I'm

....getting in my own way. 

get out nat.                          and make way for life.

Get out.

OUT. 

****************************************************************************

I'm going for a massage tommorrow. I havent been to a professional one in a  while. Actually never. I'm looking forward to it. In a quiet way.

I feel like a student with a jhola and glasses kind of feeling in my head bcos I want to see what this is all about for me now. I've lost touch with my physically - how should I put it? - that sense of relaxing in the physical. I dont know if I'm making sense. It used to be, when I got a massage or even a haircut, the sensation of someone being kind to my body put this hum through me and relaxed me. That stopped happening a while ago. Years ago. Try as I might I didnt have the patience to sit through a haircut or a massage with giving in. I just wanted it to be over with, run. A facial used to awaken me in some ways. Clean, felt present in the moment, then it became just a yearly necessity before a party or so. And even then it didnt quite feel the same.

A week before leaving for the wedding in India, I went to have my nails done for the first time. I dont know why, just to look more groomed than having mommy-nails cut to the quick I guess. Also to add to the one nice part about me that hadnt fluffed up like the rest of me has over the years. My hands. 

So during that nail session, the beautician (what do u call a nail dresser anyway? nail aesthetician?) gave a quick 10 second massage of my hands, she was this petite, svelte Far Eastern woman, the strength in her hands shocked me. And brought tears to my eyes because I instantly felt the 'taken care of' feeling. Someone was giving me their best. To make me feel good. I think. It was that and many other sensations but I literally felt a crackwhip of feeling generate in some neuron in my brain that was lying dormant for aeons. I was happy to meet that part of me again and know it was alive and what it did for my stress levels lasted days. just the ten seconds. So I've been mulling over it for a while and have decided to take the head and neck massage as a way of getting in touch with my physical self.

I thought about it and wondered - we do things for our spirit, soul, finance etc, whether its religion or spirituality or saving or spending, we do things for most other parts of our personal lives to keep them alive and contributing to our well-being so why was there so less for the physical part? I know I exercise, I might eat right but there was this essential element I think that might just tilt the balance in favour of many other areas - the tactile element. 

Im going to try it out tommorrow. Hopefully it will put me back in touch with myself like I said, hopefully it'll ring a bell in my baby memory slot somewhere where being massaged, held, cuddled and just touched meant happiness. 

Wellness. I'm craving wellness. 

Maybe that feeling of wellness will mean less emotional eating, less distraction from my real purposes of living, more kindness, more settled'ness, settled in my head, in my solar plexus, less scatterbrainedness, more energy, more smiles.

One more piece that fit the puzzle

I read this article in the July Issue of Real Simple magazine. (that's another weird thing about me - I love reading old issues more than the current ones). It fixed some old hurt, filled some void, brought me back on track from some detour I had taken sometime while growing up.
I wish I could just add it as a link but cant because I cant locate it anywhere on the online version of the magazine. I loved it so much though that I'm going to type it all out here. Maybe you guys might like it too. Lemme know if you do. And then next hopefully the library will have her books...

It's called 'unforgettable, that's what you are' and its by Erica Wagner.
Here goes:


THE SUMMER I WAS SEVEN, my parents and I drove from our New York City home to the small town of Quechee, Vermont, to visit friends. Mush of that trip has left me with indelible memories. I remember the sticky red vinyl seats in my Dad's Volkswagen Beetle; the cool, green swimming pond in our friends backyard; and their milk-shake machine - a real one, a Hamilton Beach. It was idyllic, that house and the land and the ancient trees. What I remember most, however? One particular tuna-fish sandwich, which evolved in my memory into an icon and embodiment of childhood bliss.

I encountered the world's best tuna-fish sandwich by accident. My parents had taken me off to explore the countryside, and after a morning of adventuring (visiting a glass-blowing factory, skipping stones on a creek), we needed lunch. We looked for a place to stop but found nothing. I grew hungry and then hungrier. Hours passed, or so it seemed. My parents, frustrated, burst into giddy laughter as time wore on and we still could find nowhere to stop and eat. And then, around the bend in the road,my dad spotted a white clapboard building with a neat sign hanging from the eaves, proclaiming it to be a diner. I did'nt think so-diners are streamlined and silver, not quaint little houses but never mind. We parked and went in, where were welcomed by a middle-aged lady with a lilting accent. She and her husband (the owners) were Swedish and to this day we refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. Swedish.

