Home

I never realized how stressed I really was till I got back home.

On the day I arrived, my youngest came back early from the school, cleaned the house and decorated the living room with balloons and welcome home banner. She baked me Strawberry shortcake. My son had exams, but the night before, he cooked rice, potato mezhukkuperatti, avial, dhal and moru.. for me.

I had my first proper Indian meal, just the way I like(spicy) and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

I took Kirra out for a walk.

Then I lay down on the bed and didn’t get up for couple of days. I guess I was emotionally spent.

It takes tremendous courage to leave a 16 and 14 years old alone at home for two whole months. So many things could have gone wrong.

It didn’t and I am grateful.

My son left for Peru ( student exchange) yesterday. He bought all the things he needed to take with him, packed his own bag..

House is very quiet with just me and baby.

I am now seriously considering what I will do in three years time when my youngest leave home. One of the reasons I was willing to work long hours while I was in Manila was that I didn’t want to go back to my empty apartment and be enveloped in silence. I missed my children’s laughter the most and I hated going back to the apartment in the night after work. I must seriously consider my next move.

Almost

This time next week I will be home.

And that is such a nice thought.

But the problem is that I don’t want to stay another second here.. The thought of another few more days is killing me

 

brooding

‘I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person” Oscar Wilde

I like my company, I like being alone and I never really needed someone in my life  to be happy..

But right now, all I think of is going back home. I have started to count down the days..hours…

I just want to go back to my life.. my early morning walks. and hear my children’s laughter..

I miss my home.

Book and the cover

We were classmates in Australia.

We avoided each other like plague. He thought I was an itch with a B and I thought he was an arrogant B#*tard. We were meant to do a project together and I told the Prof that if I would rather drop the subject and face academic penalty than do a project with this guy.

He and I both won the Summer research scholarship at the Uni and we still refused to talk to each other. Supervisor in charge of the Scholarship knew that both of us  were heading to Manila and tried to make us contact each other. We ignored the introduction email from the supervisor and refused to write to each other.

Imagine my shock.. walking in to my dept on my first day at work and find him sitting next to my desk. We looked at each other and shook our heads. It turned out that we were also living in the same apt complex.

Few days after I arrived someone organized a trip to a burger place and he came to me and told me that he checked the restaurant website and that the place do serve vegetarian food. (He remembered from one of the classes we attended together, I had requested for vegetarian food)

Every Tuesday, we attempted to kill each other because we had to make a power point presentation and he and I couldn’t agree on anything. And in the evening we  walked back home together.. silently seething.. and it would last few days..

Park across my apt has live music sessions every weekend and we had to agree to temporary truce, so we could go and listen to music. and back to murder spree on Tuesday.

He made sure, if I had to work late, there was food for me, or when I had to go to country office that I had a ride back home.. He even came to the Gurdwara with me to eat food.

He went back home yesterday.

This morning I had to write a SitRep and after I wrote it and I almost sent it to him for review.. although I would never agree to any of his critical judgment of my report and argue till the cows came home why I am right and he was wrong, I kind of missed the fact that he wasn’t around. There was a sense of surety that my work was up to a certain standard after he had reviewed it.

It isn’t very often that my initial judgment was proven wrong.

But this one was wrong. He wasn’t an arrogant person I thought he was. Perhaps, I should remember “never to judge a book by the cover”

 

 

 

 

 

Trust and Control

I like long distance driving as it lets me listen to music and think, and think I did.

I was trying to figure out why is that I can leave two teenagers at home on their own and why my mother couldn’t.

I think I finally found the answer.

It has to do with two things. Trust and control

Amma felt the only way she could trust me was to control everything about my life. She planned, formulated and controlled every single thing in my life. be it what I ate, wore or who I talked to.

Where as I don’t control my children’s life. I accept them as individuals and trust them. I trust that I raised them well and taught them what is right/wrong.

I have a fully stocked liquor cabinet at home. Both baby and my son have a credit card with a pretty decent credit limit. There is no one to check what they are doing.. they could host as many parties as they want to, drink all the alcohol and spend all the money.

They don’t.

Because we trust each other. They trust me to be a good mother  and I trust them to be good kids. and all is well.