An Invisible Boundary

 A boundary defines a line drawn between two entities. And this is the same boundary that I am talking about in terms of relationships. A relationship in which a women enters after a marriage. Yes, a boundary between her and his family.

I am a married woman. In these years of my marriage I have realized that today also, in Indian culture, women has to live in divide and rule culture. A culture where after marriage a women has to cut off majorly from her family, from her parents. Every time a women has to struggle for a decision whom to choose, his family or her family. And most of the times, a woman has to go with HIS family. And that's the saddest part I want to pen down here.

Its been 1 month that I moved to my family's town. Its been after 12 years of my life that I am staying closer to my family. But still unfortunately I am far away from them. I want to share my experience and one of the situation that I faced.

2nd October, my nephew turned 5 months old. Due to lockdown, I didn't even see him when he was born and didn't get a chance to express my love towards him. On 2nd October, there was a chance to be happy and do a get together with my family on this happy day when my nephew was stepping into his 6th month. Its is so good to see your kid growing every day. I was very much excited to be there with my family along with my in laws family. They all were cordially invited for this small gathering to celebrate together and be together. They with all gratitude invited my in laws family. In fact my father did turn up to take all of us along. But my father in law denied going with him and in front of him said " We all will come in evening. " I said OK and asked my dad to leave by giving him a confirmation that we will come in evening and I will carry a cake too. While leaving my dad said , " You all get clothes and stay one night with them". I knew my husband will deny it. Thus, I didn't reply to his request. I entered home and my father in law told me that my husband i.e. his son won't be able to stay there at night given current running health conditions. The actual reason was that he was not comfortable staying there. I straight forwardly asked him that, and he had no answer and started smiling. I knew they won't stay. I was OK with it. But this time at least I was in a notion that he will come along to my house in evening. That day my husband had to go for his medical treatment and thus, was expected to join us for the gathering little late. But this time, my family was eagerly waiting for my father in law to be part of this gathering. 

Now, it was around 1pm when my father in law started making reasons of not going to my house. He now made a reason that he will go with my husband to hospital. He knew very well that a medical treatment will end by 8:30 PM and they will reach my house by 9:30 PM or 9:45 PM. And, I am sure this is not the evening timings. There was no requirement of him joining my husband for his treatment and if it was, he should have denied joining my family gathering in evening to my father. And to add on, this event was organized given we all were available that day, especially my father in law and myself, given a national holiday. And there was a small reason to be part of their happiness which they wanted to celebrate with me and my in laws family.

This was not the first time he did this way. It has been since start, the day when we all met to discuss about my marriage. He used to call my family and say, he is coming today to discuss about marriage thing. But then in evening we used to get a call, that he is not coming. He did this, 4 times initially. And this behavior pissed us off.

The worst part of this incident on 2nd October was that it was pre-informed to him and he never denied on that day. The day it was an event, he started making stories.

This time I wanted to be there with my family because I was living these moments after such a long time, a family event. But he made every thing flow in water. Being a women, it won't look good that I go to my house without them, given my family was waiting for all of them. They were looking forward to meet my father in law and share their happiness with him. And the end of the story was that they had to do this event without me. I took a harsh step and had to call them and say that we won't be able to make up. They understood that my in laws family was avoiding being there. And I was shattered. I felt that after marriage girl's emotions totally gets thrashed and her happiness being part of even small happiness of her family doesn't make sense to her in laws.

I am sure, the emotional stress through which I am going through, my parents are also sailing in same boat. They badly want to be with me and see me be part of their every small happiness as a family. But, this behavior from my in laws is building a boundary between my family and his family.

A series of such events has led to me not trust my in laws and now I am finding out ways to go alone and be with my parents. I know they won't like this, but due to my current situations I want to be with them too. Because the emotional trauma that I and my husband are going through, can be discussed with my parents only. All my emotions can be freely discussed with them. 

Current situations and behavior has led me to be emotionally weak and silent. I am not able to share any of my feeling with anyone around me, not even my husband. 

And I am "Sad High"

Oh no you guys are thinking wrong. I am not drunk. I feel we don't need a drink to express ourselves. We need to be high on life. And today I am "Sad High". Thus, want to share my feelings here.

