Pushing too hard

Disarm yourself.

Heard this song that a friend shared with me this morning. It felt the best just listening to it on a loop. Its odd how a trance song that says the same thing to you repetitively can feel so good. But he sure did make my Monday so much better. Thank you Ab. 

Don’t you miss yourself?

The song asked me. And that is all I have been saying since the past few months. I don’t know how and when the change happened; I didn’t realize how it was affecting my life and the ones around me. But I’m here now and I want “me” back. I used to be so much fun, I enjoyed my own company. I was reminded of a very close friend in college, who once wrote me a long letter on my birthday and put it in a huge birthday card. This is what I remember of it clearly (and what a way with words he had, especially beautiful because we took the French class together and he wrote it to me in french)

“Vous etes la fille la plus spirituellement magnifique que j'aie jamais rencontres. Vous ne laissez jamais le monde vous rendre triste. Et quand tu es triste dans ton coeur, personne ne peut savoir en raison de votre sourire eclatant qui ne s'effacent jamais. Apres quelques annees, lorsque nous nous reunirons, nous serons heureux et nous allons embrasser. Je sais que je vais voir le meme sourire. Vous ne devez pas perdre vous.”

My French wasn’t as good at that time (I actually pretended it wasn’t as I knew it would sound soo much more awesome when he read it out) so I asked him to translate it for me. And it reads…

You’re the most spiritually gorgeous girl I have ever met. You don’t let the world get you down. And when you are falling apart inside, no one would know because of the beautiful smile that never fades. Years later when we meet out of the blue and you run up to me and hug me with excitement, I know I will see the same smile. Don’t lose yourself.

But I think I did.

Word Vomit

I think I have lost my filter.

That is truly the first line that popped into my head after I had spoken my first sentence this morning. Lately, I don’t stop myself before blurting out the thoughts in my head. It’s only the most extreme situations when my brain says, “You’re screwed if you say another word”.

This realization also comes out of the fact that the past month I have been doling loads of mad advice to a friend about her relationship. Now through it all, I keep hearing her say time and again how he won’t let her do anything she wants to do. Like for instance, she’d want to go out dancing with her friends and all he would say is, “I don’t think that is a good idea”. Never does it occur to her that she could just say, “Well I think it’s a great idea, I’ll see you when I’m back!” Post him saying this, she would just get upset, hang up and cry. Then later give him grief about how he won’t ever let her live her life, how he is crushing her freedom, after which she would call me up and relate the whole thing. While she talks, in the back of my head I'm thinking 'if someone pushes you around in a relationship, you are the one who tolerated it more than once, didn't put your foot down and stop it then - it is all your fault.'  But I am the queen of words when it comes to advice and the pauper when I have to use it for myself, so I stopped myself from saying that to her. But her situation changes everyday, yet the end is the same every time. So, one day I can’t take it any more and I just blurt out “it’s entirely your fault that this relationship is getting screwed. It’s not gonna work out and I think he should just leave you”. And my head echoed softly ‘oops, word vomit’.

Now there are two reasons why this sentence sounded wrong to both of us at first. One, I am those feminist types who believe that it is unfair for a guy to stop a woman from doing what she desires. Two, being her friend I am supposed to be supportive of her. So now I sit there with my hands cupping my mouth – for fear of some more trouble coming out of it, thinking fast about my words, searching for a way to explain myself. I do manage to gather my thoughts right and explain it to her. I didn’t apologize for what I said; I merely explained my theory further.

I will tell you why I do think it’s her fault.

In relationships, the truth is that your first quarter is what sets the bar. If you start allowing your partner to believe that his/her words are carved in stone, there is nothing stopping him/her from doing that to you all your life with him. If you allow your belle to call you while you are with your boys, there's no way you can stop him/her seven months down the line saying “You can’t do it”, cos it’s too late by then. Then the most cliché line in the history of relationships comes up, “You don’t love me like you used to. You have changed!” Irony is that I learnt this from the man I am currently seeing. But I’ll give you this, it’s so true and if you go by it, there is no way you can ever complain unless you really have changed.

