As expected he went to bed early last night and I joined about an hour late. When I got into the bed his back was turned towards me. Then after tossing for some time I put my arm around him and hugged him; because I love him a lot....

It has been five years since I requested him to clear his study room. Every birthday of mine, I would ask him for only one present – to clear this room. And till date it has never happened.

Now I believe five years is enough time for some one to clear-out a 10ft x 6ft space. But no, not where it concerns him; he needs to hang on to old bus passes, books which he bought in his fifth grade, love letters that his first girlfriend gave him and magazines that he purchased as a college student. Alright so I am not exactly the type of person who hangs on to the past, no make that I NEVER hang on to my past – past is something that I erase conveniently especially if it is no longer required for my present.

If past were just memories, I can understand that, but when past becomes clutter and that too clutter in MY house, I just cannot stand it. In fact clutter of any kind makes me go crazy. Yeah go on call me an OCD of some sort and I won’t deny it. What do you want me to do? Go to some shrink and moan that I can’t phantom living with my husband because he doesn’t keep the study room clean? HIS study room clean?

Now let’s just broaden the situation a bit more – when there’s video tapes and more video tapes in the living room (yes he is in the process of converting it all into DVDs!!), there’s books and paper cuttings in the kitchen and the guest cupboard gets converted to yet another storage unit – I tell you my blood just gets boiling.

I am sorry, but compromise in a marriage is acceptable only when one can remain sane with what’s required to be done. Every weekend as I dust and clean the house, I kill a part of myself. There are just too many things to be done and I am not allowed to do as I please.

Why can’t he be like my father? He left everything concerning the house to my mom? That was her territory and she did as she pleased........

On Comments

It took a comment from 45 mins for me to actually remember that I had a blog and one that I had wanted to update often.

Anyway back to the blog and why I went off it.

Not sure whether anyone read the comment on my previous post, but here it goes:
"What kind of mother leaves her son in another country for a man???? And at an age when he needs his mother? You disgust me. You are a pathetic excuse for a mother."

I can’t put into words my first reaction to those lines. I remember laughing for a few seconds. But it was a laugh that accompanies a certain redundant pain. Yeah sure I live away from my son and while it is not an ideal situation, it is something that hurts me just as much as it hurts my son. Hey no one says that life is fair. And to think that a stranger, living somewhere could pass a remark about my situation without having a damn clue about anything was beyond me.

That whole day I spent more time thinking of “anonymous” than even about my son. I felt sorry for this person really. DH and I debated for a while who could write something like this – a man or a woman. I said a man – a woman would be more sympathetic to my situation. DH said a woman – because a man would never be so spiteful in such a bitchy manner! In the end we both agreed that anonymous had a lot of unresolved issues, was someone who could have been abandoned / cheated by a loved person etc etc. And the only way they could possibly handle their frustration was to write mean comments on other’s blogs. He / she didn’t even have the balls to put a random name for the fear of being identified! It must be so awful being in the shoes of “anonymous”.

Coming back to comments in general – there are certain things that I feel so strongly about. Some times I too read certain blogs and I have comments coming out of my ears. But these have never been in a spiteful way, I might want to give some unsolicited advice, write about how I would handle a situation ... but that’s where I stop. Who am I to judge you? Who am I to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong? Who am I in the whole scheme of “your” world? I guess it take a bit of understanding and maturity when you are peeking into other’s lives and judging them.

Some of you may ask me why I didn’t just delete this comment instead of publishing it. Yeah I could have done that – but where’s the thrill of giving “anonymous” a piece of my mind. Where’s the thrill of getting this whole thing off my chest?

Phew.... now that felt good. And thanks 45 mins for waking me up.

Where's The Time?

Last week I had, a friend from college-days, come over from Nigeria and it was like a mini reunion with another friend from Reading joining in for dinner at Weybridge. We shared the usual stories on who was doing what, got married when and had how many kids. Some where along the conversation it dawned on us that the last time we had met was seventeen years back. Almost makes you gasp, not at the passage of time, but that you are seventeen years older since then. The thought that went through my mind was more like you mean if a kid was born the day we left college he / she would be seventeen years old (nearly an adult) and its minor things like that which I find difficult to mentally digest.