I believe this lockdown has given us good enough time to look at ourselves, our loved ones and introspect. Its been long I have been feeling depressed and low. I feel I am struggling hard in my life. Sometimes I feel tired of trying also. My body and mind is restless and feel tired.

I have been juggling with lot of thoughts in my mind nowadays which makes me restless. Somewhere I feel I am living with a fear in my mind of losing my loved one. All these past 3 years I have been struggling in bringing in better stable life. But at last I feel I have given up. And this feeling of giving up makes me restless. My brain pops out of pain bombarding with a thought of hurdles that I might have to face in future. And I feel I would never feel settled. I also possess a dream of building of beautiful house, have small cute kids, loving husband and healthy life for them. I am a personality who try to balance career and family. I wanna grow well in my career to keep me financially safe and give best to my family. I never think that my husband will buy a beautiful house for me. I myself want to build that house. But thinking about kids, that gives me goosebumps. I really feel that my future could be a great mess. My husband might need full time assistance and care from me. I always feel that I don't want to bring a life on this earth, if I feel I might be overburdened in handling responsibilities that I have. I want to be a best mom, but I cannot see myself creating a mess for a life when I know my life could be tough. I want to give a comfortable life to that small soul. But I have a fear that this fairy tale is not possible. Somewhere, back in my mind I know that my life is tough and with all the circumstances that I have to go through, that small soul will have to go through tough times. And thus, this fear tell me not to think of motherhood and this breaks my heart and tears drop down my eyes.

This lockdown, I felt energetic initially, tried lot of things. But now I feel exhausted. I feel my fear of living is draining the battery of my body and my mind. I never feel happy. My brain always passes stressed thoughts through my nervous system. It totally drains out my energy and I am restless during my sleeps. Every morning, I don't feel like waking up. Sometimes, I really feel if this morning won't have been there. I am not complaining about my better half. He is my soul. He is a kid to me. And literally he is childish in nature. And I want to spend my life for him, on him and for his betterment. I feel I can't afford in bringing a new life which would take my attention away from my better half. He always brings smile to my face. But I am worried and tensed for him. He tells me to express. I did. But it didn't help. And honestly I tried all means to bring him a better life. But now I feel helpless. I can't see any other route to adopt in front of me. The path that I have chosen now, seems to be very difficult and full of fears.

I feel like sitting on beach at night and look at stars all alone. I am looking for peace and rest for my mind and body.

Life during Lockdown

This blog I am writing with respect to our lives in current situation of COVID - 19 lockdown. Presently, everyone is struggling with the pandemic virus going around us. And I know its tough time. But definitely, this lockdown is much needed in order to Stay Safe. And with this lot of our lives has also changed.

This lockdown landed us in a situation of being totally involved into household work and managing family along with our professional work. No maids and caretakers to do our household activities and the situation demands being very careful and stay hygienic. The situation demands full care of your house and staying virus free and eating healthy. And that demands doing household work yourself. We need to clean our house, cook food and manage our professional work too. Definitely, it has piled up more work for us to do and stress. The add on to our responsibilities might be taking toll on lot of our lives, especially, those who do not have any support.

All in our family have taken back seat and going the same. Sleeping properly, enjoying and managing their professional work. But on the other hand we as a women are struggling in managing home with professional work. Its lot stressful. Phewww!!

Everyday that same routine work is hitting our head and body. The mind is over burdened and feel exhausted. The mind blows out when you see your family people holding high expectations out of you in such situation and not coming forward helping you out.

We as a women, do our best to take care of our family and protect them from all problems around. We fight on daily basis and are multi-tasking. Handling household work and on same hand managing professional work is challenging. It sometimes leads to frustration and disappointment. It also impacts our health, but we cannot give up.

We have to do this and try our best to fight is this situation. Its Women who holds such strength and patience of handling situations. We all give up on our personal liking, and struggle on daily basis to meet our family expectations along with professional area. But we are the fighters and never give up!! The time will pass and you will have a smile on your face when you will see that you fought well with this situation and protected your family with this bad situation. We ourselves will pat on our back and stop thinking that there is no one to listen to you.

If you feel stressed, write out here. 

Dilemma of Saying "NO"

I proudly say that I made to one of the most famous social platform "https://www.feedspot.com/" as Top 100 Women Blogs. I heartily thank you everyone to appreciate it. For more detail, you all can refer to https://blog.feedspot.com/women_blogs/. In fact, this achievement motivates me to write more about "Womenhood" and never say "NO" to writing and expressing myself through this means.