They sat us down and I ordered a tuna-fish sandwich. I liked tuna then. I like it now, though these days I might eat it seared or raw out of a pretty Italian jar with extra-virgin olive oil. But back then when I was a kid, the tuna sandwich was my default. And that day I needed something fast and reliable, something that wouldnt disappoint.

Talk about an understatement. The sandwich was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten: perfection on white toast, bound with mayonnaise.. I remember the smiling Swedishes refilling my parents' coffee cups and the sunlight through their yellow curtains. (Maybe even then I had an inkling that the sandwich alone was'nt the whole story, that the snack was somehow a signifier of transcendence.) How much mayo in the mix? How much celery? Was the tuna from a can packed with oil or water? I have no idea.

But I do know this: For the past 30 years, I've searched for a comparable sandwich. The search is often subconscious; I'll buy a tuna-fish sandwich without thinking much about it and eat it while reading the newspaper at my desk, and halfway through, the miraculous sandwich of my childhood springs to mind, and the invariably disappointing one I'm eating turns to dust in my mouth. Then suddenly (and predictably) I'll crave that sandwich.

Now and then, Ive actually looked for it. I live in England, and over here they put sweet corn in tuna salad. (My son, born and raised in England, thinks there's nothing wrong with sweet corn in tuna, but I love him anyway.) Since no tuna salad made with sweet corn can be considered in the Miracle Tuna Stakes, my searches for a restaurant that will replicate the Swedishes' achievement have been mostly confined to periodic Stateside trips. (Despite the nationality of the owners, I've never searched in Scandinavia. That sandwich was the very definition of All-American.) When I'm Stateside I'm indefatigable. I'm not looking for some fancy bistro. That place in Vermont was the opposite of fancy. In fact, I might find myself, one day peering through the doorway of a hole in the wall with a neon sign in the window flashing, COLD BEER, and think, Hey this might be it!

It never is - even if I wait until I'm as starving as I was that long-lost day. The lettuce is limp; the bread, stale. The tuna is too salty or too gummy-tuna that would be happier still in it's can. Or, at one of those New York downtown joints that pretend to be a diner but never really are (macchiato in a diner? I think not), the tuna might be tricked up, laced with paprika, sprinkled with sesame seeds, served on a brioche when I'd hoped for the stalwart comfort of plain white toast. Even on the rare occasion that sandwich is fine, it's just that-fine.

At this point, I usually turn back to my own kitchen, thinking Surely I can do better myself. I'm a reasonably confident cook, after all, and just how hard can a tuna sandwich be? Plenty hard it turns out, if you are after perfection, chasing a dream.

Sometimes I abandon the search completely, loading my own tuna salads with capers, olives, thinly sliced roasted red peppers, homemade mayo laced with lime, scatterings of fresh coriander leaves. But then I remember what I'm supposed to be doing, and I'm seduced again into trying to replicate the mythic lunch of my youth.

I've decided that both proportion and texture are critical. So to start, I choose tuna packed in oil-none of this slenderizing water nonsense, which leads to tuna that is dryish and tastes like nothing. For Mayo I stick to Hellman's and I think celery is a must-add, though not too much and you do have to destring the pesky stuff. A little salt, a little pepper and maybe a wee squeeze of lemon.

