Curator Series #5: (Not a) Superwoman

Behind a Superwoman

A friend asked me this morning, on what was the problem I had with my husband. His intention was to really understand what my issue was and how it got that bad. Please don’t mistake him for the prying neighbourly aunty. He is someone who accepted me for what I am and gave me the benefit of doubt in every situation even though he disagreed with some of my views. He’s been my rock solid support system who accepted my friendship with my flaws.

For someone like him, I was and will always be ready to explain. He knew that I am in a safe place now and can answer questions like these and hence the question. Since he knows most of the inbetween and after story content, I explained him in simple words when an article in my notes popped up with the super woman topic. He is in the middle of the arranged marriage process and wanted to know how he can try to not repeat my mistake. So, this was my answer to him. Earlier this morning when we spoke, I couldn’t put my thoughts together to explain him clearly, but when I came across this article while going through my posts, I thought this would help me to tell my point in a better and easy way.

So, here it is. The story of a superwoman and who’s behind her. Please note that this article is from womens web by Tanvi Sinha.

https://www.womensweb.in/2017/05/behind-every-superwoman-inconsiderate-man/

And this is my conclusion to my rant.

Most men and women around me are that way(Super woman and Bittu Bhaiyya) and that is why many don’t think it is a problem. But to me it is. That is how I was different or in popular terms, the odd or weird one.

It took me a while and many a depressed bouts to realise that being different from others or expecting different things from others isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I still deserve my happiness and that I’m not a bad or terrible person to choose my happiness.

Anyone who’s following might be wondering why I’m writing all these posts now. It’s just me venting out whatever bitterness is left in me and in process paving way to a new life. I’m breathing, getting better and finding myself again. This s an attempt at decluttering my brain and collections as well. Well anyways, my blog has always been about me. I’m a narc that way.

So, here’s my curator series post of the day. Thank you for reading 😊🤗.

Choosing happiness

The sad thing about writing a blog post on the laptop is, I end up going on to the reader and start reading posts. Trust me, that’s sad because, once you start scrolling down the reader, it is a rabbit hole which is never-ending, ever consuming, and most importantly filled with amazingly funny and interesting blog posts. The rants, the stories, the lives, the recipes, the fun, and some pretty serious thoughts, all of those are just wonderful and a little too much to handle on a serious work day. Eventually, I ended up not working at all yesterday. And today when I open my laptop at work again, I see my open tabs filled with interesting posts that are waiting to be read. And I couldn’t resist and dived in.

It was then that I found this post on relationship goals by a very famous blogger. It was about choosing to leave and being happy over staying in the relationship and being unhappy. Well, I couldn’t agree more.

The more I think about my marriage, the more clearer it gets as every day passes. I was terribly unhappy in the marriage. No matter what anybody says, marriage is a compromise that we humans are ready for out of our necessity or want or wish to be with a certain someone. And when I got into a marriage that did not originate from love, I was pretty sure that I may not be the person who can love someone out of the blue and so thought that maybe arranged marriage is the thing for me. I thought if I can respect that someone, and if there is some attraction in between, there can be a relationship and by any remote chance even love can follow. I just shouldn’t have rushed into it and should have taken some time to get to know him and figure out if I can really respect him or not and if I’m attracted to him or not. My other mistake is that I underestimated the power of the human brain. Once I got into the relationship, it is clear that there is no love or attraction. Yet, there is a need to stay in that relationship as it involved many people, two families and their hopes, plans and pressures.

So, in the compromise called marriage, we need to make 10 thousand more compromises every day about things ranging from too little to too big with not just one person but with almost everyone around. I don’t know why compromise is a bad word, but when done with love, while in love and while being loved, nothing ever sounds like a compromise and everything seems to be fair and square. But for someone in my situation, to make all those little or big compromises every day and with a realisation that eventually, I will have to compromise on the dreams and plans that I curated for my life, is just plain heartbreak.