There has been lot of stages in women's life, where, they said "NO" to there wants , needs , likes and opportunities. In addition, in their daily life they struggle in saying "NO" to their loved one's. We all struggle in lot of situations, with a dilemma of saying "NO". I myself experience it on daily basis and struggle with it.

"NO" in itself holds a big meaning. It needs courage to say "NO" in many situations. Today, I want to express one of my experience here which always make me land into hurdles. 

Everyday I have to fight with saying "NO" to my loved one in a situation where I want to stop him from taking wrong steps like unhealthy eating. My husband is foodie. He loves food and craves for it. Unfortunately, he needs to follow a restricted diet. I know that is sad. A person loves eating but can't eat. Everyday, its a challenge that I face of reminding him of not to eat anything unhealthy. And honestly, saying "NO", when he is craving for it, is a biggest challenge. Being a human , if we stop anyone too much and restrict them, they tend to get irritated and frustrated. And ultimately, that irritation and frustration comes out on your loved one's. But sometimes its also makes your relationship weak. Yes, it is very difficult to tackle such situations. Most of the times it ends up in a fight.

Many times it does happen, that we feel helpless and upset, when we are not successful in stopping our loved one's from doing wrong thing. Our mind runs into multiple directions and feels dull and confused. When such challenges takes a direction of frustration, helplessness and tender relationships, it makes you weak and difficult to cope up. In fact, we give up and start moving into opposite direction. Unfortunately, that is leading to more complexities ahead of you.

In above situation, that I go through on daily basis, my brain gets tired of thinking how to handle such situation, that too on daily basis. An emotional side of my brain is connected to that person and feels upset about him. Whereas, practical side of my brain forces me to STOP him and say NO, because I know a wrong step today is piling up challenges for us in future. A healthy living is much needed out here, and one small step towards unhealthy areas, can makes us land up in bad situations. Everyday, this struggle of my life makes me feel tired and it does happen, I totally give up. But I am connected to that person, and ultimately cannot leave him like this. 

Although, I am still struggling to find solutions to it and existing into mess presently. But trying my best to find a solution to handle it in a better way. In fact, looking forward for you guys to tell me, how we can creatively say "NO" and work towards the best.

Emotional or Practical?

Last evening, while talking to one of my relative, I had a discussion on people being more practical nowadays instead of being an emotional person. In today's time, majority of people make decisions more practically rather than emotionally. Especially, in terms of relationships. But I am an exception to this.

My relationships has always been on more emotions and less practicality. My strength is that I believe in making others happy. I am happy when I stand by a person irrespective of bullet proof facts and figures.

I know, there are very less people left out there, thinking the same. But I also know that everyone in this world made a decision emotionally rather than being practical, at least once in their life. I don't know about the end result, but yes it is good to make decisions emotionally sometimes, assuming some good qualities of the counterpart.

I believe there are lot of women out there, who married a person irrespective his financial status, physical health, education and much more. There are lot of women who leave their jobs once they become a mother, because they are emotionally connected to their child now. There are lot more decisions like this, made by women in their life. Women are strong and they believe in giving their life to other person. For them, the life is people with whom they are connected. They believe in relationships and putting their best towards it.

Every morning is a new morning for a women. Each day the thought starts with planning a day for her family. She firstly thinks of doing work related to her family and then if she gets time and still holds energy, thinks about her task list. My morning also starts with it. Every morning I list down the tasks to be done by me for my family. But these thoughts holds lot of "ifs" and "buts". Like what should I serve for breakfast? If I prepare this, he might not like it. But it's healthy for him. Once I am done with this fight in my brain and successfully prepare it, side by side the thoughts are running about Lunch preparation. With that, other thoughts in relation to ordering the household things, washing clothes and much more. And if you are a working women, it piles up more. A women brain is multi-tasking. It keeps on working day in and day out. It never stops its thought process.
I experienced that a women works hard both physically and mentally. The stress levels are high. And if you notice here, all thoughts and decisions are made being emotional. She is emotionally connected to her family and cares about them.

