Sex Stuff

Some home truths about sex.

It is open to a wide variety of interpretations. That completely depends on you and your partner. And each of you may have a different take on it, in which case, God help you. It could or could not be a lot of things.

Commitment. A bribe. A transfer of respect. A power game. Love.

Then there are things that have got nothing (or should not be allowed to have anything) to do with it. Whatsoever.

Good looks. Religion. Rebellion. Alcohol & drugs.

It hurts. A lot. Physically, sometimes. Emotionally too. But most of all, in what a surprise it is. There’s much that you never understood, no matter how many books you’ve read, how many conversations you’ve been a part of. There’s much that will surprise you, no matter how much you’ve already had before. And anybody, anytime has the potential to surprise you. That surprise is not always a good thing, even if the sex is. You never realize just how much of your belief system is founded on certain assumptions of sex and sexuality, until they’re broken.

Everybody has a problem with sex. This is because everyone has problems. And it boils down to this. It’s a fundamental need, for one. But it is also the most fundamental way in which we relate to each other. It’s practically the building block of civilization. We spend our lives trying to figure out how to deal with life and to journey through the madness that is each other. How could those problems not turn up in our sex?

Sex (Photo credit: danielito311)

These problems do not mean that sex will not be pleasurable. But there’s much that gets released other than key fluids during the most intimate act two human beings can share (apart from childbirth). Fears, repressed notions, hidden states of being – yes they’re all in there imprisoned inside you. And guess what, with sex, you’ve gone and peeped into the dungeons. You may even let one or two escape by mistake. And that’s problematic.

These problems don’t go away by having more sex. Or by having sex with a different person. Or sex in a different way. Or with having sex at all (if you haven’t before). Or for that matter, abstaining from sex. You’re going to have to figure out the best way to deal with those problems and not let your sex life become a problem as well.

Stuff happens when you have sex. Something shifts within. Some things get released and other things take their place. You feel better for awhile. Scientists tell us that’s endorphins. You may go through the gamut of guilt, shame, fear, wonder, awe, affection, confusion. If you don’t feel anything at all, then you’ve got the MOTHER of all problems. Please see a doctor and sort it out. This problem may be the worst STD of all.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of a bad experience relating to sex (peer pressure, abuse, rape), then that experience is going to stay with you. It would be comforting to hear that everything will get sorted out and you’ll never remember it again. That’s a lie. The truth of violation or violence or both will never be erased. It will be there with you, right in your bed with the blankets and sheets and the other person. But, as with every other fear, you can learn to live with it and not be stopped by it. Yes, this is possible but don’t make the mistake of expecting that life will deliver that justice to you on a platter. It won’t. As unjust as the past may have been, it will still, unfortunately, be up to you to get past it and build a better world for you to live in.

Never let somebody else’s judgement, morality or ideas cloud your ideas of sex. It’s just not worth it. Taking on someone else’s notions is like throwing a little carbon monoxide into an already foggy, smoky place. Also remember that as a member of this society, certain things are defined as legal, ethical and decent. Be aware of those boundaries and for your own sake, respect them. But inside your mind, run free because if you don’t, you’ll inevitably lapse outside and that’ll be a lot worse.

It’s not really that different from life. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not worth the price. You pretty much won’t know for sure till it’s all over so try to relax and enjoy it.

A World Of Pain

A thick sheet of plastic over a boiling cauldron of black, festering poison. That’s me. A year – that’s how long it takes to grow this.

I’ve been in a strange mood all month. I lost the entire month of February, being unwell, asleep and drifting in disoriented confusion through questions like,

“What are you going to do next?”

I don’t know and I don’t even know to explain how or why that is the case. Having been a burning force of desire all my life – bottomless want for a goal, an object, a person’s affections, an intangible like attention – has driven me and taken me to achievement as well as over the disappointment of not achieving. Now, I just feel empty. Desireless is dead, as far as I’m concerned.

But today somebody asked me, in a way that I had to answer because I knew the answer and I couldn’t lie,

“How are you?”

And all at once that non-biodegradable, suffocating sheet of plastic formed a little hole and a stream of blackish hurt came oozing out. I talked and talked. And he replied, stopping only when he saw a tear ooze out of my right eye. So I continued talking.

