is immensely frustrated with her career, but she has a house, a husband and an enchanting child I never get to see enough of, and I have a life where I don't have to come home exhausted after a frustrating day at work and deal with tantrums and not have the option of eating Maggi cos I can't be arsed to cook and instead have to think of a healthy nutritious meal that I can put together in the time I have with the ingredients I have.

Maybe if I'd gotten married at 23, or any of my married friends who tell me this had gotten married at 31, we'd all have entirely different perspectives. Maybe we'd be happy if we switched lives, because of the people we are and have become. Maybe our discontents are a result of what we want and don't have making us ignore what we do have, and maybe they are to do with the people we are and what we really want from life. We'll never know. But I do know that the loneliness and emptiness of my life is painful and horrific and often too much to contemplate without losing it. Thinking that I might never have children, that when my parents die all my family will be 15000 miles away, that at the end of the day my bed will always be empty and I, the most physically expressive person I know, will live a life with very superficial physical contact--these things are not about needing men. These are about things that come with the package of relationships. If I could be gay I would try. It's not about a man. And its not about friends because one by one their priorities change--and I can't blame them for it either. How can you make time to just waste with someone when you barely have time to sleep because you're dealing with work, in laws, kids? Just like I can't blame those guys I was ranting about for suddenly not having the time and headspace for me, because they rightly devote them to their new relationships. How can I demand you don't hurt me this way when you are not hurting me; it's happening passively? And how can I wish for you to stay alone like me when I know what comes with it? But how can I not be hurt by it once again not being me and by once again being released into wider community than the close knit circle we were?

It is an innately human impulse to seek companionship, to settle down as it were, and the older I get the harder it is to deal with what feels increasingly like my inability to do so. I don't know where it stems from--me, society, dumb luck--I don't know how I can know; all I know is that it IS and I have to deal with it. And its harder to deal with when I can't be around couples (as has happened to me now) or I can't talk to people about it without having to defend so many things. I end up spending all my time with other single people, who are four years or more younger than I am, and that comes with its own attendant stress.

It's not easy to deal with the things one has to deal with in a relationship. But it's not easy to deal with my life either, unless you genuinely want to be alone. Which I don't. And sometimes it hurts me and frustrates me deeply the way people dismiss this difficulty, when I am well aware of and consciously acknowledge the difficulties in their lives. And it also hurts me how I am so bitter, how I can no longer feel unadulterated joy for the happiness in other people's lives, how pictures of my super juniors' babies on Facebook make me want to smash the screen, when I am truly happy for them.

But mostly it hurts me how I am constantly haunted by my life and those not in it.

EDIT: This song seems to help in a stopgap way =) Ironically OA introduced me to it so it, also, carries mixed feelings. Which makes it very apposite for my life after all...

Weverb12 #23 communicate [LISTEN]

Describe a conversation that you had this year. Why was it memorable?

I'm sure I have had many conversations this year that were interesting, engaging and possibly even life or thought altering. And of course, most of them were with The Bride, as she says here (shameless me plug hee). Some were with Chocolate Boy, who has turned out to have been possibly Big Mistake of 2012, because of sigh him not talking to me anymore for no reason I can fathom. Several were with Amma, some with Scoo, and plenty with a random selection of people across the board. But if i were to look back and think of a conversation that I can point to and say this, yes this very conversation changed my life dramatically, it would have to be the one I had with OW, The Bride and S.

S is a friend from the days at Toilet, except he wasn't really a friend. He worked in the same team as I did, our tiny group of ten, and we had a ton of friends in common. But--he later explained this to me--he doesn't socialize with people in his team, so always remained slightly douchebaggy and distant. I ignored him. Then one day in 2010, I ran into him in a bar in CP completely unexpectedly and we made polite conversation. He disappeared again. Then, one day in July I saw something on his Facebook about living in Delhi and asked if he was here. Very enthuly he replied and said let's get a drink, which we did, since 1. I can't say no, 2. I was DESPERATE for friends and 3. Any excuse to drink.

