song of the road

So many things.. oh, sooo many things..

I skipped office and gym both and again yesterday. I woke up feeling awful again. Just couldn’t face up to the whole long day at work. I kept on thinking that I would go even if late but still couldn’t. This has scared my mom a bit, I think. She has kind of agreed to my point of view. She kept cooking me goodies yesterday and today. I felt so bad for her. Poor lady is scared of me, scared for my future. Wish I could do something to take away her worries, her pains. Kind of keep her in a world insulated from all pain. She is trying so hard to take care of me when it is so completely my turn. I used to visualize keeping my parents inside a mobile glass bubble where no pain can touch them. But I guess that can be awfully boring. :-)  Life is tough for her now, but she must be having some fun trying to work it out.

This not being able to face work scared me a bit too. I need to do almost anything to avoid the onset of a long depression. I talked to myself some yesterday and tried to pin point what is bothering me so much. I think (I am never sure), I need some time to close the book on R, mourn the relationship before I can want to meet want new guys. This pressure of trying to meet new guys and trying to find nice interesting things to say is killing me. I just need to go off this now. As usual my timing is all wrong. I am getting too old and if I want any family, it is high time I get on it. But what can I do? My life is plain refusing to follow the conventional Indian woman’s life. I am more and more settling down and becoming okay with my – what is it – waywardness or freakiness – whatever. :-)  This American term – whatever – I love using it.

There is trouble ahead. Closing the book on R wouldn’t be easy at all. I like him immensely plus he has become a habit. Of all the bad things, I will have to go on working with him for quite some time. For both of us, this job is working out fine and none of us want to simply change the job. As it is, it is tough enough to break off, interacting with him everyday while trying to cut off all personal equation is going to be a killer. I at least have gone through the horrible pains of the heartbreak once before when I broke off with my ex-boy friend, so maybe just maybe I would fare a little bit better this time around. I don’t know how R is going to handle it as I am his first serious relationship. Maybe I am worrying for nothing, hopefully he would be the emotionally stronger one and I would only have to deal with my problem. Anyway enough of that. I know I will somehow come out of this too, a little battle scarred maybe, a little more cold-hearted maybe – but stronger and maybe a little bit more confident. And if I can hang on to my weight loss program, I will come out of this looking good in every way. I just need to remember to stop myself from cursing R’s parents to hell, in my mind. Just like I don’t feel like meeting new guys now, they don’t feel like having me as their daughter-in-law. It is their choice – wrong choice of course – but still only theirs to make.

I am having a far better day today. Doesn’t mean I won’t go down again. But I would guard hard against that. I am back to work anyway.

It is surprising that I am actually having a sort of good day – emotionally at least. Just one year on this day, I lost my dad. My dad had made enough fuss all his life. But he just died that morning – only mom was there. In fact even she wasn’t. He had worked on his stock portfolio, even the night before. Somehow at the night, he fell badly when he was going to the loo. Since my mom was sleeping under medication, it took him a while to wake her up. He had a bad pain in his waist. My mom called the apartment caretaker and they took him to a nearby hospital. My dad was perfectly lucid and was directing my mom’s every move. The doctor came and after preliminary check-ups, decided to admit him for a day or two for the waist. They wheeled him upstairs to a room and my mom was downstairs filling up the paperwork. She did it and went upstairs to check up on him and he wasn’t any more. In that short time, he had a massive heart attack and that was that. It was after that my mom called us (it was only 6:30 am) and the doctor called our neighbors. Could something have been done? He was only 65. We would live with that.

It has been so many years that I have been away from home for work. Before that too, dad had to stay alone for quite a few years, as mom stayed with us in another city for our schooling. The things our parents had done! I make at least 5 times of what my dad got as his salary (though later he did much better with his trading), and so many times I run out of money. It is a mystery how my parents ran two establishments in two cities and paid for our education too – two engineers – though thankfully our college education was virtually free fee-wise but there were tons of other stuff. Anyway, the thing is I think, since dad has been away from my daily life so much, it still hasn’t sunk in. It is as if he is just away somewhere and would just be back any time. Or I am a numb cruel person.

I keep thinking so much more about him these days. For the first few months, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Now I remember him a few times a day. I have always been a heavy dreamer. And he is there almost everyday. I remember how I used to think of all the books and all the movies where your dad just speaks to you and tells you what you should do. I will stare or turn fast to catch a glimpse of him sitting on his favorite sofa or just a chair watching us. He was never anywhere. 

I had a hard time learning to drive when I was 18. I was very scared and just couldn’t get it. Dad gave up and then one of the drivers from his factory came and taught me. He is another awesome character. I still could barely drive when he wasn’t sitting beside me. I don’t know what dad thought because he couldn’t stop telling me how I could do anything if only I would want to do it and try and work a little harder, but I was sure I would never drive independently. Meanwhile my bro learned driving almost on his own and honed it in a nearby driving school. He is crazy about all modes of transportation – starting from bikes to cars to trucks to trains to airplanes. He forced me to buy the car. His logic was if his girl friend could drive, most definitely I could too. :) and just taught me for one day and I could actually drive. He sat with me for a week on the way to and from office and I started to drive around independently. And trust me, in Bangalore traffic and with my skills that is no mean feat at all. And I wanted so bad to show off my driving to my dad. They were supposed to come visit us and I was supposed to get them from airport and get them in style in my car. And we were to go on long drives of which each of us in our family are crazy. Only it never happened. Okay, I took my mom around but no fun at all without dad and his comments. I kept imagining him sitting beside me while I was driving but what good is that!

I bugged him and bugged him and got them to make their passports. So we could have at least one holiday abroad, maybe one cruise too. My dad would have loved that. They got the passports too. But I couldn’t plan the trips soon enough. Who knew this would happen when both his parents lived to more than eighty. But I should have acted sooner. I kept saying I need to plan a trip abroad soon before one of them falls too sick (and I always thought that would be mom), but I just said that and couldn’t get around actually acting on it.

Well, I know I was his favorite. My bro was too but because I came first, I just got the bigger chunk of his heart. Not fair? My brother tried and became more his friend. To my ever lasting grief now, I did not always make the effort to be really close to him. Oh, I got him gifts galore and he was mighty fond of them too. But we couldn’t agree on many things and I wanted to avoid fights at all costs and so I kept quite and let discussions become monologues. And I never did tell enough how much I loved him. The one guy who loved me so much, who after so much disagreements too had almost unconditionally supported on me on anything I did, I did not love him back enough.

Oh what to say of weight loss now. Dad, your not being here as my last resort on everything any more, has scared me enough and I am learning only now to try to be more healthy. But as you said, I would do it – I can do it. I can do anything, right?