I’m so angry. I’m so, so angry.

I’m angry at myself for having being compassionate and kind and loving to somebody who only treated me with condescension, hostility and cruelty. I’m angry at the utter coldness that must have fueled this big tamasha that was done only to buy my silence for a few months more. I’m angry at the sheer viciousness that plotted setting me up in order to dump me publicly in the most humiliating, debilitating way possible.

I’m raging at so-called friends who shut me up by lecturing me on dignified silences, on the crassness of public whining and the censorship of my writing. I’m burning at the faceless groups of people who banded together with him, making my utter humiliation complete.

I’m seething at the roles of strength and endurance and patience and forgiveness and maturity that I’ve been forced into playing. I’m screaming at the gag orders, the handcuffs, the closed doors on and to my pain and expression.

I’m bursting with shame and indignation and fury at the thought of him speaking for women’s rights, against violence towards women, against homophobia. I’m biting on my tongue and choking back the bile when I hear about the accolades that his art gets when he performs ideas that I fought to bring into his consciousness, even words that were mine that he’s mouthing. So shamelessly. So remorselessly. So much without a conscience.

I’m beaten into submission by the sheer irony of life. A year to the day, he’s out celebrating accolades for something I first pushed him into pursuing. And surprise, surprise – it’s an event in honour of Women’s Rights. Life, you make me want to slit my wrists right now.

Is there no justice in the world? And if there isn’t, damn you for wanting me to crusade but only politely, for wanting me to champion causes being hypocritically championed by such offenders, for wanting me to be the Stepfordian crusader even as I bleed. Damn every single one of you.

I am in a world of pain, that’s how I am.

It’s not a fling if it’s not something you can just throw away

You’ve got to be really broken, tiny, so miniscule you barely at exist, to be able to do that. And if it’s something that you let happen because it was comforting, healing even, it’s brought you back to life. You’re not incomplete, you’re healthy and breathing and alive again. And so you can’t stop yourself feeling. Gratitude and pleasure and joy and tickled and comforted and happy. Now, try throwing that away.

Whew, who knew that having fun could be so much effort?

Post-Breakup Custody Battles

You take a look around and mentally divide everything you see in half. You color code, (all in your head of course) what’s indisputably yours and what’s their’s. And finally, you get to what’s yours collectively and groan mentally at the difficult conversation you’re going to endure. They’re very likely doing the same thing too. Or one of you may just throw up your hands in despair and say,

“Whatever, you take it all.”

…which makes the other one seethe at how indifferent that is so they throw out something equally noble sounding like,

“No, I don’t really care about it.”

…leaving the ‘either’ unsaid.

More deadends. It does all get divided up somehow, even if it’s just a matter of who manages to pack what and to hell with the packers who found a few bonus gifts with what neither side had the nerve to discuss.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~

Yes, I went through that. I sucked in my breath, pulled back my tears and dove in in the manner of pulling off a band-aid. And when it was done, I told myself, I’d let myself feel the pain of it all. I completely forgot (again) how life resists systematic inventorying.

Image via Luigi Diamanti on Free Digital Photos.

Do you know what’s the most difficult thing to divide? It’s also the most precious thing and subsequently the cause for the most unresolved ugliness. The worst thing to have to fight over after a relationship breaks, is other people’s affections. Divorce gets all its scare-power from the ugliness of child custody battles. But what about other relationships and well, everyone else? Our relationships exist within a larger network of friendships, other couples and social circles. The disintegration of a single relationship tears the larger social fabric. It’s painful on everyone concerned and  there’s no easy, clean way around it.

There’s enough of pop wisdom floating around, that’s liberally mouthed by every person caught in this situation, the warring exes, their families, friends, colleagues. But the truth of the matter is, they’re inadequate, which is why the problems happen in the first place. I think it’s completely impractical to try and stay friends with two people who’ve parted ways. One or both of them is going to feel slighted. You will become just one more thing they fight over. If you really care about each of them, pick a side and stick to it.