Our hour-long quick drink became three hours and five drinks and so began a lovely friendship involving alcohol and hilarity. The thing I liked most about S was that fact that he had that trait I call Hyderabadi, where anything goes. You want to hang out and I'm having dinner with a friend? Come! That super openminded welcoming attitude doesn't exist in Delhi, and I really appreciated having the security of convivial company when I needed it. He was relaxed and tolerant, and would happily talk about anything, and felt no need to talk exclusively about what interested him, which again is super rare.

Then The Bride came to visit and I drummed up drinking company--after all the girl hadn't had a nice desi out drinking with friends in dive bar scene for so long hee. OW and S both came, and OW displayed some startlingly adolescent behaviour--which should have warned me, but sigh I must always believe the best of people. And we ended up, OW, The Bride, S and I, in my house till 3am, having a long ideological discussion on gender and and identity politics. And throughout that conversation I would find myself opening my mouth to say something, only S would say it instead. Or I would say something and he'd nod frantically and say 'EXACTLY!' And I discovered over the course of that conversation that this man (yes, man, not boy) is a revelation. He is actually everything I would want in a partner--not because we agree, but because we seem to approach things the same way, with the same mindset and attitude; because we both believe in live and let live, and persuasion, not yelling. I cringe as I say this, but he was kinda like the male version of The Bride.

Starting that conversation, I began to see all these sides to him I never knew existed and (you know where this is going...) today he is a very dear friend, and of course the object of my affections. And well, the object of HIS affections is his girlfriend of ten years. Yay MinCat, I sure know how to pick em. Though I should be glad this one is wrong only because of said girlfriend--nothing to do with who he is, which is usually the problem!

Weverb12 #20 reminisce [GROW]

What distant memory/time did you find yourself longing for in 2012?

Well, I don't even know where to start! I've always had a problem of living somewhere or somewhen else, but it's something I brought under control by 2010. But, after 2011, I found myself often longing to be somewhen else--specifically, July 2007 when I was so filled with hope and joy and surety about the future, or April 2010, when I was so sure of my place in the world, and was prepared to take on anything the universe threw at me (hah, be careful what you wish for...).

I have also long believed that, whatever has happened to me, I refuse to regret it, and I will never want to go back and redo it, because everything that I have done and said and has happened to me is what makes me who I am, and I LIKE who I am. But this year, for the first time, I have often wished for do-overs, whether BBot, or weight, or not moving to Delhi in 2005--and this is the scariest thing that has happened to me all year.



#19 was: exercise [LIVE]: How did you live actively in 2012? What will you change in 2013?
Least said, soonest mended.

2012

I've been rather good about my New Year posts, but somehow, this year, I can't bring myself to even look at the year that's past, because I am nowhere near ready to deal with it. Nothing especially horrible happened, in fact I acquired Career and now even friends, but that whole raw, bloody mess of..of...mess--I can't deal with it. I have spent most of my energy this year holding it together, and while the past two months have helped my composure enormously, I don't think I have enough to do a year in review. I don't have the hope to do resolutions either, so I'll just leave you all with good wishes for 2013, and my personal hope that it not be worse than 2012--I'll take as bad as, but I don't think I can deal with worse.

Weverb12 #17 thank [HOPE]

Write that thank you note that you've been meaning to send this year… or would like to send next year…

The reason I've gotten stuck with these is partly because of the visitors I've had, partly because I've been feeling fragile and really haven't wanted to reflect/probe, but mostly because I just don't know what to say here. I think that I would not have survived 2012 without four people. Not that I'd have killed myself or anything, but I probably would have run home to hide under my bed. And by home I meant Hyderabad.

