Life is not linear. Nature isn’t linear either. I think knowing that has sort of lightened my being. I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t inundated with expectations from without. I simply had to be brilliant. I needed to be first in class although by nature I used to be about as competitive as a placid duck. Studying came very easy to me so the years in school and college were perhaps my most enjoyable moments ever. There was never any solid responsibility. One did not have to worry about running a house, making sure children are taken care of or think about whether or not to pursue a career after being, rather unfortunately, good at academics. So possibly it was the idea of having a comfortable routine which involved no responsibility beyond studying that made my college days as memorable as I now feel they were.
I started talking about life being sort of curvy and not linear because I have always thought just the opposite. I thought that one absolutely had to be good at studying. I thought I had to graduate at 20 regardless of the fact that I had absolutely no delight in the subjects that I chose to graduate in. I also knew that I would be married off to anyone who asked in my 23rd year itself. I also felt socially obliged to have children. I really cannot understand why I believed i had no choice in any of these things – it could be because I was not allowed any sort of choice even in marriage and being rather placidly duck-like as I have mentioned before, never thought of fighting for anything I believed in. My only goal at the time was to be able to work. I had vague ideas of what I would do but I believe my dreams centred around possible applications of the cheques I would receive. So my life has always been forcibly linear right up to the point where I could not get a job when I wanted one. I started panicking. I was in the US in those days and just out of post graduation with no work experience whatsoever. The job market was down and no one wanted to sponsor a work visa for me and I was truly depressed. It never occurred to me to think of other options and follow them. To be honest I never wanted to be an engineer. It was not my thing.
I did of course get a job and do fairly well till I found myself pregnant. I was further depressed because I did not want a baby when I had just started working. I had my son and learnt that my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer – it was in its most advanced stage. I was devastated and we decided to return to India - both for my father and my son. Thus my career was finished before it had even begun properly. The years in India were not easy. I took care of my father and a colicky child as well – not very successfully but then I was very young. My father passed away the following year. I could not handle it – for years after I simply could not stop grieving. I had forgotten how to smile and was a spectre of my former self. I lost weight which I couldn’t afford to lose since I had always been skinny. I found myself pregnant again and completely lost it.
Thinking back I find I always had a choice to be happy – a choice that I did not take. I was miserably throwing up during both my pregnancies – I kept losing weight alarmingly. I was unhappy at having to rely on someone else financially. I could not take pleasure in anything and I simply wanted to leave everything and go away – somewhere where no one could find me. I truly feel if I had known then what I know now I would have taken life much more lightly. Things don’t have to be rigid, expected or linear. It can happen any which way and that needs to be accepted. An entire lifetime of upbringing and education had left me incapable of handling life itself.
Where do I start with my kids? How do I tell them that it doesn’t matter if they miss a year or two or maybe postpone college and see the world? Or that these little ones will be loved even if they don’t have three dozen awards for dancing or singing or kite-flying or whatever it is that all the children around me seem to be attending classes for. I continue to have expectations of them and find myself emulating my parents. But I am working on it. I am trying hard to break the mould and the vicious circle of expectations and criticism. I want my children to grow up into happy human beings. They don’t have to be able to play a violin at age four. They just have to be able to handle what life throws at them without being worried like their mom or hiding their head in the sand trying to ignore things like their dad. If I can raise my children to treat life like an adventure then my life would truly have been worthwhile. If I can, one day before I die find out what it is that I was put on this earth to do, then I can die happy...But for that I have to learn to live life fully myself.