I know this will seem unfair, but consider this, it’s not. Human relationships are not factory-produced goods. Each one is unique and relevant to you in a different way. This is a situation where two such relationships (friendship with each estranged partner) cannot co-exist. Forcing them to do so will bring poison into both relationships. So figure out which one is more important or relevant or easier for you and go with it.

I’ve been on both sides of this obviously, the estranged partner as well as the friend. As a friend, I admit it’s been a difficult experience. I once set up two people together – one was a close friend, the other as good as a brother to me. When they broke up, I could see both of them were in pain and I knew if I tried to juggle both friendships, I’d only be causing both of them even more pain. So I picked one, the girl, on the premise that she and I had known each other longer. I don’t know whether the guy saw that as betrayal  on my part or not but at least I took a stand. I spared him the agony of wondering, of questioning whether what he shared in confidence might not be betrayed to someone who was now a bitter foe, of thinking I might not always firmly be on his side because my loyalty was divided between him and someone who was on the opposite side now. That is the poison I’m talking about. I believe that whatever friendship we had was pure as long as we were friends and ended before suspicion, accusation and bitterness could seep in. I believe that was being a good friend.

The past three months have been rife with such situations for me, post-breakup. The saving grace is that most people were easily sorted into ‘his friends’ and ‘my friends’. As a conscious act, I put a barrier between his friends and me. I deleted them from my social networks. One of them called me to tell me how sorry she was to hear about the break-up and that she’d be willing to provide a listening ear if I needed it. I (very) regretfully declined and told her that would make it just too messy. That was hard, it really was because I liked her so much. It was hard for me letting go of his best friend too; we got along so well. But fair is fair and a best friend is a best friend – a relationship not to be touched.

I wish things could be done as cleanly by everyone else but I’m not the only one in this whole situation. Xion and I didn’t speak for weeks because of this. We’ve sorted out our differences now. But still, I spent the first, most painful and vulnerable times post-breakup without my closest friend during the relationship.

I had a painful conversation with another friend last week. My conversations with her in the last few months have been about her telling me not to be so bitter, not to say such things and how it made me appear to other people. She said,

“It makes me wonder whether, if tomorrow you and I have a fight, you’re going to go out and say bad things about me.”

That hurts, it really does. I’m fond of her. My solution is this – I’ve promised her that I will never talk to her about my relationship again. I will say what I want about whoever I want to, when I like but to her, it will never broach the subject of my lost relationship. She sounded offended when I told her this but what she thinks offends me. Perhaps I’m being irrational, maybe I’m adding too much drama. But I’d expect a friend to accept all that as what makes me, me. I’d do that for her. But she is a different person from me and if the way she is a friend is not the same, then I will have to revise how I am a friend to her as well. Which means, no sharing what’s upsetting me the most at the moment because she doesn’t want to see that side of me. Tough but true.

A break-up does change the social fabric of your life. No one said love would be easy and that includes everyone else you’ve loved beyond your lover too.

The answer to “What happened?” and other such unanswerable questions

It struck me last night, when I was sitting on the floor of a slight friend’s house, talking to another friend when she asked me,

“So how are you doing?“

Then she looked at me straight in the eye and pointed to her own heart. I stared back, a fraction longer than my pat-reply habit usually lets me and I knew it was true as soon as I said it.

“I’m okay that it happened. I’m not yet okay with how but I’m actually glad it happened. I haven’t forgiven him but I’ve moved on.”

She nodded, understanding. And we both looked out of the window and began talking to other people, and of other things. But she stayed seated next to me till I was ready to go.

Healing happens when you’re not trying horribly hard, eyes scrunched up and begging it to stop hurting. It starts at that moment when you give up. When you realize you no longer have it in you to pretend that you’re not a mess inside and you don’t care who knows it. That’s when it starts – in that moment that looks like defeat until you’re right at it and then it feels like something quite else. Healing.

I’ve read the phrase ‘Honour your pain’ many times and never understood it. How do you honour something you don’t like, something you fear, something that you do your best to avoid? It hit me with that earlier realization. Just letting yourself think about it, not running away, not covering it up with pretense but allowing it to collapse messily all around you and rain holy hellfire on your world…that’s honouring your pain.