 The first two on this list are, without doubt, my parents. I cannot begin to articulate how amazing they are. Yes, they have fucked up often, especially in the past. We have had our disagreements, and how! But at the end of the day, they have always stood firm by me. Poog has taken issue with some things they have done and said, but my point to her has always been that they are human, they are doing what they think is best for me, because they love me, not because they are worried that society will shame them, or because it's how things have always been done. If they say to me, babe losing weight will help you get a guy, it's not because they think I'm not good enough how I m, but because they know that I want to get married, they know that guys and society want women a certain way and thus, the easiest way to make my life easier is to just lose weight. I know this too, but I reject it. And they accept that as well. Mostly, this year I have seen them take giant steps to change and adapt to me, to what I want; they have consciously accepted that I am an adult and might do things differently from them, and have supported me unconditionally regardless. They no longer tell me what they think, they ask me what I want and how they can help me get it. I can't think of people my age who are capable of doing something like this--just accepting someone you love and their life, their choices and what they need--so I am amazed that they have managed it. So thank you Amma and Appa.

The third person on the list, again, is no surprise--The Bride. My lodestone, my yardstick, my voice of reason, she is someone I can literally say anything to, without fear of judgement. She is someone who I can trust from the bottom of my heart will always tell me straight what she thinks, and when I'm being an idiot, with no agenda. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a friend like her in their lives. Thank you for all the hours of shrinking and silliness, handholding and advice, faffing and love. I'll never ever regret the Pisspot =)

The last person on this list is new to my life, and has become, over the past eight months, practically indispensable. I have written posts to him before, but I need to say this once more, loud and clear if only to remind myself, when I'm cranky, of the truth to his presence in my life. The help and support I've had from Amma, Appa and the Bride have been invaluable and vital, but on a day to day basis, there are days I would not have made it out of bed if it hadn't been for Lithium. And it's the blog that got me to meet him, so yay blog =) Midnight meltdowns, driving all the way to see me because I was sad and needed cuddling, always answering the phone, random movies and days spent in silliness, vast amounts of alcohol--you have been the rock I have clung to this horrible horrible year, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Yeh Sheher Meri Jaan

I was in college when the Euphoria sensation hit. I had moved to Delhi for the first time, and I was in love. It had more to do with college than anything else, because Delhi was horrible to women back then (believe me worse than it is now). They had this one song on the album Dhoom, that later was co-opted into the Commonwealth Games I think, and it went like this:

Yeh sheher meri jaan
Iska naam hai meri peehechaan
Dilli hai meri jaan

(this city is my life, it's name is my identity, delhi is my life)

I loved that song, not just because it was nice, but because I FELT IT. Never in my life had I felt like I fitted with people my age who weren't related to me. Never had I felt like I belonged, like I was happy.(The next time I was to feel like that was with New York, and then again, in 2009, with Hyderabad.) So the song became like an anthem for me.This is largely why, when I decided it was time to move, that I decided on Delhi.

Lots of shit went down in the three years I was in college, with the worst of it hitting bang in the middle of my final exams for the second year. One of my most vivid memories of third year, when I was living in a different place is of going back home for our housewarming in August, about a month after college started that year. I had landed back in Delhi the previous night; my uncle had had me picked up and I'd spent the night in their house. I was going to leave for college in the morning, and my parents called. And I stood in the pantry, on the phone, sobbing my heart out, because there was at that point nothing I wanted to do less than be back in Delhi.

This weekend I went home after eight months. I hadn't realized how long it had been until I thought about it, and it struck me. And I was deliriously happy to be home, to see my bewdas. I went on my first ever road trip, and had a truckload of fun. I lounged about in my ebony recliner in the verandah and read manuscripts. I demanded various foods for various meals and feasted on them. I could have burst with well-being, and I was so ready to come back and tackle all the shit that I have to tackle in Delhi.

I was worried how I'd deal with leaving, but then I ran into a dear friend at the airport and we flew together, which was lovely. I cried a bit when we took off, because on some visceral level I felt like I was leaving safety behind (yes, I have realized I don't feel safe in Delhi, I don't feel like anyone would notice much or care unless something dramatic happened to me, that there's no one to take the wheel once in a while and steer this exceedingly convoluted course*). But I was expecting this and it passed and I proceeded to yak and giggle and generally have a good flight. But then, once the pilot announced we were beginning our descent, this WEIGHT began to descend. I swear to God, I have been breaking out in hives. And I found myself nearly gibbering with the need to TURN THE PLANE AROUND AND GO BACK HOME.