I've come close with this version, but never close enough. Once frustrated, I even threw everything in the food processor, thinking that a few judicious pulses would do the trick. The result was gloop. I've mashed with a fork, I've crumbled with my fingers, I've diced celery so fine you could pass it through a sieve. I've cut the mayo with a spoonful of sour cream. (neat idea no?) and yet.....No matter what I do, the perfect tuna sandwich continues to elude me. The other day I actually considered giving up, though not out of a sense of defeat. I was making a tuna sandwich for my son, standing at the counter pouring, yes, sweet corn kernels into a bowl. I was hungry, but I was'nt sure what for. I thought of my father who died last year. I thought, once again, of the tuna-salad sandwich I ate that day in Vermont, and then of the Volkswagen Beetle, and my parents laughing up front and me rattling around in the back, not wearing a seat belt because no one did it back then. I remember the trees blurred and bending as my Dad took the curves, and the diner appearing like an oasis, and the hollowness in my belly as I waited, at seven years old for my lunch. That day, the place, the drive, my love for my parents, and the feeling, perhaps for the first time in my life, of absolute hunger followed by absolute satiety.

Hunger, of course, never really goes away. The hunger for tuna fish, the hunger for love. And especially a hunger for the perfect moment you wish you could resurrect as easily as you can make a sandwich. But maybe savoring a memory does'nt have to mean reconstructing it. Maybe, in fact, that constant attempt at reconstruction keeps you from relishing what's happening now--now , and next week and next year. So that day, standing in my kitchen, I resolved: I would continue to revel in my most delicious of memories but try to be hungry for, and satisfied by, my life-and even my lunch today-today.

You listening?

Confession: I didnt fast this Ramzan. For the first time in my whole life. I went through this month which is almost coming to an end having survived just one fast. You have to know me to understand the meaning behind this. I was the one who never left one day of fasting despite international travel, pregnancies, being away from home, no hope of good food (hostel years) et al. This year, I just didnt have the strength or the inclination. I had the best intentions before the month started. When it did though, I just felt a multitude of feelings that overwhelmed me AND made me sit up straight. I was mix of rebellion and just tired. Plain tired.
Tired physically yea, but thats not it. I was tired of thinking of everything I used to be doing in religion as a way of showing my love and faithfulness for God. Prove it to me, prove it to me....that bit I was tired of. Maybe it's not the norm for it to be thought of that way but in my head, thats how I've been letting religion run my life.
Before anyone mistakes me, I am not a fanatic, I love my religion, havent given up on it or anything, my faith runs stronger today than ever before. I'm not a fundu either.
In this country far away from home, I grew used to having RBC Radio on all the time, not just when I want to listen to songs. It was my only link to listening to Hindi, brought up memories, made me happy, sad, excited, angry, whatever in only a way that something you grew up with can. Music does that right? So I have it on all through the night too. God knows I've had only the radio for company through rocking babies to sleep a hundred times through the night, through RSV and puking and sickness and health. Thanks to that, I get up in the morning and am greeted by bhajans. Initially I used to switch it off, like a scared reaction, like I might listen to something I might end up liking. Slowly through rushed mornings it was'nt switched off and some of them I liked listening to, grew accustomed to hearing. I also knew it reminded me of my own faith bcos all said and done, it's a feeling. To acknowledge the Creator and give thanks, ask for help.

Likewise, I know I wouldnt be wrong in saying Islam has a way of running religion based on fear. I know it could be the interpretations of generations that worked but as soon as I was old enough to think, I realised it didnt work for me. I obeyed and I felt a blind love but the minute I discovered the Christian way of looking at things, I adopted the attitude. I brought that attitude into my own faith and since then my life is just one big conversation with Allah. I have never felt better or more mired or convinced of my own faith.
All this to explain Iam not a fundu.
So why didnt I fast? Like I said, I was tired of proving myself, my love or my leanings. I know those are not the requirements or reasons for fasting. Thats just why I took a break this year. After my fathers death and a couple more hard knocks, I am way too tired to take on any more hardship and definitely not hunger lol!
I know now what a man must feel like to keep having to bring flowers or dig out luscious bits of poetry or innovative ways of romancing to show his feelings or keep the love alive. I mean surely it has its place and advantages but sometimes it should be enough to believe that he does love you. And I do love my Lord. I just hope and pray he forgives my weakness as of this year and my refusal to obey this one time. Or maybe there'll be more. I dont know. I just hope my entry into heaven is not going to be barred bcos I couldnt pass up a few meals. You know what I've been upto all my life God...so cut me some slack ok? ;)

