Healing

For the first time in my life, I have broken my own code. I have spoken where I shouldn’t have. I wonder why I feel guilty? Is it because I do not believe that I am right for saying exactly the thing that I wanted to say in exactly the same manner that I wanted to say it, or because I am not used to ever venting out my feelings verbally.

I always knew that there was a problem. Always knew that something wasn’t right.

I love husband. all said and done, I do love him. I have shared my most intimate moments with him and so has he. When did I lose my judgment and started to believe other people on face value? How did other people get more power on our lives than ourselves? When did all of this happen?

I will have to stop. Right here and right now. I do not fear anyone anymore, because I know that I am the only one here with any stakes involved. Also because I don’t have to be answerable to anyone anymore, other than myself.

It will take time perhaps, but it will happen!

Survivor

You look at the empty walls. A sigh escapes you. It wasn’t supposed to be like this… However, this is the only way it has ever been. For you and for him. It is time to move on. You wonder if you will be able to recover from this blow. This time, it feels harder, more definite. Yet you do not feel heavy. You are torn, mostly because of the enormity of whatever that’s happening.

He’s asked you a straight question. It’s your life or his. You choice is clear. Not to him, but to you of course. You choose yourself. This time, there are no second thoughts. You abdicate all ties. You pick yourself. Your Life. Your Happiness. Your Dreams. You.

Nothing will change your mind.

Nothing.

The Woman

He: “Do you think I am joking?”
She: “Umm hmmm.”
He: “What?”
She: “I mean No.”
He: “You think I am joking.”
She: “No.”
He: “I am serious. I think I have dengue.”
She: “Ok.”
He: “Why are you talking to me like this?”
She: “How else should I talk?”

He hung up after that. She knows it is going to sting him. This indifference of hers. Perhaps more than her cheek stings from morning’s violence. She knows that he is feigning sickness. He is feeling guilty about beating her in the morning and wants to take it back. But violence leaves its marks. Not only on her body, but also on her already blemished soul.

She wishes that it continues to sting her, so that she continues to sting him. She laughs at herself. The pitiable state that she has got herself into. This time, she takes the full blame because it was her own actions that brought this upon her. Not the morning’s beatings, but the general bad luck – the hoarseness from everyday screaming, the soreness from being molested day after day, the pangs of the beatings.

Bad luck, she laughs, this time a little louder. Well, talk about trivializing an issue. For the first time in her life, she identifies with half the population of her country. For the first time she feels like an Indian-born and bred woman. She laughs again. Mad perhaps with the increasing self-pity. A woman. The person who is beaten, raped, blamed, jeered and leered at. A woman. Broken. Damaged. Decrepit.

A woman.

Hung up on you…

Have you ever felt that you are addicted to getting hurt? Addicted to self infliction? Wow… those are some big words. I think I am addicted. I think I can’t be in a non-abusive relationship.

I took a little break this weekend and traveled to Mumbai for the weekend. I spent a lot of time with myself and do you know what happened? I missed being with husband. When I came back, he was all apologetic and missing me. He held me tighter than ever on that night.

I too had missed him immensely and thought about him pretty much all the time. Yesterday went pretty well, with the both of us all in love with each other once again… all in love once again. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

I am so stuck up… feel a bit helpless and disoriented.

Surviving

There was once a time when I was in love with a man who didn’t know if he loved me. I certainly did love him. The equation never sat right and ultimately he left. I fought for him, stooped quite low in fact and even today when I remember him and the things I did to win him back, I feel embarrassed and small.

This time, I am not putting up a fight. If someone feels that they deserve better than me, then so be it. If some one feels that I am not good enough, then I will not want to correct them. I will silently move on.

Time has taught me to manage on my own. I am a survivor. And I don’t need a man by my side.

The End of Love

Have you ever felt this animal hatred towards someone? A hatred so pure and primal that you obsess with it? Today he beat me for the third time. Everytime he has ever beat me, I have hated him. Today, he beat me and then dragged me all over the house.

Some fairy tales aren’t meant to happen…

Note to Mom

So basically mom’s a little sore with me. I know that she is, even though she claims she isn’t.