And then I got home to find more shit to deal with and I wanted nothing more than to just curl up in bed and cry for my mommy, an impulse I admirably resisted. But it made me flash back to nearly exactly ten years ago. And it made me think about how, perhaps, the way there is just this constant insidious resistance to my settling down in Delhi, maybe it means I should just leave. Maybe it means that in a year I should talk to my boss and ask if I can be moved back to south India somewhere, where I can run home on weekends and find the strength to hold myself together.


*This is not true of course, I do have friends here, Glare and Lithium, and they do most certainly care, and would most certainly help me with the little things if I asked for it. But is it justified to make someone disrupt their life and commute large distances just because you're sick of trying to get your gas and stove up and running, and every morning you find one more small yet vital thing that needs to be fixed or dealt with, and you're totally capable of dealing with it, but you're just so fucking tired and it's been like this for three months?

Peripheries

I think one of the causes for my recent misery is that I feel rootless. I had serial epiphanies at the end of trip, and once I returned, which made me realize the following: What I really miss is family. This is why the despair when I think of the niece, or the need to call the parents twice a day. But family doesn’t mean necessarily blood ties—I had a family in Hyd too, which is why I miss it so much.

I do not have any sense of belonging here, even though I have many friends. I don’t see them often enough, and the ones I do see often already have their spaces of belonging and I am afraid to impose. In Delhi, I have about five good friends I see on a regular basis. They are all guys (some things never change), which makes me the ultimate bro of course (more on THAT some other time), and they are all people I have met after I moved here—most of them I’ve known since December/January. Just to recap, they are, in the order in which I met them, Favourite Colleague, Chocolate Boy, Most Bengali Guy, Mad Writer and Organized writer. FC and MBG are the fags to my hag, and they, along with CB, work with me, so I see those three about four to five days a week. MW used to be online all day and talking to me most of it, making him practically a constant, but those days are gone. OW and I have brief, erratic and very intense interactions. 

But all these friends are also well set in their own circles, which makes me often feel that I skulk on the peripheries of their lives--oo MinCat's great fun if she's here, but I wouldn't really notice if she weren't.

The problem is that CB and MW, with whom I tend to interact the most, are, unfortunately for me, the sort of thoughtless guys I like I call boys. The kind of people who, while this does not make them bad people, will remember me when they need something, not really feel that they need to express appreciation/affection in any way because I don’t demand it and because it’s not their way. The problem with this is that, while I understand some people are just like that, I need someone in my life to not be like that, and be like me, because I DO feel hurt and rejected, despite the rational understanding of the situation (more on THAT later too). And I need someone to be physically there. Which brings me back to—I feel rootless. 

One thing that did occur to me is that, just as one doesn’t have to wear high heels to be pretty; does one need a husband to find roots? Why can I not be happy with just friends etc. Well I think that’s been explained heh. I think it would help dramatically if I had an old friend I could rely on to some extent move here. But then again I am reminded of Dragon. So maybe just my parents then. Or I move back to Hyderabad. But then I do so love my job. I could try and move to the bay area…but there’s that damn job again.

Catch-22. 

Well, at least I know.

evoL, yarP, taE*

So I got back from that dream trip last night.
That's right folks, your very own MinCat finally, FINALLY went to Colombia!
For two weeks, which felt like a lot until I got there and met all the backpackers doing six month trips. But still. I went to Colombia.
COLOMBIA!
Land of aguardiente, salsa and hot men who think I'm hot!
Two weeks of city hopping, staying up till four, consuming ridiculous amounts of booze, flirting, dancing--in a nutshell, fun!

No, not really.

It hit me when I was sitting in a hostel in Cartagena (Cartagena!! historic architecture! LOTS of HOT caribbean men who love culos caribeños!), the night before my birthday, choking and fighting back tears as I talked to OW while waiting for the nice Argentine couple to come have a drink with me.