The making of a mom

oh forget it. the making of a mum my foot. either the ingredients are just not right or the measurements are all wrong. whats going on you ask me. oh nothing much i'll say. i feel like am vegetating, like moss over a pond. just floating, thas it.
it's getting to me. gets me almost always but it's getting to me for the past coupla days and im not sure my whining is going to help. i need to get out there and sweat some, i realise i am a physical person and i miss gymming. am antsy and inert if you can make sense of that.
cleaning helps - i have never been so in love with dishwashing liquid or windex before. what is it? instant gratification? see a mess, spray, wipe, clean?
my sis recently told me not diluting dishwashing liquid is the way to go. it made dishwashing fun. i love the intensity of the fragrance, the way a whole sinkful can be washed with just enough dips into the liquid that you can count on one hand, the foam that cant get enough of itself.
yea, im losing it.
or maybe i'm finally getting the hang of this housewifely thing. its a nice feeling to be happy in your spot. not wondering whether you should be doing something else. who am i kidding....those feelings are always around. waiting to get me the minute i feel ive screwed up with the kids or whatever.
i dont like feeling like ive let them down and still my naturally brooding, 'thinking too much' state doesnt leave much room for lets roll in the grass moments. i think im not taking enough. i'd do it if i knew what to take. is that possible? you dont know what to take but you're very good at knowing what to give? sounds so stupidly soppy, i feel nauseous. but i know its not working for me. i feel i must be doing something on my own, only that doesnt feel right either. its not like i can drop the kids somewhere and go gallivanting. i dont want to either. im not looking to get away from them. i just want to do something - something that doesnt mean being a wife or mom. or did i just veto that the second i got married and had kids? or maybe i'm not thinking? which is probably right. I almost felt a bulb go on.
on a completely different note - i'd love to walk in for once and be the one asking "Whats for dinner?"
i dont want to lose myself, i dont i dont i dont.....

I'll get by with a little help from my friends....

I'll say it right out at the beginning of the post that I'm counting on rambling to make some sense at the end of the post. Otherwise right now, everything I want to put down is just a bunch of images in my head and feelings in my entire body. Like mangly thoughts dripping from my fingers and thoughts swirling like smoke between my ears. Also - alarm bells ringing from cellulite deposits.

I'm not the most disciplined of people but thanks to my kids, I did manage to bring about a structural framework of discipline and we were working well around that. That is until something major normally happens to offset that arrangement and then it takes me days, weeks, months or even a year or so to get back on track depending on what derailed me. The last one was losing my father. The funny thing though is how should I put it - I didnt know it as being derailed bcos I was dealing with something. I just thought I wasnt in the mood, I was tired, there were other things to do, it never occurred to me that maybe there was just too much on my mind to be doing anything else. Has this happened to anyone else? Or is everyone else way more tuned in to themselves than me? I guess so.

So 7 months later, I see I'm coming back to a routine again, I am craving it, and it is easier to create and stick to. Simply because there are less things cluttering my mind. Which brings me to my question - how does one organise one's mind? There are a million and one ways to organise one's closet, small dining room, toothbrush holder and mutual funds. Why dont I see magazines that have articles like - 'Organise your mind - 20 ways to keep you on track'? or 'Declutter your thoughts in 5 minutes....find the space you've been looking for!?'

Is it because I've been muddled for so long that I dont recognise not being any other way? I dont know what it feels like to have a clear head? I don't know when abnormal's not normal anymore? Or does having family and kids not give you the luxury of grieving, thinking about things, time to reflect or ponder or ask questions and make sense because there's no time to cry or postponing crying means sometimes forgetting to catch up with it and you're left with ghostly pains and aches? I just realised that I miss my Dad most because I was special to him. I'm not 'that' special to anyone in that way anymore. Lol. You'd think that sort of realisation would come to a person first. It comes to me 33 years after I knew my father. But I welcome such an oasis of feelings in an otherwise arid trudging of life sometimes. I think it bridges a gap to the person I was and the person circumstances made me change into. It's like reaching out to an old me and being delighted at finding an old friend.