I whined like crazy – to almost-friends and casual acquaintances, some of whom were mercifully unkind enough to tell me to get over it. I fumed and took it out on closer people whose kindness annoyed me with its overt sense of ‘I’m doing you a favour’. And finally I just got bored and decided to look for something else-a new life.

This week has been a telling one. A complete stranger asked me

“Are you single?“

I hadn’t yet figured out how I wanted to answer that one so I just told him I’d ended a relationship awhile ago, an engagement that broke. Pat came his response,

“That’s okay. Be happy it happened now and not later, after marriage.”

And then we moved on to speaking about other more comfortable things.

A couple of days later, I met an old acquaintance I hadn’t seen since I began the relationship. He asked me,

“What’s been happening with you?“

I told him about four years in a single line.

“Moved out. Wrote a book. Got engaged. Broke up. Started a new job.”

Bewildered, he followed me asking for detail, wanting to know how, why, when it happened. But mostly, I guessed he was just befuddled and mildly concerned at how okay I seemed with all of it.

I realized then, what the Landmark Forum calls a story. It’s not about stopping the creation of them. We all do it. There’s that which happens; it just does. And there’s all the meanings, all the interpretations and mind-routes we assign to it. We build stories around it and we tell it to each other and to ourselves.

I am a storyteller, a good one. Just as with the other stories I tell, I just need to start spinning my tale, watch carefully for how my audience receives it and either tie it off or weave a saga of it. It’s who I am. It heals me; it nourishes me; it makes me and curiously, it is what brings me my dignity. Not the stories but the telling of them. I get to pick which stories I tell and usually I do a good job. Where I don’t, there’s always room for rewrites.

Does that make any sense? Tell me, I’m dying to tell you more stories.

Where I take the power back

I’m reclaiming my right to write.

There’s much I’ve felt and been and heard and wanted to say but didn’t. A relationship, an engagement, a bitter breakup…aren’t all of these fodder for a feeling writer? And yet I’ve been quiet.

I’ve been under a self-imposed gag order that no one speaks of. That’s beautiful and ironic and perfect and ugly all at once.

A friend told me that I get lost in words, the beauty of my own words, that I hide behind them and now I can’t find my way back. Yes, maybe true. But I’m refusing to see my words as my jailors. They’ve been after all, firm and steady friends in a life of already wonderful friendships (even if love hasn’t been quite as, shall we say, gracious?). So I’m bringing them back.

Ever notice how everyone agrees and Facebook Likes generic statements on dowry? How half the nation sits glued to the screen, silently identifying with evil in-law stories? But not a single one of them ever comes out and says, “This is happening to me and dammit I don’t like it!”. Nobody ever admits to hating their partner’s families. No progressive woman ever goes beyond declaiming the horrid turdiness of Indian men in general. Not one of them ever says that the man she’s married to or in love with is one of those shitheels in question too. Why should I be the first to break that omerta?

Why do even the smartest, most accomplished and confident of us willingly put our personal power into the hands of men? Because falling in love at some level, is giving the person power over you. Trust, that foundation of a relationship, is about letting a person see that they can hurt you. And no matter how shackled our pasts have been, how cruel our social captors were, the only real living and the progress there is to be had is by going back and hoping. Hoping this boy will grow up to be a man, hoping ‘responsibility’ and ‘comittment’ aren’t banned words in this one’s dictionary and hoping that a relationship can be more than a stone around the neck, could be as much fun and comfort for a woman as it is for a man. Hope is hard but hard experiences are what brought me to a place of being able to stay I’m hurting but I’m standing. And I am.

But these are missions for a different time. For now, I’m just taking back my power to say what I will and what I feel in this space that’s truly mine. I’m reclaiming my voice and by God, it’s got a lot to say. I’m not even sure how to end this post since I’m only just beginning and the end is nowhere in sight.

Welcome back, old friends and beloved strangers. It’s unimaginably wonderful to meet me again.

Now That You’ve Put A Ring On It, What Next?

So the engagement finally did happen and it was as fairytale, as individualistic and as special as I never dared hope it would be. It’s been a couple of months since then and I’ve had time to let it sink in.