Now this won’t apply to you folks who have been with you sweetheart since you could say “mama”. You two have to adapt to change cos you are growing up together. But if you are 20+, seeing someone new, all you need to do is be honest with the person you are seeing. If you are going to argue about the fact that too much information is never good, well then genius, I don’t ever remember saying that you need to sit the person down and freak them out with news about how you once had UT infection. Just take it slow and be yourself. Don’t be the person you think they want you to be. Don’t bloody preempt what they are feeling cos you’re getting way ahead of yourself then. If they liked you in the first place, its cos of the things you are. If you don’t like football, don’t pretend you do cos he loves it. Say you will join him for the game cos you want to see his joy when the team scores. When she asks you to eat pasta and you just can’t stand the sight of it, tell her you would have a pizza instead and allow her to order her pasta. The day you find yourself going too many extra miles because of the butterflies in your tummy, stop and think about what you may be doing. Butterflies get tired of fluttering sometimes you know, and the day they are resting could very well be the day you wake up to reality and practicality. I think it’s totally unfair to give someone something that you know you can’t keep giving forever. Especially if that something is the new self you changed into just to make them happy. 

Expectation is the mother of all miseries. Don’t let someone you love feel it unless you are sure you can live up to it.

Fattyness

What happens when a trigger happy person like me just hates taking pictures with her own face in it?

I never fully understood what it felt like when chubby women said to me "I hate my own pictures". Now I can fully gauge what it feels like to dislike ur own reflection. I can't stand to see my once so flat tummy stick out like santa's happy belly. My face now has a double chin! My arms are as large as my thighs used to be...

I've always loved food. Cheesecake, pasta, pani puri, chicken lollipops... Everything! Now I'm scared that the thought of it might just make me fatter! I don't understand... Even before.. I used to eat just this much. I never gained this way.. Now I bloat with just day of outside food.

I want to be slim and pretty again. I want to lie flat on my back and look down to see my toes without having to look over the mound of fat! I want to turn heads. I want to be able to wear tube tops without having to be bothered by my chubby arms and large shoulders.

Somehow I want my boyfriend to fall in love with me again.

Senses

I stand before this world broken and unable to renew

I stand before my judges who will placate all my moves

I stand before this world that wants to take me apart

It will not replace what it has stolen

My body is battered and my eyes are swollen

My face is streaked with remnants of tears

All I am asking for is your love and the rest of all my years

The world absorb every bit of me until there is no more

It will peel back my essence and pacify my soul

It  will rip apart my seems until it can take control

Look at me as I stand before you damaged from his place

Is this what you were looking for when you looked at my face?

My heart no longer beats it's true, my body grows now cold

I am searching for so much more but I can't catch hold

My bones a brittle and riddled with breaks

I don't know where you have gone; I will fight for you no matter the stakes

Dollies

When mom told me she was going to have a baby, it phased me how a human being could fit into another! And how would it come out? But when she said two months later that there are two inside there… I thought to myself that my mom was just bullshitting me. At nine, I may not have been the strongest believer nor did I have a very active imagination. But she grew and she was cranky like a child most of the times. Everyone took more care of her than they usually would. I knew then that she was telling the truth. Dad wanted me to understand better and thought it was best to get me a CD that explained it all. It was a little kiddish but I got the basic point of how it happens and that it’s a normal thing.

As a kid I was really inquisitive, and that wasn’t a good thing for the nurses at the hospital that night cos I kept whining and trying to get into the operation theatre to see how the hell they were going to remove TWO kids out of mom! But finally I gave up and paced outside the OT like an impatient dad. The nurse came running out 20 minutes later and said that the first one was a girl. Disappointing. That was what I thought. I was already building defensive arguments against sharing my clothes, shoes and dolls. The stupid nurse came out again and in a very excited note said it was ANOTHER girl! I looked at my gran and ran up to her and started crying. It was so unfair that I would have to share the attention with two girls! What if they turned out to be prettier than me?

And I was right.

I had fallen asleep crying and was lying on the extra bed in mom’s room when I woke up. Looked to my side and there was a cradle rocking to and fro. I sat up and looked in. One extremely red faced baby was lying beside a really fair one. Gorgeous little baby girls who I knew I could only love unconditionally. At least until they started talking. Both looked so peaceful and they were tightly wrapped. In my head, I wondered how far they could get if their hands and feet were left open! I sat and stared for a very long time, marveling at the beauty of life in its purest form.

I named them Snow white and Rose red, cos I clearly couldn’t call them Silvester 1 and Silvester 2 till we named them! We took them home and life changed forever.

I want to write so much more about how I learnt to feed them, dress them, bathe them, yell at them… but I’ll do it justice and take it one stage at a time. I guess this post was long pending and is still incomplete in so many ways.

If only my words could capture the million emotions that flowed through me that June 5th in 1997.