Sometimes I feel like life throws curveballs to make it interesting.
I definitely know that when everything is going right in my life, life is very...boring? Don't get me wrong. I am content. I am grateful. And for now, I wish my life was boring.
Because I am currently in this mess of family drama that has dragged me back to the old familiar feeling of despair, dread, and deadness. Knowing that so much is out of my control and so much is painful.
I know desi families were never perfect anyway; toxicity lives under our relative's skins. Even our own. We try as hard as we can to break the generational curses, and on the path to succeeding, we get heckled on the way. And it is also much harder to carve that new road because it hasn't been done before.
My parents are separating. It is something that should have happened a long time ago; mom just didn't have the support. They are so incompatible. My mother is like a roaring lion, and she always speaks her way; I think baba didn't want that. I think he appreciated it from time to time, and spoke proudly of it to other people, but didn't want it shown in the household. But mama is headstrong, opinionated, and had an idea about how she wanted her marriage to be. He didn't fulfill it. Mama was also very naive about marriage in general. That's another blog post another day.
I realized that parents separating will always affect the children, no matter how much older and more settled they are. I'm 32 and in the last leg of specializing. Sister K is 31 and has a thriving career. The other two siblings... 27 and 25 but God knows what they want to do or when they want to settle (another reason for the pain. You cannot save people. You can only love them. You cannot transform people. You can only console them.)
I can understand the logic behind it, and I can definitely say it's the right decision...but now I no longer have a "family home" to go back to. I don't have a maika. I don't have an alternate place to my own home. And it's an unsettling feeling. It's a feeling I don't like. How will our Eids be spent? And our birthdays? Should we invite both mama and baba to things together, or will they fight or not come if the other is coming?
Our family home is coming undone...literally. We need to sell/get rid of everything in it because they are parting ways. It;s a step nobody prepares you for. And the day mama leaves that house, we will walk with darkened footsteps to my car and I wonder what I will feel. Sadness? Relief that there will no longer be 6 month long fights about mama accusing baba of cheating? Fear that mama will live with me permanently and I lose all my privacy?
These are all valid feelings. These are all plausible feelings. And I'm scared to feel any one of them.
And my relationship with baba is changing minute to minute. He's a great father. I can attest to that. He's a terrible husband. I can attest to that also. How should these statements affect my relationship with him? Let's add confusion to the mix of plausible/valid feelings.
A said to take deep breaths. It's funny but, until I consciously breathe deep, I don't breathe deep at all.
Thank God for husbands that understand.
In the midst of the parent situation, I've been scammed out of $1000 while trying to sell Mom's furniture (beware of Zelleing people you don't know), I have a fellow's case conference to present this week, Daylight Savings happened last night which makes the nights longer, my littlest sister is purposeless and lost and refuses to take my advice, and I go on hospital call for two weeks starting next week.
I want new work sweaters. TJ Maxx. maybe retail therapy will help.
Friendsgiving with husband's twin and wife plus friends next weekend. I am looking forward to it so so so desperately. A night off of life.
You were sunshine, I was midnight rain
You wanted to be comfortable, I wanted the pain
You wanted a bride, I was making my own name
Chasing my fame