We all most of the times make Emotionally dominating decisions, whether we agree or not. But at the back of our mind its emotions which makes us take all these decisions. And honestly, emotionally made decisions needs much more strength to sail your boat.

I Am Not Perfect Too !!

We always pat on our back whenever we successfully handle one of the mess on our plate. We think we are perfect. But the wind changes and lands up another mess on your plate. I am not saying that the life is demotivating or full of hurdles always. I am saying nothing is perfect. I as an individual is also not perfect.

We all have internal struggles and personal challenges. Perfection is a goal that will forever remain impossible for any human being to achieve.

But I as a women see an expectation in other's eyes. It starts with a story being a teenage girl to a wife and to being a mom. At every stage of womenhood, we are expected to be "Perfect". A small mistake points a finger on our character, on our identity and there are lot of them around us, who will let us down for all these mistakes, each and every moment of your life.

Everyone has a history. Everyone must have done some mistake in their lives. Irrespective, a women is always seen as a pot full of mistakes, although the number of mistakes actually done are few in number.

When I got married, my in laws family had an expectation that I will take care of my husband well being, his health and his happiness. But why do they forget that its been just a short period of time that I am with him. His nature of attraction towards any thing that harms him and his health will not go so easily. In this course of life, they will never change their behavior of conduct instead. For them he is still a kid, and continue serving what is not prescribed and say with a big smile, "Its Love". Damn!! Please grow up. And now if his health deteriorates, I am always expected to push him to eat healthy, focus on his lifestyle and bla bla bla. They expect me to be perfect in handling this. But how?? If I do not get any support from his family and people around him, how could I really make it happen.

And this is just one experience. I have a long list of them. Honestly, being a human I also get tired, I also have emotions and get hurt. But still I try to do as much as possible. Start a day with a shout and go to bed with a shout. Always making me realize, I am just imperfect!!

Sadly, Imperfection is a mirror what is shown to me each and every day. But fact is no one is perfect. I am also not perfect. We women just work hard day in and day out to make things perfect for our loved one's. And yes sometimes, we do make few mistakes. But all our good doings cannot takeover such a small mistake.

I believe there are lot of women out there reading this and thinking about their moments of other people letting them down. Feel free to express here.

A Big Question Mark??

We all listen to, "Women are equal to Men". But is that true? 

We do live in 21st Century, but still there are lot of women out there, who are struggling. Either they are tortured physically or mentally. I believe still there is a big question mark about women respect and comfort.  

Today I am starting writing about this life from my viewpoint. I am here to express what I feel and what experiences I hold. My motive to write this blog is to give a platform to those women who are not able to express themselves anywhere. I want everyone to open up and feel free to express. Here, there is no one to judge you. Feel free to bring your heart out here.

Many times I felt that I am alone. I have no one around me to whom I can express myself. There is a web of fear which stops me to speak out. A fear of express exists!! And this leads to mental torture. I feel dull and feel like shutting my mouth for always. There has been always a confusion in my mind of expressing things. I always think, "Should I talk to my parents?", "Should I talk to my husband?" or "Should I talk to my best friend?". But these question marks, never turns up to any answer. 

If I go to my parents, they will become tense and finally say, "you are a girl, you need to adjust". 

If I go to my husband, he will run on his assumptions and try to prove me wrong as always. And finally the conversation will end up in big shout, again hitting my mind. Because I have a fear of people raising loud voice and always shouting.

If I go to my best friend who lives in The United States, she might give me an emotional support but then if a person whom I am expressing about gets to know about it, will again let me down and shout...

We all struggle in some or the other way. Sometimes, we have to be quiet to save our relationships, We easily forgive a person who did a mistake but eventually tortured us mentally. We don't hold any right to say, "We are sad today and thus can't smile." But no you have to forcefully, because ultimately a discussion will prove that I am upset because I only did something wrong. 

Emotions are like that. Few of them speak out, few express by faces and few just display a question mark on their face which says, "Their neural network is also confused, and do not know what to say and what to express." But yes it knows that it is hurt. And getting out of that and giving a smile will take little time. In these moments we feel like crying loudly, but mind you there, you don't have right to that also.

With that, I believe there are lot of women out there are trapped in a web of this fear and struggling to express themselves. Please speak up here, it might help!! Because honestly, I am feeling light heart after expressing few of my feelings out here.

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