It was like that everywhere. In Bogota, as I packed to leave for Manizales. In Manizales, as I sat in the bus station waiting for the bus to Medellin. In Medellin, as I stood in a bar, all dressed up, against the wall watching as everyone talked to one another and no one talked to me. In Tayrona, as I hiked up the mountain, through the gorgeous rainforest, and saw animals right out of Gerald Durrell. In Tayrona, as I sat on the second most beautiful beach I've ever seen, with the sun setting, the stars rising and a hammock awaiting me atop the cliff. In Bogota as I made a really bad but much appreciated Indian dinner for my friends, so I could turn thirty not completely alone. In Bogota, as I finally got drunk and danced at my friend's birthday party.

I went to my phone, as a live vallenato trio performed in the next room, and every single person there was drunk and dancing, and I wrote (yet another) self-indulgent email to The Bride (god bless her patience), about how I must be boy repellent, and it was quite amazing.

The next morning, I woke up and reread the email. It made me cringe. What had happened to me? Here I was, thirty, a good six months past the biggest slump I've had. Six months ago, I wouldn't have cared if a boy looked at me or not; I'd have been out there in the middle of the floor, dancing with someone. I would have asked people to dance. I would have been smashed out of my head in Medellin, partying with the lovely people I met. I would have been dancing with joy at being on that beach in Tayrona, ecstatic at having seen a peccary and a yellow-fronted amazon parrot. I would have found the couchsurfer in Cartagena and been dancing to bring in my birthday.

What has happened to me (again)?

I thought that all the fears that plague me, all the things I think can't happen or won't happen, were a direct result of where I was. I thought I was alone, and no one asked me to dance because they were stupid desi boys. I thought I always end up in the friend zone, or against the wall because no one here understands or appreciates me.

But it turns out that all this was inside my own head, and of course I took it with me. To Colombia, to New York, to Spain--it didn't matter where I went, I've dragged this chip around with me, nurturing and caressing it, holding it close and taking it to bed with me. And the only time I've ever taken my own advice, that I plentifully give out to other people, I WAS happy, I WAS in a magical place where these things disappeared into insignificance. All I have to do is really just let the goddamn chip go, look for the good things in my life (of which there are PLENTY), and live my life, as much as I can as much as I want, and not make myself feel like it is incomplete or I am waiting for anything to happen or anyone to come along.

And yeah, I had to leave India, land of epiphanies and great life-altering realizations, to figure it out.

*Do ya get it? huh huh huh?

The New Year Post

Let's sum up 2011, shall we?

POO.

Yup, I think that covers it.

What? You want details?

Well, I broke up with BBot. The Dragon dumped me. I found the perfect job. I cried myself to sleep for a few months. My parents were a rock. I was desperately lonely. I dated a LOT. I dated a psycho. I learnt a LOT about myself. I hid from the blog for a while, but I made it back.

And now I have friends in Delhi, who call me drunkenly on at 2am New Year's Day to yell WE MISS YOU GET ON A PLANE NOW. And I miss them too, after ten days in Hyderabad (though the two days in Chennai probably helped a LOT).

I think I finally know what I want to do with my life; I have finally made some peace with wanting to have kids; I am surer than I have ever been about the kind of person I want to be with, whether I'm willing to settle, and, most importantly, that I am just fine on my own. I even managed to hang out with BBot twice on this trip.

Gotta say 2011, you ended okay. But fuck you were SUCH a boy. *shudder*

Be nice to me 2012, I kinda need it.

Despair

When I was very young, more than ten years ago, I wrote a poem that a friend and his rock band later turned into one of those opeth-type depressed metal songs. It's running around in my head today. It was called Futility, and it still makes me cringe. But it's speaking to me today. At least part of it.

I cannot speak
Trapped in a bubble
Tears sting my eyes
I cannot fight
I can see it all
The ground rushing up to meet me
Nothing can break this crashing fall
But it never ends
Deeper into the pit
Bottomless black pit
Screaming in terror
Soundless screams
Beating the walls of my mind
Trying to break free

I don't know why the abyss is always so close these days, or why I keep coming back here to talk about it. I don't want to--I'd like to write about real things, not my own perceived and fairly unwarranted angst and despair. But I can't.