For starters, the ring was too loose so back we went to the jeweller’s the very next day to tighten it up. Did you know how rings are measured? There’s a curious cone-shaped device with scale markings on it, for circumference. Quite innovative. The science student in me was tickled. Several tries later I walked out. It still is slightly loose but that’s not really the fault of the jeweller. The design is an unusual one where the circle sort of rises up near the diamonds, so it makes for a twisted circle. A shape like that would never fit snugly on a finger. Add to that my knobbly fingers that are knotty at the joints and then bone-thin everywhere else. So immediately, I developed the bad habit of turning the ring round and round my finger while fidgeting (which is often).

I can’t say I’ve still gotten used to how it looks and feels. It’s pretty,  but…it’s different from what I always wear. It’s not silver, it’s not an inexpensive no-frills piece of junk jewellery. When I’m wearing it in public, I’m always looking at it, checking to see that it’s in place, moving the diamond to the inside so it doesn’t get caught on door hinges and other things. Not exactly a picture of the content fairytale bride.

Then there’s how it is an indication of things deeper. Of course, I’m having cold feet. What, you think I need a Y chromosome to get that? I’ve never been comittmentphobic, I’ve never been anti-marriage and this isn’t some guy I met at the party last weekend. I’ve been in a committed relationship for nearly two years with him and there was never any question that this was a serious relationship heading this way eventually. It is the right time too. Still, I catch my breath on occasion when the reality hits me.

Every time we fight, for instance. Like that would surprise to anyone. Who gets second thoughts when all is peaceful and well? We’re the worst of all the ‘opposites attract’ stories right from Beauty & the Beast to The Lady & The Tramp. Worlds collide, opinions clash, words are exchanged and it all seems like such hard work. At those time, that ring that looks so beautiful and delightful in a ‘I’ve been waiting for so long for this!’ way, scares me. It scares the shit out of me when it metamorphoses in my head from a slender gold-and-diamond band to a heavy manacle chained to an iron ball. GULLLLLLPPPP.

I woke up one morning with a red scratch on the side of my nose. Even if I do have a nose that could probably bridge a dam, it’s unlikely I got it anywhere else. That sparkly ring was to blame, yet again. (And oh, apparently I rub my own face when I sleep). So I decided to take it off when I slept.

There was at least once through a bitter fight, when I decided to take it off and put it back into its box till it felt ‘right’ to wear it. One day stretched into another and I realized I hadn’t worn my ring for almost 10 days, well past our argument and its resolution. And immediately after I noticed it, I realized that I missed it. So that evening, when I went out, I slipped on my lovely engagement ring as well. It felt nice, not awkward at all. And that night, before going to sleep, I took it off and put it away.

I realized something that night. Having to wear the ring all the time, made it bondage. Taking it off before sleep brought it back to being a beautiful piece of jewellery. Being able to choose when to wear it or not gave me back my power. I am a powerful woman in this relationship, after all. I’m not engaged to a man who needs to keep me submissive or show his ownership of me with a piece of metal. I am with a person who respects and supports me for the person I am. Having this choice is my daily, personal reminder.

The arguments haven’t stopped. But the cold panic in the middle of the night has. And the second thoughts stay just what they are – secondary thoughts.

One Of The Boys

I’ve recently been watching ‘My Boys‘ on Comedy Central, a show about a woman (PJ) who hangs out with a bunch of guys who are her brother, an ex-boyfriend and couple of other male buddies. I like the format, mainly because I relate to PJ’s character. I was her, at least once upon a time. And I was her for so long, I sometimes forget that I’ve changed for the world. The boy and almost all the people who’re close to me today have known me for the past single-digit years. When I let slip that I used to be a tomboy, I get a “Yeah, right!” accompanied by eye-rolling.

Somewhere in the early part of the last decade, I made that transition from tomboy to woman. Or ‘one of the guys’ to ‘a babe’. I’ve often harped that the changes are purely cosmetic; it’s just packaging that has changed and I’m still the same person inside. Or so I thought. I am after all, a result of my attitudes as well as the world’s responses to them.