That brings me back to my reason for writing this post. Y'know those TV programmes we used to watch like The Wonder Years and Doogie Howser etc etc - does anyone really live like that? Is it possible? Where you're lucid enough to wrap up the goings on in your life, your experiences and the feelings and thoughts that resulted from it, compartmentalise them neatly, put them away for the summer, bring them out for the winter when you need them, jhatak them to take a look at them again and see how it fits in your life? How it fits you? Does it look good on you? Can you give it away? Are you done with it? Did you really use it? Is it worth holding on to? What did it do for you?

Do such people exist? I guess they do. I mean I might be at one end of the spectrum so obviously there's the opposite kind on the other. Right?

I guess it's that brain chemistry. Synapses and neurons that need to be rewired and changed. Hand on my forehead, its not easy, this business of living. If life taught you to be cautious, how dyou become a throw caution to the wind and run down the hill right now, for now person? You want to do it to see your children as free spirits, teach them that they have to create their own happiness but you look around feeling stupid wondering whether you'll sprain an ankle in the process or will people think you've lost it? How d'you stop them from rolling down the hill with dire warnings and images of broken ankles and banged heads? Because I dont want to stop them unnecessarily either.

I guess thats why people go away - retreats, holidays. Errr... how does a mom go away?

After typing that much, I paused for half a day, causing my husband to believe I was home, 'im'ming me when actually I was running various errands but didnt want to shut down the comp since I felt like there was incomplete business here. I know all you energy conservationists - I dont do this all the time. Just the times when I feel like maybe the answers around the corner and I dont want to block it yet.

I guess thats why moms need friends. Friends who are not their husbands and sisters and brothers. Friends who knew you. Friends who see the person you are and not the mother or daughter. Friends who share a history with you. Who might help you stay the original you were even as time and happenings and people change you. Friends you dont have to start at the beginning with. Friends who see something special about you despite the love handles and greying hair. Friends who believe and let you believe you're the best mom for your kids. Friends who think you could have married much better lol. Friends who let you ramble and make no sense. And thereby let you arrive at the right destination. With the right prodding and wrong assumptions. Friends who know at your darkest hour what you need unlike a husband who wants to fix your problem or a mom who tells you the politically correct things maybe. A friend who like your brain helps you think.

I guess moms go away to their friends.

So simple and elementary but..

You know there are those times when you're still reeling and trying to make sense of your relationship with your mother? Things she said, she did, she didnt do, she didnt say that you feel you could have been happier without/not knowing/benefited/learnt from?

Honestly those are things that are always on my mind. I'm always stuck with the 'why's? and why did this have to happen this way, wish I could have handled it better, wish i knew then what I know now plane. Like a running commentary in the back of my head, especially now that I am a mom and I hear her words coming out of my mouth, when I find myself running a few things in my life the way she did, it never fails to amaze me that your mother is always on your mind. Not your Dad, not your anyone else as much as this person is. Well yea Dad too but 'd put that at a 90% and 60% deal.

So the next thing is that you wonder if she's so much on your mind, what will my kids be thinking when they're far away from me? Does everything I say and everything I do just stamp itself on their psyche like mine is? I mean we dont talk about our moms all through school and college? They're there, the odd tiffs and good times are talked about with your closest friends but now as a mom, that relationship just charges itself to the front of my foremost thoughts.
The object of this post was - I'm always wondering whether my children will forgive me for the silly mistakes I make. And these are stupid things mind you (not for me though)- ignoring them while I'm on the phone, promises not kept like tonight I will read that book or tommorow I will take you to the park and sometimes they dont happen. I hate those times, I feel like a failure then. Those times when you're brusque or rude and just not there. Emotionally.