Maybe I'm here because the blog-space is the first space I ever felt free to be me in. Maybe because of the unconditional support I have had from all these strangers who know me so intimately, people I have never met who still reach out and send me virtual hugs. Maybe because when I'm typing here, my voice cannot break, and no one will hear my sobs or see my tears. Maybe because I can let myself be self-indulgent, because in the real world I have no reason for such sorrow.

It makes me feel better to think that someone, one person, will hear me. Maybe if one person could hear me say these words of fear and despair, words I cannot physically say, it will ease the weight they put upon me.

What happened to me today?
My niece is talking up a storm. She says words in Spanish, that she learns in daycare. I haven't heard her ay one word. I haven't seen her, even on skype, in a month. That little warm squirming squealing creature does not know me, and some days she is the only thing that makes me smile.
The Dragon has decided to take sides after all--or at least she's ignoring that only thing I asked her to do: not share the "BEAR" love on facebook. She has also not called me or reached out to me in any way. Part of me wants to make her admit it, make her see what she has done. But part of me knows that she never will admit she has done anything wrong. And a third part of me knows that I might not be able to deal with it when it is confirmed that yes, she would rather have him in her life than me.
My boss is being a bit annoying--which every boss is entitled to be, and nothing near the scale of annoying bosses can be. But I care so very much. Because this job, that pays me a pittance, this job is supposed to be what I get from my life and my choices. This job is supposed to make up for not having enough money to think of saving, for not being solvent enough to contemplating adopting kids this year, next year, or even the year after.

If you make all the unusual choices, if you take the road not taken, isn't the point that you will be happy because you're not stuck in the same rut as everyone? Is my road not taken still too taken? Is this really as good as it gets?

Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasing pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere,
Or would it be a waste?
Even If I knew my place should I leave it there?
Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasing pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere

All the things they tell you about what you can be and where you can go--it's bullshit. Sometimes, you end up twenty-nine, lost and alone. And you know what, that's as good as it gets.

Maya Angelou

Says it so much better than I can.

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

It's getting quite cosy in here

At the bottom of my hole.

I realise that I have spent most of the last year in it, whichis possibly why it's all warm and familiarly bleak and desolate.

I’ve always been a kind of put yourself out there person—holdingback is something I’ve tried and failed at on several occasions. The mostmemorable was one that ended in such depression that I scared the watchman bycrying all night and he called my mum, who came home early from a trip. Therapyand changes to my life later, I realised that there was no point fighting who Iam: an open-hearted person who can’t really say no and can’t demand certainbehaviour from people. No, I’m not a little martyr, but frankly, if you have toask a friend to respect your feelings, then they’re not really much of a friendto you after all.

I try to see the other person’s point of view; I try toaccept their choices and let them choose how they will be with me, and I hopeearnestly that they will do right by me. A sort of do-as-you-would-be-done-byphilosophy. I wonder if there’s any point to it sometimes, but I know I can’t adoptdo-as-you-were-done-by strand of thought. I guess, for me, the lodestone isthis: when I look back at how I behaved in ten years’ time, will I be ashamed ofwhat I did and/or said? I’m not saying I always succeed, but I like to thinkthat I have always done right by the people I care about. I don’t always agreewith them, but I support them and I play by the rules of our friendship.

Sometimes, people screw up. When I care about them, I can’thelp but give them second chances, third chances, forty-fourth chances. Like I didwith BBot. Like I did with OOF. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the wrong way tobe. Should I simply stand firm on the one strike and you’re out principle? Willit save me from hurt and anger and loneliness? But then, if everyone is out onone strike, won’t I be lonely anyway? So where to draw the line? I have neverknown where to draw the line.