Curiously enough, I realized that this transition to being ‘not one of the guys’ coincided with another personally important milestone – dating. Literally the minute I stopped being the buddy-girl, I became ‘dateable’. Initially it was as superficial as the kind of clothes I wore. Over the years, it has seeped into the way I walk, sit, laugh and behave. Somewhere along the way, it also shaped the way I think and speak.

Today, I find I have few male friends but I’ve had a large number of boyfriends and admirers. The role of men in general, in my life has changed just as who they see me as, has shifted. I occasionally miss being ‘one of the boys’. In addition to the fuss-free comfort, there is a certain charm in male friendships.

An episode of ‘My boys’ dealt with PJ having to accept that she wasn’t always going to be the most important woman in the guys’ lives. I think that’s the aspect of tomboy friendships that women like me find it really hard to admit to (though PJ did take it like a man).

A girl who is one of the boys still is a girl, even if the guys don’t see her as such. It’s a harder transition to adulthood for such a girl since she’s used to being treated as an equal. When she goes into the universe of love & romantic relationships, suddenly she is not an equal but a complement, a different role to play altogether. I think this is also the reason that a lot of friendships-turned-relationships struggle. Are you similar, playing for the same team? Or are you two different people, with differing agendas, viewpoints and attitudes to sex & commitment? It’s extra bewildering when the person you’re with is someone you’re used to seeing as one of your own side, instead of coming from a different place.

To come back, I spent a lot of time ruing the loss of those friendships as I (and my former buddies) got older. But I realize now, that I had to stop being one of the boys to become a woman. I’d never have been able to experience romantic relationships fully without exploring my feminine side (which necessarily meant letting go of my tomboyish side). And also, I realize that’s been a temporary phase of keeping one aspect of myself on the backburner to bring out another emerging side. I’m now at a place where I’m able to consolidate both sides of me – the woman’s woman as well as the ‘one of the boys’ girl. I’m neither a chick nor a tomboy. It’s a different identity, a different attitude altogether that balances both.

In terms of sheer numbers, I don’t immediately fit into a beer-chugging boys night out any more than I easily slip into a shopping-and-bitching kitty party. But I have a few close guy friends with whom I can lounge about in my pyjamas. And I have a couple of girlfriends I can be chicky with. Last month, I had a late-night conversation with a guy friend about his girl troubles. And through the night, I found I was switching between giving him the woman’s perspective to empathizing in a “Yeah man, that sucks” way. I realized I couldn’t even tell which side was my tomboyish side and which, my chicky side any more.

From one of the boys to chick to woman – that’s a good personal quest to take.

* Image via Entertainment Wallpaper.

Why Be A Mom?

“How many issues?”

A seemingly married woman is likely to be asked by every second aunty. For the uninitiated that translates to,

“How many children do you have?”

So,

“How many issues?”

Note the connotations there. Not only are you assumed to be married and have had a child, the question also implies that you HAVE to have had more than one child. I know, I know, it comments on the lady looking old enough to have had kids too. But, we had already given up on being polite when we started calling our children, ‘issues’.

Here’s a tip for the aunts from the first sentence. You want more women to have kids? Then leave them alone, don’t judge them for not having any. The last pressure, today’s independent woman needs is your disapproving scan. If anything, she’ll delay her decision just to despise you. Okay, okay, she’s much too mature for that. But, your well-meaning inquiries have lost meaning for all practical purposes and soon we shall conquer our conditioning and successfully learn to not let you annoy us.

And let’s not get into the matter of why this curiosity is never targeted towards the husband.

I took a good, long four years before getting pregnant with my first child (yes, out of choice, nosey aunty!) So, you can imagine my plight at social events, especially those related to family. Imagine the cultural shock that the above-mentioned aunts would have gone into, if I told them,

“I’m not sure I want to have one.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to have one. It’s not that I had aspirations for an awesome career (now, there’s a brilliant joke!) nor was I doing something dramatic with my life, that precluded children. I just wasn’t sure.

I wasn’t sure why people have kids. The most common answer I’ve heard is that they would be of support during old-age. What a nauseating thought! Let alone a reason to bring another human being into the world. In this day and age, when all self-help books tell me to minimize my expectations even from my closest ones, I’m laying down expectations from a fetus? About what he/she will do 30-40 years from now. Mind-boggling. Bizarre!

