Finally! I'm done!

Took my first decision without re-thinking and going, "What if"? Yay!

What-if's are endless and that's how we screw up decisions ... So no more of those! What would make me happy? Where do I see myself now? in a few years?

1) Travelling, working and staying outside India for a while to earn my moolah, experiencing life on my own, living on my own terms, in an open, expansive environment.

2) Doing something related to kids and music.

3) Working hard in a job I like, to fuel what I want to do.

How does marriage and settling down feed into all of this?

1) It's a beautiful phase to commit\settle\live with someone who shares ideals, values and a similar outlook with you on life.

2) Gone are the days when it was THE thing for a woman to do, keeping all else aside.

3) Yes we have biological clocks ticking, but what would we do, producing kids out of a loveless marriage?

4) Do doing these duties certainly guarantee a certificate or award of commitment or fulfillment for a woman?

These are some slightly unsettling thoughts which had been gut-punching me for a while. I'm done processing each of these, pros and cons, looking at various angles to weed out those irrelevant to me, and have only kept those which are relevant.

Forces you to think ... Really.

Of broken hearts, mended souls and manacled minds ...
It's been a hell of a crazy week. I've seen the worst of heartbreaks happen to a close friend from work, and I don't mean to swear the air Blue, putting the Irish to shame, but I figured out what the hell the word 'Mind fucked' means ... (Thank you Mon, for that term, leveraging it from your collection of prized phrases). It's when two people communicate, one seeing roses and starlight, building glittering marble castles on rainbows, with stardust picket fences, and unicorns as pets (simulating the characteristic Labrador), whereas the other sees pleasurable company, someone to vent and talk to, and a 'distraction' whilst their best of interests and most treasured dreams bloom to life. So, who's to lose, and who's to win here when one's ready to quit and move on, and the other's still dreaming?

This blog is dedicated to this friend mentioned above and of course, for reasons obvious, names will be concealed.

Unfortunately, she loved her castles on rainbowed stairways and the other person did'nt. Hmmmm, an author rightly put it, women are definitely from Venus and men are from Mars. I got a bitter dose of that in the past 3 days and learnt a lesson. Rather re-learnt a bitter lesson from seeing this friend crumble. I mean literally crumble. Never believe a man who does'nt speak his mind. Plus always make sure you;re on the same page and truly synched up. Watch what priorities are all about ... Never be an option to someone and make them your priority. Never works that way. Phew!

Lesson learnt, information assimilated, and moved on! Not easy, because we're human, (and women to top it all!), and tears drop, at the drop of a hat. I could've collected buckets (or like you said, Mon, "She did Ganga-Jamuna-Saraswathi all over me!").

After seeing this happen to a friend, after nearly losing my life in a freak accident, and after getting shockers otherwise, my next steps ... and Mon and D-chechi, this is for you:

1) STOP being negative! The world's my oysters and is filled with wonderful people waiting to meet with, and take on life with.
2) Focus on priorities and decisions keeping my life in mind. We can all afford to be a bit selfish sometimes.
3) Write the GMAT. (I are'nt getting a bloody date! I hate Prometric!). :-D
4) Give up, whole heartedly and peacefully, the idea of losing my singledom ... Atleast for the next year or two. The idea of meeting people (essentially checklists), with hope and a whole lot of optimism, sounds positively deja vu and makes me nauseous. Topmost on my list of things to avoid ...
6) Do NOT bitch about incidents or people- it's over and done with. Or else leads to bitterness and cynicism.
6) Stay calm. Life's a lot more than we make it out to be.
7) QUIT work.
8) Travel more.
9) Courage, strength, light, calm, determination, desire and focus- imbibe!
To Ti, M, Mon, D- chechi, K, Niv and R- one of the hottest mommies I know- Thank you!

Thankful for a wonderful family, supportive and encouraging friends and an amazing brat of a brother for practising normalcy and acting like nothing ever happened ("So what if your car tyre is bent, get another!"), and that the world revolved around the Sun, which rose again brilliantly, calm, serene, melting away traces of yesterday, vaporising tears of last night, and for building us another rainbow stairway. Destination- set. Journey- measured. And it begins ...

It's crazy how life sometimes brings you to crossroads with a multitude of options to choose from, but there's just one you'd like to pick, and the stakes are highest there! What would you do? Especially if it involved more than one life (ok, it's life and death, but not literal). There are some things in life which cannot merit a pro vs Con listing. It's simply THERE, a risk to take, a chance to gain from, the danger oif losing, and so on. It's almost like a game of 'Snakes and ladders'. You roll the dice with bated breath and stop breathing from the time the dice leave your hand and till they hit the table\floor. Then what? :-)

I guess it's a bit of fear as well. Someone once said that man will always fear what he does'nt understand ... That's why we'd rather avoid someone we can't "peg" as a certain type, or we fear certain situations which we know or we think we can't handle or control. This, is one of those ... And the next few days are certainly going to be a challenge ... To maintain dignity and sanity, and hoping for a positive outcome! :-) Bated breath and prayer beads in hand!

It's tougher being someone like me I guess. We're habitated to think first, of others, loved ones, doing a 360 degree analysis of the consequences of our decisions, and then thinking of ourselves before taking any kind of decisions. I'm not being boastful but it's just how and who we are ... Not risk takers, preferring the road more often travelled than the one less travelled, and one which offers the least of surprises (pleasant and unpleasant). Trying hard to change that.
'Cause like a close friend said to me today,"You're given just one life. Even in that, if you try and live only for others and not for yourself, what, truly, would you have achieved? In your own eyes?". True, ain't it? So from tomorrow, I'll make my own mistakes, take my own risks and chances, and make the most of any damn opportunity that shows up, like a guest, invited or not.
:-)