To stay in that marriage means to live a life that is never my wish or dream. Call it my ego or anything else, to live on someone else’s terms made me terribly unhappy. And once the wave of unhappiness hits you, it hits you hard. Throwing you off your feet, into the waves of depression and messing up your brain, body and everything within and around. At one point, the mere thought of a life with him made me miserable.

It is very easy to tell someone in an unhappy marriage to just move on OR to just bear it now and you’ll adjust to it with time OR that all marriages are that way OR to think about your parents OR that the next one might be worse OR that he isn’t abusive OR that it isn’t as bad as I think it is. It is very easy to say such things when you are in a happy place and know nothing of the cyclone of unhappiness raging within this person.

And to choose happiness, this person, has to break hearts, destroy plans and then survive the onslaught of hatred and at the risk of being called cold, cruel and selfish. Well, if it is not my life on the line, maybe, I wouldn’t be so selfish to choose myself over everyone else. Despite all my mistakes, miscalculations, misjudgements, I still have to live with myself. The only way I can do that is to accept my mistakes, accept my shortcomings and still forgive myself so that I can meet the next day in peace. I made a similar choice. I accepted myself for what I am and I choose to move out of that marriage and be happy. I know, I might never find love or might never get married again. I might be alone and might have to face loneliness at one point in time. But I still choose that over being with someone and being unhappy.

Choosing oneself for your own survival is not being selfish. It is called self-preservation. It is the best possible decision that I’ve ever taken and I’m very proud of myself for making such a choice. So, if there is something that I have to tell someone in my place, I would always beg them to choose themselves over anything and everything. No matter how many lives we have, we always remember only one and that one life is this and it is our responsibility to live it to the best of our ability.

Just choose yourself and choose to be happy. Any decision in life should be based on that. And when you do that, you’ll be ready to face any consequences that result from the choices you made.

So, that’s me for today. Have a great life, you people. 🙂

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A mess it is..

2017 is a weird year just like my weird life.

It gave me some of the best moments in my life and some of the worst ones too. While I love to think about the happy memories and cannot wait to relive them again, the sadness intertwined in all those scares me. But if there is one thing this year gave me, that might stay with me for a long time is that it made me fearless and confident about my capabilities. It is not that I am super confident now or anything but it is just that I’m a lot more confident about living my life in a way i want to. I now know that fighting for myself is always worth the pain. I now know that looking after yourself and loving yourself isn’t selfish. It is self preservation and realising ones self-worth.

One good thing came out of 2017. I finally took the first step towards liberation, towards a better me, towards my divorce. In 6 months, I’m going to get one. I don’t plan on living here in India for more than an year. I need to make a plan, act on it and leave this place to live my dreams.

Every year i make new year resolutions. I doubt i don’t even remember half of them by the end of January. They get lost in the rat race called life and I just end up surviving the year with no proud memories. This time it seems as if my new year started off a bit early in terms of resolutions. I already made a resolution the day I signed my divorce papers.

That I would give myself 6 months to figure out what to do with myself and to leave this job that i hate so much on the 30th of June 2018. So, I guess I’m still on that path. I was swamped with dealing with a vengeful soon to be ex and taking care of a sick parent which made me go emotionally and physically derailed. But that doesn’t mean I quit.

The fight is still on and i’m still standing. There is this one thing that I’m going to have to remind myself everyday for these 6 months. That i need to be happy in whatever I do and smile no matter how hard it feels or how lonely it gets or how scary it ends.

So here I am, smiling and still living 🙂

Happy New Year everyone. I wish this new year brings you all hope, love and joy along with the strength to face all the crap this world throws at us. Take Care.

Everything revolves around work – Day 173#

If at all there is one thing that I consistently excelled at since childhood, it is Day Dreaming.

I was always the one who wandered into my own land of dreams every possible minute. My brain, by the basic nature of it, it needs strict deadlines to do things or else any task gets procrastinated and nothing ever gets done.