There are others who want someone to call their own. That sounds like someone making a buy  vs. rent argument for a house. Then there are those who think children will improve their damaged relationship, like super-glue fixes broken furniture. And of course, there’s the ‘That’s the next thing to do.’ statement to make. ‘Post-graduation. Check. Handsome job. Check. Awesome husband. Check. Getting bored now. Let’s make babies.’

Maybe these are wonderful reasons to grow someone inside you. But, they sound exactly as ridiculous as I just made them sound. The only argument, that I sort-of, kind-of haven’t had a reaction to is, ‘What if I repent later, when the biological clock has gone past its expiry date?’ Now, that’s a valid fear and there’s no answer to that. Even with the stock market you know you are going to feel sad if you lose and be ecstatic if you make profit. But, how will I feel if I don’t have a baby to cuddle 10 years from now? How is one supposed to know? You know for sure you are not going to miss the poop cleaning and the terrible twos. But what about the gratification of having raised a good person? Will I not be able to share my friends’ happiness when they announce their child’s accomplishments because I haven’t a similar anecdote to relate?

So, why should we want to have kids? I don’t think there is a 100% –clear answer to that one. I don’t think there is a set of sub-questions that will lead you to your eureka moment. Like most important things in you life, you feel it in your gut and you take the leap.  You feel like nurturing and burping a baby. No kidding. The romanticism attached to seeing your baby’s first steps, hearing their first syllables is absolutely valid. It is as real as the frustration of making sure they don’t get themselves into trouble by tripping and falling or the insurmountable irritation of hearing the words, ‘mamma’ attached to this, that and everything, way too often.

Deep down you think you are ready. I don’t think you ever know for sure that you are ready, you feel you are. That’s just how the ball rolls. In the mean time, let’s just challenge ourselves to come up with witty ones to,

“Have you started trying?”

* If you liked this post, also read Meetu’s earlier post titled ‘Mom-me‘.

Mom-Me

XX Factor welcomes a longtime friend (of mine and of this blog) as its newest guest-contributor. Many of my insights (on relationships and on relationships) have come my way, courtesy conversations with her wise, funny, fun self. If you’ve been following the Indian blogosphere (especially the Pune troupe), she’ll be no stranger to you. As it goes, I’ll let her introduce herself.

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“You look like your mamma”

my daughter is told often. She invariably makes a face that leaves no doubt about how she hates being told that. And of course, she is asked, “Why? You want to look like papa?” or “You don’t like to look like mamma” or something of the sort. And her reply was as instantaneous the first time as it is now, after many years of repetition,

“I look like me.”

I try to hide my pride every time this seven-year old, tiny thing does this. Of course, I haven’t coached her (it’d take away all the charm from HER line, wouldn’t it?). It just feels good to see such confidence, clarity of thought and articulation at this age. My, my what a woman of the 21st century she’s going to be!

Having spent most of my life in the 20th century, I come with my share of insecurities and inhibitions. At times, I do catch myself trying to figure out who I am. Am I a movie reviewer or the ‘deadly’ CA-cum-MBA combination? Am I a 15-years-and-counting aspiring good bahu (daughter-in-law) or am I a liberal ‘live and let live’ friend to one and all? Am I a mother of two or am I me? Or the scariest possibility – all of the above?

*Image via Ambro on FreeDigitalPhotos

When IdeaSmith and I talked about me being a regular guest here, we discussed the identity I’d have, the voice I’d be. I’ll be talking a whole lot about being a mother of two and everything that goes with the territory. Yet an identity called “mum2two” or “mommy” didn’t feel right.

Not because I’m more than just a boring “mom”. Maybe, I’m not. Who knows? We’ll figure that out.

But because being a mother is more about not being motherly all the time. Because not being mommy-type makes me a better mother. And an irony it is, that I have to remind myself of this every day, day-after-day for it’s the easiest thing, to let go of everything else and focus your entire existence towards your children.

Of course, we’ll know if this theory works as the kids grow older. (Where is that self-assuredness when it is needed!?). But, let’s start here -

As narcissist as it may sound, we are going to start with I am me, I am meetu.