Mom had a really hard time when she got married. Dad had chosen to stay with his parents and extended family and mom had a hard time with his mother.

I am terribly sorry for my mom. Whatever my grandma did to my mom, my mom has put that in the past. I however, have to bear the results of my grandmother’s actions everyday even though she has long since passed away.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that what my granny did to my mother was bad, but my mom suffered temporarily from her misgivings. I however, have a lifetime of physical discomfort because of granny’s callousness. Physical ailments that I have been living with and have to live with forever.

So it’s not right for my mother to tell me that I don’t know what suffering means. I don’t think it’s right for anyone to say that for me. Just because a person suffers in silence and doesn’t make a fuss about their suffering, it is not correct to assume that they know nothing of it.

And getting upset at me because I am suffering, doesn’t make sense to me mom. So quit it. And while you are at it, please also stop being upset with me.

Unsettled Again

Wow… I sure am weird. I mean I really need to keep a check on my emotional promiscuity. One moment I am here and the other I am somewhere else!

A lot of the credit for my really fucked up mental state goes to my dear dear husband. And why not. He drives me up the wall with his incessant cribbing and general bad manners and conversation skills. And then when I reach the top, ready to throw myself down and kill myself to end the misery, he gently stretches out his arms and carries me lovingly down.

Maybe that’s the general characteristic of marriage. That is perhaps how it goes.

Of late, we have started thinking of packing up and leaving again. It’s great to have finally found a soul as nomadic as mine. We both feel unsettled everywhere. The good thing is that he is always ready to explore new places with me. We are thinking of taking up education once again. Both of us. With my Master’s degree not being of any use anymore (yeah right, let’s hire the social worker who has no qualification in Internet Marketing, yet has been working in that field for over a year) I feel it would be good to have a qualification that at least goes with my current work experience. Incidentally, this is something that I like doing so it also makes more sense.

Husband has to definitely study some more if we want to start planning on leaving India. We are looking at some short term options. NTU looks to be a good option but Husband needs to have at least 5 years of work experience behind him for that. Right now he has only about 4 years of experience. Of course the education is going to cost an arm and a leg, so Husband’s family’s plans of seeing little baby Gautams to be lolling around are going to have to wait.

Oh and btw… we are taking a trip this weekend. We are finally going up to the hills. I wish I could drink to that, but I could get fired for drinking at work…. so that’ll have to wait.

Meanwhile if anyone knows how to earn a million rupees, actually make that about a thousand crores, in a couple of hours… or days…, please do me a solid and mail me!

Doomsday Theory

It seems strange…. You have mellowed down. Dulled would be a good word. You stay inside your prison. It hurts… this head. The low drone of a thousand spaceships in your head. It’s back again.

Aliens, taking over your mind, your body.

Incidentally, how does it feel to be shattered into a million pieces and then watch yourself being tinkered into a plaything?

Humans… they do not learn. They have incredible powers of engineering. They want to destroy and recreate. What is left after the destruction? What is it that can be really recreated?

I don’t know if I just made sense. I have stopped making sense lately. A long time ago, I had imagined that I have no longer the power to dream. And that felt good. There was still this one dream that escaped me when I swept them all out from my being. This small flicker of hope that someday… well, let’s just say someday. It hurts to see where all those who I mocked once came from. It’s not easy to be simple. Being complex, well that’s another story for another time.

Would it be the same in another life, in another world? Or maybe we are destined to be cursed. Maybe in another life we would have been chained to the same misfortunes.

In retrospect… trying to save yourself is futile. Doomsday… well.

Trapped

You wake up with a start, it has been another night filled with strange dreams. You look at the man who sleeps with you. The man who calls you different names… names that are not yours. Names perhaps from the past.

You examine him closely. His body is still warm. Still reminiscent of last night’s struggle. You move to the other room, carefully, trying not to wake him. You stand in front of the mirror. Naked. To take a close look at yourself. You look nothing like you did before. This body is not yours. It is someone else. This person who stares back at you is a stranger.

It is cold. You soft step back to the bedroom and grope in the dark to find some clothes. Once you slip something on, you quietly sneak back into the still warm quilt.

You feel a sudden sadness. The sadness that only one who is trapped inside someone else’s body could feel…