So, why have I been stressed and worried? It's too many things happening all at once. I am really looking forward to some things that are about to happen in my life but not looking forward to closing the door to some others. And there's this elephant in the room, my head which has also been bothering me lately. I wish I could talk about but I can't really. It is one of the minor disadvantages of writing an open blog. Not that anyone actually reads this. But still.........OK, may be I can say this: I have had a really close friend, best friend really. And now we are no longer best friends, or close friends. At least it seems that way from where I see it. And so it makes me very sad.
Back to what I was talking about. So, what is the best thing to look forward to? I'll be living with my husband!!! Another good thing: No more snow! Want another one? I'll be going back to school for MBA(although I haven't heard back from my dream school yet). Another one? I'll get to live in a nice city with lot of culture and lot of fun, exciting things to do. Without doubt there's a lot of great things to look forward to. But there's a lot I am leaving behind. I'll be leaving my job and the security that comes with it. I'll be leaving behind a country I have know almost all my adult life, I'll be leaving behind a lot of close friends - basically I'll be leaving behind all the alliances I have formed over the last 12 years to start fresh. Not knowing whether I'll be able to get the work permit for my internship or after graduation is also a source of some worries.
So it's scary and exciting and a lot of other emotions all jumbled up. One minute I am happy, another minute I am anxious and scared. Too many emotions and too many uncertainties. But, overall in the grand scheme of things, I know these worries are part of life. This unpredictably is life. It's what makes it worth living!
I am having some weight troubles..who doesn't in this day and age.. but I am having some real weight troubles and it's affecting me much too much.. OK, even in that I am not alone, but that doesn't mean I have lost the right to write about it.
I have gained about 10-15 pounds since October of last year. Most would be brides lose weight before the wedding, I might have the only bride who couldn't stop eating in the weeks leading upto the wedding. I did diet in the summer months and got to be my lowest weight ever. But then something happened and I was eating everything under the sun until the wedding day. That trend has unfortunately continued till about a week and a bit ago. Pancakes and french toast for breakfast several times a week, Mc.Donald's, Wendy's, KFC, Taco Bell - places I hadn't gone in years became my regular go to for food. I was way too busy with application preparation, work, long distance marriage that eating out and eating cheap was the only viable option. Sure, I could have taken time out to cook and eat healthy but I didn't. I just assumed that I will lose all the weight I was gaining once I start dieting. I had done this before, several times. I would occasionally, once a year or so, if I was going through a stressful phase, get to eat a little unhealthy, let myself splurge, but then would be able to recover once the guilt of gluttony got to me and I started punishing myself eating healthy again. Except Not.This.Time.
Agreed that I went a crazy for a little too long this time around - months as opposed to my usual weeks and I became a little excessive in my love for chocolate and cookies and desserts and all things fat and sugar. I was completely uninhibited in my love for food this time. But I still believed that once I started detoxifying myself, all would start to get better. Except, it's just not. It's been 12 days on my extremely strict diet full of vegetables, fruits, chicken, nuts, yogurt and skimmed milk. No fried food, no sugary food, no processed food. I am not going anorexic by not eating anything, I have never done that ever and can never do it even if I wanted to. I love food too much to give it up. Every single time in the past, eating healthy always got me on track, but it's not working this time for some reason. I am not expecting miracles, just some difference.The scale hasn't budged even 0.5 pounds!!
Have I just abused my body too much, and it's decided that it will stay the same no matter how hard I try? Is it retaliating against me now? Is the fat too fondly in love with my body that it just doesn't want to let go? I hope not as in a few short weeks, my in-laws are visiting us for the first time since the wedding and they'll be appalled to see what's happened to the beautiful, slim girl they had seen only a few months ago. (Ok, this last sentence sounded like I was boasting. I wasn't. Trust me. I was going for the dramatic factor here.)
Oh, God of weight loss: do something. Do. Something!
In a few weeks time I'll be leaving behind a country I have called home for almost 12 years of my life, aka almost all of my adult life. My friends, my co-workers, my city, my country..everything. I'll have no friends in this new city, no associations with anyone except my husband..I am excited to be moving because our bi-coastal marriage has been very difficult on both of us to say the least. I am happy that this long distance thing is coming to an end but I am also a little sad to leave behind everything that is familiar to me.