Yesterday I noticed Nosh had set her bedside table in a really pretty manner, there was a placemat (which she herself had picked and shopped for in India), she had managed to find a matching envelope holder that I had chucked away in the same colours as the placemat but it had flowers on it. She put a beady, hanging trinkets kind of hair elastic band around a pen holder and her shoebox of sleeping baby dolls on top of the placemat. Apparently she had been literally dangling from my hand to show me the arrangement while I was on a really important phonecall so I locked myself in the bathroom instead. I saw it the next day as I was dressing her up for school and I'm not one of those 'your scribbles look great, lets have a party kind of moms', I'll give it the rating it deserves acc to age. So this was such a nice arrangement that I couldnt help but marvel at her creativity, the fact that a five year old was decorating her bedside table and how nicely at that. So it obviously showed on my face and in my words and she was pleased. Then she mentioned how it had been done yesterday and she had been trying to show me. Aarghghgh.

The first thing that went through my mind was that I had no recollection whatsoever. Secondly that I remember as kids how so in the moment we are and enjoying what we do and how thrilled we are to have our parents see and appreciate what we did and this kid just happily postponed her 'I'll get my mom to see it and tell me what she thinks of it later' so maturely. If I was in her place, I would have been mighty miffed and probably would have taken it all apart out of sheer aaaa who cares attitude.
So I apologised so sure that no, she was going to make me feel bad, really bad about this, I dont even deserve to be forgiven (keep in mind that in my head its a series of such situations and not a one-time thing) but she did. She's tall enough now that when she's standing on the bed my head would be on her chest. So I hugged her and said I was sorry and she very matter of factly said its ok mamma and in a lets move on way, asked me "so - you really like it?"
It was over for her.
Set me thinking - why am I holding on to all these grudges and that too silly things, one point in a moment of time that might have had a hundred things going on for my mom or dad and here I am till today, carrying the memory or the pain and wondering why did it have to happen this way. My five year old is more mature than Iam.

I still am, who Iam despite the good times and the bad and I didnt turn out too bad. So congrats mom and dad, I think you did a great job (if I may say so myself) in raising the four of us, personally feel you got better with each kid lol.

About time I put those things that made me angry/sad/host of other feelings on that level aside. High time. Thanks Nosh.

One-tasking

Im officially off the beaten track. Of multi-tasking. Long ago, along with the Std XI and XII PCB course of CBSE's you had the option of choosing Math or CompScience or Home Science as another main stream option. I chose Homescience simply bcos I thought I was going the medicine way. (Ho boy was that a long time ago)

So anyway, I remember there was this page in the text book about dovetailing and multi-tasking and it made me drool. I had a bone in my body called organising even before I knew I loved it, craved it and would eventually be very good at it. All I knew was, that line in that text-book reached out and got me by my neck. Ever since then there was a word for my love for combining tasks and I got a kick out of living like that. As a mom it's been obviously very useful. I personally feel its also the other side of my laziness coin. Cram everything I need to do into the one hour before it should be done and then fall back, clapping the dust off my hands at how smart I was at not having moved a muscle before (conserving my energy) and still getting everything done. Wah!

But now. (Thank God my English teachers arent reading my blog, they'd gag at my using 'But's' at the start of every other sentence) Now I officially give up this whole multi-tasking business even though I'm quite the pro at it simply bcos I feel it makes an idiot out of me. A blubbering, scheming, focusing-so-close my vision is blurred nut. I mean why cant we just enjoy exercising when we enjoy exercising instead of making sure the rice is in the rice-cooker and the clothes are doing their round in the washer and the kids favourite show is on so that they dont slide off the treadmill behind you. (OK - I dont know if I'm ready to give it ALL up now)

It doesnt give you the freedom to just be sometimes. Your mind is constantly thinking of what next to tick off your list and how best to combine chores. I'm going to opt instead to just do what I think needs to be done right then and there instead of wondering what else can I put in motion when I go downstairs so as to minimise trips. Now I'll increase the trips and chill a bit mentally. I think I'm going to give it a shot. I dont know how successful I'll be being that I live in place like I do. Old habits being hard to break and all that. I definitely am going to try though.