Now that I will turn thirty eight this year, I feel somehow I should be mature, more responsible and all that stuff which one normally assumes one’s parents to be. But I feel none of that. When my mom was thirty eight I was nineteen. She seemed so grown –up and had mummy-looks. Does that mean, I have mummy / aunty type looks now? Have I aged just like my mom? Not that I care much about developing wrinkles and having grey hair, but I can’t seem to find any of these on me.

Some times I even get overwhelmed with a sense of restlessness. This bank holiday weekend I wanted to spring clean my entire home. Fact is that I just got the kitchen done, but there is a sense of helplessness that I have not done enough.

To me, it seems there is not much time in a day. I have so many things to do, so many things to accomplish..... and so less time to do it.

On The Work Front

Once in a while you come up with the vaguest and most unrealistic career progression plan. It’s all about jumping that one step without really walking the whole way through. I handle so much of work and I mean responsible work that I can almost feel it in my bones – feel the need for a promotion. Now whether what I feel will translate into reality is a different matter all together.

Now about this vague idea – it too complicated to explain over here but anyone hearing it would definitely think that I was going cuckoo – it was just too ambitious and I don’t think people really picture me that way. I needed an objective opinion about it and called this guy in Geneva who I knew from my Dubai days. I just had to know what he thought about it. Well talking about dampening someone’s enthusiasm – that’s exactly what he did. But I am glad that someone brought me back to earth rather than me discussing this vague ambitious plan with my boss.

Tomorrow I am going to have a mini work-review with my boss. Hopefully she is going to tell me that my current role is scoped for the next level of promotion. If not I will have to look around. I have been with this company for so long (not that long just 9 years!!) that I really do not know how the world is outside for someone who is searching for a job. Sometimes it’s not enough to just do well working in multinational company where you know you have a stable job. I don’t know whether this is some sort of a mid-life crisis; but I jus feel like living some new experiences, go through some highs and thrills and feel good about myself.

Having One of Those Moments During My Exams

I have had very few hold-on-to-that-moment sorts of experiences. Yes having my son is foremost and then successfully manoeuvring M25, on a cold snowy January night two days after I landed in the UK, with DH who doesn’t drive! For those who don’t know M25 is a busy mother-of-a-motorway in the UK.

But it happened again, a few days back; well during my exams to be precise. I have been procrastinating this for so long; in fact I had almost given up hope of ever completing my MBA. Can you believe it? I couldn’t get myself to sit for the exams and I spent four long years pondering over it. I guess it was fear that stopped me – the fear of failure when you know that your husband’s ex-wife is an MBBS, MD, MRCPath and a PhD from Oxford there is very little that you can do to even come close to appearing intellectual to your husband. Not that it mattered to DH in any way, but being the super competitive bitch that I am, I made those mental connections a bit too early in our relationship.

I didn’t want to do what she did. My purpose of getting married to DH was not to come to the UK and pursue my studies. That’s what she did and I didn’t want to take the similar route. If you go through my previous posts you’ll see that I had many other silly hang ups that prevented me from continuing with my studies.

So what happened during those exams?? I lost my FEAR....yes that’s right...fear of failure and for once I felt so liberated as if I had gained some age old wisdom. In the greater scheme of things nothing other than my wishes matter. Who cares what ex-wife has done, who cares how she treated DH...right? As long as DH knows that I am not taking advantage of him and as long as I am pursuing my dreams....who cares what happened in the past?

I started enjoying my lessons and with just 24 hour gaps between each exam I felt so disappointed that I hadn’t let myself enjoy the course to its fullest. Damn I had wasted so much of time worrying!! Now that’s all in the past. I know I did well in those three modules and I have another six more to complete before I graduate. And now, I just know that I will do it...that I will complete this course and not just complete, I will pass with flying colours..........

This is the last of my posts about my course. I guess I have moaned about it a bit too much!!

For anonymous

Now this post is for anonymous who left two messages (this person must really like my blog. Perhaps my only follower??).

Yes I did get pressurised into writing four posts in a row. Have no mood to study at all and thought of keeping someone pleased. Enjoy and pass on your comments.