A precursor to this big move is that I'll also be quitting work, something I am having a hard time getting used to. Because of visa complications, I can't work in this new country. So quitting a job without a new job to go to is scary. And not knowing when these said visa restrictions will lift is also not very comforting. I have worked for as long as I can remember. I started working even before I graduated and have been completely self reliant since then. So the thought of quitting my job and not having anything else to fall back on makes me extremely anxious. In fact, just last week I had a minor anxiety attack picturing myself giving the official resignation. Though, all of this could become a moot point if my dream to get into one of the MBA schools I have applied to, materializes. I was hoping that by the time I quit, I'll know which school I am going to and that way the quitting work now will feel like a break before starting school. But not having heard from any school so far, makes this quitting just that. Quitting into an abyss of not knowing what comes next.
Apart from these work complications, the other thing that scares me a little is knowing that I have no friends in my new city/country. All of the people I have met so far on visits there are my husbands friends and their wives. They are all really nice people but not one of them I can call my very own close friend. I really hope I can meet some new people and make some new friends, but that's a topic all of it's own.
Having said all that, I am looking forward to moving. I will be living with my husband and setting up a new home, our home. I am looking forward to so many firsts :) He's a sweet man and I know he doesn't take my sacrifices lightly. Finally having some free time will be good as it will allow me to relax and unwind and pursue some of my interests and hobbies that I haven't been able to do all that well. The city I am moving to is a very vibrant city with so much to do and see. The weather there is great, I won't have to deal with snow storms, or for that matter, snow!! So there's definitely quite a few pluses. Most importantly, life will have a completely different flavour from what I have become used to in the last decade of my life. Living with someone, having someone to come home to (or in my case, having someone who comes home to me), living in a big city, meeting new people, living in a different culture, all of that makes this move exciting and something to really look forward to.
I am a married woman now. All is supposed to change. I am supposed to feel a different person now. Yet I don't feel any different than I did before the big day in my life that happened a few weeks ago. I hope I am not giving the impression of someone who is unhappy with their decision. I am very happy to be married. But I was happy before too. I am very happy with my husband but I was happy with him as my boyfriend and then as my fiance. So, the cataclysmic change that I had predicted - well I feel of that, at least not so far.
Now, mind you it is possible I feel none of that because things haven't changed since the wedding, logistically speaking. We are and will still be long distance as we were prior to the wedding for a few more months. Work has become quite stressful for both of us and to top it all I intend to apply to business schools in the next 2 months - quite an arduous task if you ask me, so my focus is elsewhere.
These days all I think about is the transition from having a job to no job, from having financial independence to being dependent on someone - until I finish business school, from living in a small city where I have lots of close friends to living in a city where for the most part I'll only know my husband.. I am also anxious to bits about getting into business school. I really really really want to get into a good MBA program. This is something I have wanted for so long I can't even remember. A lot is riding on me getting into a great MBA school.
I am sure when I start living with my husband(something I am finding very hard to get used to saying) that is when things will be really different. Perhaps that is when I'll start to feel the life altering change that people keep talking about after weddings. Or perhaps these changes happen gradually over time and not overnight.. whatever the case, I am very content with where I am in my life and where life is heading for me.
It just occured to me last night how much it makes sense to let go. I have been hearing for most of my life how we should all let go of our past, our grieviences, our "should haves", "could haves" and "would haves". You see it on TV, you read it on self help books, you hear it from well meaning friends who themselves may have no idea how it's done, your yoga instructor tells you that, your personal trainer tells you that. Heck is there anyone who doesn't tell you that. You may think that it is an art that the whole world has mastered except you. Yet it is really elusive to most of us.