Maybe I embrace people too easily. As the Glare puts it, Igotta hike up my standards! Even Appa agrees, as he told me when I was sobbing onthe phone with them last night. You’re a warm and welcoming person, he said.But sometimes maybe you’re too welcoming. Sometimes you should hold back.

Ah if I had a dollar for every time someone’s said that tome. I might be able to adopt kids tomorrow.

But it’s not who I am, I insist. I am a loving person;I can’t hold back. It’s worth it for all the wonderful people I have in mylife. I might have a bad score for percentage of bad boyfriends, but it’s adecent score on the relative scale of horrible boyfriends. And I might have hadfriends desert me several times in my life, but it’s a decent score when youlook at the percentage of people I have in my life.

And yet, I am alone, and my ex-boyfriend is more important to my belovedfriend of eight years than I am.

I must be doing something wrong, no?

No, says Appa. You are doing nothing wrong. There is nothingwrong with you. You are smart and strong, and you will find your way.

What would I do without my parents?

And then he made me laugh, because he said this when we weretalking about my inability to find love. “Sometimes it’s difficult in your lifebecause you can’t find enough people of the opposite sex, or, as the case maybe, the same sex. But it will come to you in time.”

Yes, my crusty father, with his bizarre flashes of extreme authoritarianconservatism, told me he’ll support me if I’m gay.

A sigh is just a sigh

The strangely un-sad yet painfully wistful realization of today.

Sometimes you want to come home to someone.
Sometimes you want to bury your face in a neck and breathe deeply.

Sometimes you want to hear 'Gnight baby, I love you' as you fall asleep.

And if you've never been in a relationship, you don't know how much you can miss it.

Unsolicited Advice

Expanding on the life lessons from before, here's a pithy phrase to keep in mind when you're breaking up with someone.

If it doesn't make you feel better, don't do it.
Regardless of how much better it makes them feel.
Seriously.

You're both going to be bad guys, so don't lie down and be a doormat. Give yourself sympathy. Breakups ARE shitty.  That's kind of the unavoidable innate nature of them, and you can't make it happy and sweet and kind. Don't try.

Circumstantial Infertility

I was at a dinner party at a friend's on Saturday, where someone brought their insanely adorable 18-month-old daughter. Half French and half Mizo, that girl was too much. She was cranky as hell, because it was past her bedtime, but I managed to coax her out of it, and we had so much fun. My friend, the host, who loves kids too, was very miffed that she took to me, because she doesn't like him much. Cheap thrills. He asked me how I was so good with kids? And I said, I dunno, maybe I was born to be a mother?

At this moment, two of my closest friends have kids, Scoo has a kid (aka the Centre of my Universe, or Her Ladyship), and six people I know are going to have em in the next six months.

It's a very strange time for me. I love all these women (well the ones I know well at any rate), and I'm so happy for them. But it also really hurts every so often, because all I have EVER wanted was to have kids, and I haven't the faintest prospect at the moment. I even think that one of the reasons I have don't have a Career is because I don't care enough about anything more than I do about raising a family. Perhaps the cooking ties into this too, and perhaps that's why cooking is something that does inspire me.

Don't get me wrong, I have no illusions about how exhausting and difficult it is or about how much it can swallow you up, emotionally, physically and mentally. I know it's not roses and kittens. But there's something about kids. They love me; I love them. Maybe because I am not at all self-conscious about 'behaving like a child.' When I'm around a kid I have a legit excuse!

Anyway, the Bride pointed me to this lovely piece, where I got the title of this post from. I wish more people would write things like this, so people have to think about what happens between the cracks. And so they stop saying 'Oh you've got tons of time!' There's only as much time as you want there to be before you start feeling it's too late. If feminism is about choice, then what happens to those who choose they want children? All the freedom means someone like me--who might have had an arranged marriage and kids by now in a different time, and been perfectly happy--is wandering around in circles and questioning her sense of self and belonging.

Of course, you could say that I am not circumstantially infertile because I do want to adopt after all. Still, it's not a financially viable option.

I am terrified though, that I'll be her in the end. Maybe I should be a Montessori school teacher, or run a daycare!