R is the sort of person who focuses on one thing at a time and for someone like who runs a business and basically has his hand on the pulse of everyone in his family, I sometimes wonder how he does it. He does one thing at a time. He wont entertain silly phonecalls from home when he's at work bcos - he's at work! He wont work from home bcos - he's home!
Things like that. I ask him whether he's stressed, he says no. I know its natural for him to be in a on-your-toes position for most of the time and I used to think he's become so used to the stress that maybe he doesnt know another way. But (there's the but again) I know better now - he's got the clarity I search for sometimes and I think it's due to his focus on one thing at a time thinking. So I'm going to give it a shot.
Do the wednesdays for laundry, thursdays for grocery shopping kind of thing. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a tough one.

where's my core?

I've been going for Bikram Yoga for the past week. I must have attended about four 90 minute sessions so far. It's been great.
The thing that's been niggling at me since I started going is how not-easy it is anymore to just focus in the moment. I used to think shavasana meant I could daydream and just let my mind wander. This yoga teacher says you need to focus on your intent, realign those and just concentrate on why and wherefores of the reason behind you doing yoga today and what it's doing to your body, what you need from it to do to your body etc etc.
I also was amazed by how restless I was. My body was tired and welcoming the few seconds of breaks between the asanas but I just could not chill for want of a better word. Lol bcos Bikram yoga is done in a heated room to make you sweat. So you get what I mean. Any second that I got my mind was ticking off things to do, things I did, even something as silly as will the kids enjoy the lunch I packed today for them. The thought comes in unbidden and some other part of my brain is telling me incredulously- 'are you serious'? You're actually concerned about things you know for sure you needn't be?' It was like becoming a mother or just being at this juncture in my life didnt affford me the luxury of aimless floating. I wondered - why? and is that true for all moms?
I mean I know we worry but when you know you're not needed, the kids are in school, the husband's at work, the house is locked, yes you checked and double checked the burners were off and the iron box was off and all the windows were shut then what was that niggling sense of something must have bypassed my notice and am I gonna find the the police, ambulance, firefighters all surrounding my house? Maybe someone from the school called and I cant use my phone while class is in session and its an emergency? What just happened here?
I don't like it. Does it come with being a mother package and does that mean I'm never going to be able to be carefree again? eeks! no no no!
The funny thing is - when I'm at the gym, it doesnt bother me. It's only those quiet moments when nothing and no one else needs my attention. It really surprises me. I might have been like this for a while but being forced to be quiet and sit still at someone else's prompting caused me to notice it.

Crying is good.

Somewhere between becoming hard nosed career-women and femininely macho, we lost the God-given, life saving ability to cry at the drop of a hat and now we're right up there with men in having heart disease as our no1 killer. I don't think nature intended for it to be this way for us. We changed the equation and not for the best.

I've been noticing lately (as usual it's a niggling feeling in my head for years before I sit down and look at it) that I need my tears and they haven't been very forthcoming. As much as I want them to. Many times I have tried hard for tears to come out of me so as to calm me down a bit, get over whatever was holding me back from moving on with daily life but it's not as easy as it once was. Once upon a time, I used to have many nicknames based on my ability (I think of it as one now) to cry easily. My mom could intermittently be heard saying "atta khatta hua" around me. Usually when she saw my normally happy face clouding over or scrunching up. My father's stern expression at me having goofed up was enough to set me off. Someone being mean could set me off regularly for the next few days. Whatever - I usually cried for however long it took to get it out of my system and that was it. It lost the ability to pain me pretty soon. It became a distant memory and I never had a relationship with anyone I couldn't forgive and move on again with. Except for nowadays that is.

It's not always the big stuff. Sometimes when I cant keep up with my own expectations, when I've been brusque with my loved ones, not able to do what I'd wanted to get done that day, not handled the kids as ideally as I should have, shortchanged myself, they all become a backlog of irritated, angry mass of crap in the back of my head. No, actually in the front. I know then that if I could just have a good cry, everything would be fine. I don't have to stay stuck, I can move on with renewed enthusiasm and energy but it doesn't happen easily. I miss that. I don't want to worry about my blessed good heart taking the strain of that. I don't want to look like a wuss. Oprah doesn't help anymore. Neither do old Hindi movies. none of the old dependables do. I think it was a mental decision taken over a period of times to not cry and dissolve mentally that did it. Little did I know that it was not to be a good decision. Gotta work on unlearning it.