I am not someone who updates her status messages on facebook
to highlight the different moods of her life. I am not someone who can voice
what she feels from within, my tears, my pain, my anguish are mine alone. That’s
how it has always been and that’s how I thought it should stay for the rest of
my life. But not today, right now as I wake
up to a glorious post by Athira Nair, I realize that perhaps writing it all down
may liberate me and bring back that much needed smile as I look at myself in
the mirror next.
Before you think I am suffering from a case of wife beating
or am being cheated upon by my husband, I’d like to add….no I am happy. Perhaps
not in the way that I’d like to be, but in a manner which I never thought I
could be. I let myself depend on a man
the moment I got married, I quit my job, left my city and followed him here to
Vizag in the search of love. Love I found, but I lost myself in the process.
I allowed myself to be content in the confines of my home,
in his arms, in his talks and his love. From a fish in the sea I was soon
becoming a frog in the well. I cut myself from the world, stopped responding to
messages from friends who had been the most important part of my life and
allowed myself to just bask in the glory of my newly found love. From vying
from my husband’s attention, to letting my anger out on him when he is least
suspecting it, to torturing him, only in ways that he can explain :-)
I had become a shadow of the independent Neeta Nair who
never could let her guard down. All along I felt it was wrong, I had to stop
being this pathetic version of myself but there was no escape. To my credit I
was constantly searching for a job during my stay in Vizag, but a good offer
eluded me till yesterday. I didn’t want to share my worries with anyone because
I wasn’t sure people would consider what I had as a big problem and honestly I
didn’t know whom to talk to. All I knew was that there is something wrong with
me.
People asked me to enjoy married life, but honestly waiting
for your husband to return from work the whole day and the occasional outings
were not my idea of fun. When I woke up in the morning I felt like I was
wasting myself, no mission and no light to take me through the day. I seriously
lacked a job, I wasn’t used to being unemployed even if it is for 4 months
after marriage in a city like Vizag where searching for jobs is a nightmare.
The process of getting selected and managing an offer letter from my employer
has taken me 2 months. It was a long, frustrating wait. And if there is
anything I hate in life, then it is ambiguity.
I am not sure I did the right thing by abandoning my well
settled life in Bombay, I am not sure if love is the answer to all problems, I
am not sure if I am happy that my life revolved around one man for all this
while…. I am not someone who can lead the way; I am more like someone who takes
the path trodden by a select few. I need an example to give myself hope. I
found one today, thus this post. It may not be the most interesting read,
because today I am not writing for an audience, I write for myself and that’s
how I believe it should be with life too… live for yourself and no other. …rest
is irrelevant.