Last night I was watching TV and something on the screen made me remember things from life that had nothing to do with it as it often happens. In any case, it just occured to me that letting go is so easy. You just do it. And that's it. There are no twelve steps, no cleansing, no toning and followed my moisturising. It's just one step. You just let go. And if for that one second you just do it as one step, you all of a sudden feel so light. Life's good again. You al
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December 2nd 2011: I wrote this post a while ago and for some reason decided not to finish the thought.. I wish I had.. I think I was going somewhere profound with it.. Nonetheless, I am going to publish this half written post
I am a woman standing on the brink of a major transition in life. Most of the time I look forward to this transition with a smile on my face and an eagerness: It can't come soon enough. Sometimes though, I find myself a little scared. I am about to be married in less than half a year and yesterday, for the first time I realized what people mean when they say marriage changes everything.. For the first time I truly felt scared of the change that's about to come. I can't am choosing not to delve into details of what brought upon this fear. It won't change anything and it's not really the point of this post anyway.
I am a 31 year old woman who got engaged a couple of months ago after dating my boyfriend for a over a year. He's a very nice guy, very attentive to my needs, supportive of my goals and dreams, and one of the most compassionate person you will ever come across. He takes care of the people he loves with such a fervour, you would think that that's his one and only life mission. And his kindness and niceness isn't due to any underlying weakness - he's a strong, stubborn man and can very rarely be convinced to do anything that he feels inherently against. No, he cares for people because of an underlying niceness that is his genuine nature. I feel lucky to have him as my future life partner.
Our relationship isn't without problems - what relationship is, after all? If there aren't any problems, I believe that in it self is a big problem! We've had our share of ups and downs but after a little bit of tumbling and a few scrapes and cuts we are on the right track. We are happy with each other, we have no doubts that we want to marry each other and yet a part of me is scared about the future. What if things change after marriage? What if we drift apart? What if we stop loving each other? What if we start fighting a lot? What if we discover some inherent incompatibilities that will only reveal itself after marriage? What if money comes in between us? What if he strays? What if I stray? What if? What if? What if?
I could go on and on and on with these doubts. But the truth of the matter is that I am truly happy that I am engaged to be married. Before I met my fiance, I was single for such a long time, I had forgotten what it feels like to be in a relationship. When he came into my life, I had all but given up on ever finding love or ever being married. And it's not that I needed a man to take care of me but I wanted a man. I feel like life is so much better when you have someone to share this incredible journey with. So no matter how many doubts or fears come my way, I know I am truly lucky and blessed to be on this journey towards a wedding and marriage and that too with the best person I could hope for!
So I find myself once again at the footsteps of blogging. I wrote my first post exactly 2 years ago when I was convinced that I couldn't blog but was drenching in so much pain, I needed an outlet for it. As I hit publish to that first post, I had no idea if my words would even reach one person, but with that first comment back I felt the minutest of a connect with a total stranger. It is unbelievable how strangers who have never met each other in real life, who come from different walks of life, who differ in everything imaginable: cultures, countries, nationalities, mother tongues, education, religion, age, become close friends and care deeply for one another.
Things took off from that first post and I started writing unabashedly. I was an anonymous blogger so it made it easy for me to write whatever my pretty little heart desired. It was a safe place for me to explore my deepest darkest thoughts as well shallow frivolous ones. And then a friend, close friend, hacked into my account. I changed blogs but that security of anonymity and freedom was compromised. I could no longer write without giving too much thought about what others would think. I started getting paranoid that someone else may find my blog. I plowed through my fears, took refuge under password protection but nothing seemed to help much.
To add to it all, I received some harsh judgements from a well meaning blog friend on one of my posts. I think she jumped to conclusions too quickly. Even though the judgement was pronounced on my anonymous self, I still couldn't help but feel it was directed at me. I kept telling myself that this person does not know me, she pronounced judgement based on the words I wrote, which does not by any means summarize who I am as a person. My words gives a view into a tiny part of me. It does not show me in my entirety. Regardless, it was another blow to my already bruised blog-ego. If it was a random person leaving a nasty comment, I could brush it off without any issues, but this was a person who had become a friend. It didn't help that my personal life was in shambles at the same. I quit blogging shortly after that.
Which brings me to today.If you blog once and connect with even a few people, the lure back to it is undeniable.You feel a tug every now and then. So I am back and this time around, it is with no fear of being "found out". What will be written here will be 100% authentic me, my thoughts. What I will write about here remains to be seen.. So let the journey begin!!