I’m the master procrastinator. I either need deadlines set by an external medium or either the ones set by myself. I was always an above average student and so my content parents never set any targets for me. And the targets that my teachers set cannot be worked upon as my ego is too big to let some stranger decide my capability. I know, i sound arrogant, rude and naive but i was all of those during my teen years. When I set targets for myself and realised their worth, i always got results. It is only when there is a question about the results and confusion about my target that I procrastinated and day dreamed, which is most of the time.

At work I rarely faced any issue as i take less time to finish things and my pace balanced out the time I wasted. These days I’m wasting a lot more time than usual and working comparitively less which is again making me insecure. Less work always made me insecure. I crave to be overloaded with work so that I know I’m performing. Completing targets at work is such a morale booster which is why I called the other day a good day.

In that sense, i did little or nothing yesterday and it made me feel miserable and i binged on food again. The only good thing that came out of it is i went to bed a little early than usual and woke up early.

Day 173 is a day that involves binge eating, binge watching, no work and a lot of day dreaming. In short, another disaster.

I guess if I’m at work for a minimum of 9 hours everyday, it is going to be the biggest contributor in determining if my day is a success or a disaster. I need to learn to be happy at work and find meaning in my work so that it adds value to my life and eventually leading to my betterment.

But the hows and whys and whatifs are still dancing in my mind. Don’t really know where I’m going with this rant, but yeah, I’m somewhere.🤓👩‍💻😀

The next 180 days # Day 180

These may not seem much but to me completing these everyday tasks have become really difficult.

I have been missing deadlines, postponing meetings and barely surviving at work. It seems as if they are still paying me for the work that I’ve done in the first 7 months of this year. Clearly, i haven’t done much after coming back to India. It feels as guilty as hell.

So, my first step to a better life starts at work. 5 simple targets for today.

1. Eat healthy and home cooked food.

2. Complete the 2 tasks that need to be done today.

3. Plan for the tasks to do tomorrow.

4. Read at least a few pages of any book.

5. Do not watch anything on Tv or Mobile.

I’m just begging myself to do these 5 things and go to bed with a smile.

Tough but i have music to my aid. God, help me get through this day.

I know i will be the most happiest of i complete my work part of the list. Point 2 that is. I know how happy and relieved that would make me. Remembering it and here i am.

Aja aja..Fighting! 🙅👩‍💻💆🙅

6 months

I don’t know, but i feel like I have no reason to live nor to die.

I don’t have the will to live nor the courage to die.

But now, today, i have decided something. I’m giving myself 6 months. On the 31st of June 2018, I’m going to resign from my job. Before that, I want to figure out what to do next.

This next is both career wise and life wise as well. I don’t want to live a meaningless life anymore. I want to make my everyday count. One good deed, one smile and one step forward everyday.

I just want to hang on to that deadline and live everyday giving my best to it.

I want to get better, live better and try to live again.

When i married, or when I tried to end my marriage, or when I tried to hold on to it, I don’t exactly know when, but something died inside me. I don’t know why it feels like I’ve sold my soul and feel like there’s no way going back. That desire to live just died. But somewhere within me, there is still a part of my heart that bleeds for my parents and my sister which isn’t letting me die. And so, for my heart that held on, i want to try living again.

I cannot live like nothing and nobody. I want to die a happy woman. Doesn’t matter when i die, but when my parents pass away, they need to be happy when they think about me. I cannot let them leave this world thinking or worrying about their broken daughter. I need to fix myself. Learn to love myself and do something in life.

And the day I’m proud of myself, i will reveal myself on this blog. That day, i hope to look back at all these days, with a smile and say, it was me and i survived that phase of life where there’s nothing but darkness.

I somehow know that I’m my biggest strength and weakness as well. I’m the one who is holding myself. It is only me who can help me. Unless i start helping myself, no external help is going to work. I need to be brave and face the consequences whatever they are. I need to be my strength and my parent’s as well. I cannot shut myself from the world and hide in the dark forever. I want to live life, facing the good, bad and ugly versions of it with equal grace. I need to stop comparing myself with others and learn to be happy for them and respect myself for my choices.

I want to be a confident, loving and happy human being who loves the world and herself as well.

And everyday, i will remind myself of this resolution of mine until i become one such.

Love, 👩

It feels so heavy

It feels as if I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.

Until a few minutes back it felt all okay.. i was infact so proud of myself that I’m managing everything on my own and maybe one day i will even be able to get out of this misery.

But when I’m done with my first shift and the daily chores and finally got a minute to sit down, it hit me again. The fear, the feeling of the world on my shoulders, the heaviness, the pressure on my nerves, it all hit me again hard. The fact that I’m not going anywhere with this life, the fact that leaving my brain idle for a minute is dangerous to my being, the fact that there is no one in this world that i can turn to for help, the fact that i really am all alone, is all too frightening and painful.

I want to call dad and tell him that i made a mistake choosing this guy and that we are in no way compatible with each other and it is making me miserable enough to feel like dying every minute. But i cannot as he will panic if i say all that. He might even die with the kind of poor health he is in. More than that, he says that i shouldn’t be the one who asks for divorce. He wants me to be politically correct. His words prove me again and again how most men care more about their social status than anything. I just want to know how he would feel if I commit suicide. Will he be happy? Ofcourse not, it would kill him and ruin my family for life. But again, why don’t they understand how tough it is for me to live this lie? Damn, couldn’t these tears be sweet in taste! I must say here, i feel that my dad is more worried about my sister’s future if i end up divorced with an invalid reason. And more than that, he feels that he is a failure for not earning enough to sort our lives despite what we do! He is becoming more and more paranoid everyday with the kind of mental pressure I’m giving them. I wish there’s a magic wand to fix it all.

My Mum seems to be the one who is more sorted here. She is atleast not showing it. Maybe that is more harmful to her health. Damn Cancer, i wish you didn’t enter her life. If not for you, she would be there, standing like a wall, ready to pick the pieces after i break their hearts and wreck their lives with my death.

I want to wake this sleeping husband of mine and tell him that i made a mistake marrying him and that we are not meant for each other and that living this life is making me go crazy, driving me deeper and deeper into depression and that i need his help. That i need him to initiate divorce if he wants out. And if not, then i atleast need him to be responsible and take some load off me and make my life a little easier even if it is just temporary.

God, i wish there is some machine that can convey your mind without having to talk.

One thing that never fails to make me happy…. Music

No matter what my mood is and how my situation is, there is one thing that always make me happy. It makes me stand up and get going. It gives me pleasure no matter what I’m doing. At times, I even feel like no matter how stressful and fearing my work is, with this, i can just conquer it all.

It is Music. Most importantly, Music in my own language. Usually i do not have these feelings of race, caste, creed, region or religion. But when it comes to music, i cannot enjoy music in any other language except Telugu. I do love Hindi songs but it takes some time for the songs to sink in and to be able to enjoy music in English, it requires a lot of effort on my part. I need to see the visual, like it, or read the lyrics, like them, then listen to the song, like the tunes, then compare lyrics to the song, sing along to get familiar with the song and then enjoy. This process takes a lot of time and effort. The same goes with music in any other language, be it Tamil, Malayalam or Korean. They all demand a lot of time and effort for me to be able to enjoy that music.

But with Telugu, it is just different. It flows like natural. Of course it does, it is my Mother Tongue after all. A language I think in. Melody, Fast beat, Lullaby, Musical, the type of the song doesn’t matter as long as the lyrics are meaningful, beautiful and in Telugu. Mostly, I love those songs that remind me of the movie story as they aren’t forcefully added to the movie but flow naturally with the movie’s pace. Such songs remind you of the entire movie making you want to watch it again.

I sometimes wonder if i will ever be able to understand songs or music the way i understand songs in Telugu. No matter how good i am at reading, writing, and speaking Hindi, I will never be able to understand the lyrical nuances like I do in Telugu. I think lyrics and composition are like 2 wheels of a vehicle called song. And when you cannot connect to the depth of the lyrics, there is only so much the score can do. To me, a soulful lyric in Telugu, sung beautifully with decent composition beats any world class composition in any language. This makes me wonder how linguistics actually work. Sure, you can be proficient in a language that isn’t yours. But can you really get to the roots of the language enough to understand and be able to enjoy the lyrics of a song in that language?

I do love the music posts many people do on WordPress. They are like reviews or intros to the songs they like. I should do a movie & music favourites category. Music is such a big part of my life. That too a happy one. I should definitely add it to my happy collection here.

Lazy days

There is this weird happiness in being able to be lazy for the whole day when you are not forced to do one thing!

A Saturday when you had a festival holiday on the Friday and you had nothing to do but to enjoy your weekend, is a wonderful Saturday. Waking up lazily at a time you want after a good night sleep and then lazily making coffee and breakfast which by the way is upma that takes little or no effort.

Here i am, sitting in the balcony with Karan Johar’s Autobiography and my breakfast setup. With my little plants happily growing buds and the day light being messed up with these on and off drizzles with a background score of the Chaviti bhajans from the township prayer area is just a little too perfect set up for a lazy Saturday morning.

By the way, I’m reading Karan Johar’s Autobiography, “An Unsuitable Boy”. I don’t know what the title meant, but I’ve just started reading it and i must say it is good. If you are any bit emotional and any bit Indian, you’ll like it. Though I’ve read only prologue and one chapter, i can say that it is well written and well framed. You can just get the tone of a book from the first few pages itself. And ofcourse, any film makers book is interesting as it tells you things about people who are always in the limelight but have a coat of secrecy over them. I guess it is our curiosity that makes these books and movies interesting.

And in all of this, one cute thing happened which reminded me of my own childhood memories. While I was eating my breakfast and parallely reading, there is this little girl from the opposite apartment who observed me for like 5 to 10 minutes while drinking her milk, I assume. It was cute that sh stood over there observing a woman reading in her balcony. It reminded me of those childhood days of mine when we would come back from school or on a Sunday evening when my Mum would be sitting on her chair somewhere in a quiet corner of the house and reading something or anything. Infact, those quiet reading times were what inspired me to read, to fall in love with these amazing things call books. I have grown up watching people read which tells me that no matter how busy you are, you can always make time for a good book as long as your brain is free to take in. To this day, that love for books, that love for reading never left me. Infact that is the only thing I ever loved unconditionally in this entire world. Even though the time i can spare for reading is very less thesr days, i still cannot stop myself from buying books just for the sake of collecting them for the rainy day. Like today 😎😋. I just wish i made her a little bit curious about what I was doing and she takes up a book just out of curiosity. I only know her from this balcony and have seen her observing me while i was doing my quiet reading here. So, I can just wish.

It is also my dream to start a little library somewhere, possibly in the apartment complex i live to just make reading a little bit easy for people and most importantly kids. But I’m still a little bit selfish about my collection and is not yet ready to part with them and i know that the day i start giving our books i should be ready to loose them as well as not every book that goes out comes back. I know this for a fact after looking at library books being held hostage at our home for months if not years. It is not that my mum is stealing them, but it is just that she doesn’t find time to complete all of them and even if she does, she is just too lazy to return them. She returns them whenever she visits the local library but then gets back with a tonne of books again. I cannot tell you how much fine she has paid until now for those late returns! 😉🤔.

Okay, here we are at the end of my long weekend rant and the vegetable sellers are here on their usual time. We have this Saturday mini market in our Apartment Complex every week which helps me avoid going to the supermarket every now and then. So convenient. This is one of the things I love about living here.

Okay then, off i go to our vegetable market and bye bye.