5 June 2025

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We don’t talk about it in this household.

The emotions, the grief, the day he died.

We smile at each other, words unspoken.

We act like we’re fine, we all know the other isn’t.

We woke up, our hearts heavy.

The hours and the minutes bring us closer.

To three hundred and sixty-five days. 

That’s how long it’s been today.

Not yet, but it’s getting there.

And it’s why I know we won’t fall asleep tonight.

I will remember the phone calls I didn’t answer.

She will remember the call she did.

And my mother… the call she made.

We don’t talk about those things. 

It’s too hard to acknowledge.

So, we smile at each other, words unspoken.

Emotions we’ll never admit we all felt.

Our household holds shared grief.

One person. Different relationships.

A dad, my best friend. 

A father, her trusted parent.

A husband, the love of her life. 

It’s still there at the bottom of our souls. 

Filling us up with things we’ll never get to say to him. 

Love. Unspoken. Unshared. Unmoving.

But now there’s no place for it to go.

So, we smile at each other, words unspoken.

Life has changed. 

In three hundred and sixty-five days. 

We’ve laughed. We’ve cried. 

We’ve lived. We’ve died, just a little. 

Life has changed. Gone on without him.

But when the clock hits midnight, 

I’ll remember setting my phone to quiet.

What’s the worst that could happen?

Fate knew it had found its moment.

None of us will shut our eyes.

Maybe squeeze them close to cry.

Hearts heavy. A part of our soul gone. 

But what’s the point?

So, we’ll smile at each other, words unspoken.

My life… will go on.

-P

One Year Without Him…

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[Trigger warning: Death and grief]

I am restless, unfocused, and all over the place. I find that I need to keep myself occupied, and yet I can’t quite. I’m in chaos, cleaning obsessively and yet haphazardly. 

I think to myself nonstop that last year, he fell asleep on June 4, never realizing that he’d never sleep another night. That in 24 hours, he would suffer for an hour before he took a deep breath, never letting it out. 

It’s traumatizing. Heartbreaking. I wasn’t there, but I remember every detail the way my Mom described it to me. I visualized it, and now the images in my head are so clear. I called the doctor two days later, asking about his last minutes, unconscious and almost gone when he arrived at the emergency. I needed to know. 

It was fate when we walked into the emergency room for my Mom a few days later. I saw the bed he died in. I put my hand on the foot of it, and I could see it all happen all over again in front of me. The night of horror she described was right there. I could feel it if I put my hand out.  

They say he looked peaceful. Like he was asleep. I constantly feel like nobody knew him at all. Because if they did, they’d know. 

They’d know he wasn’t ready.
They’d know he was worried he didn’t set life up for his younger daughter the way he wanted to.
They’d know he looked grumpy when I walked in 10 hours later.
They’d know what he looked like, peaceful, happy. They’d know what he looked like, grumpy and annoyed.
They’d know.

They’d know, like I did. 

It hurt seeing him dead. It hurt more feeling in my gut, he wasn’t ready.
But maybe it was me. Maybe I wasn’t ready.

I wish he saw how much we loved him. How much I loved him. He shaped everything I was and everything I became. I am so proud to be more like him.
His instincts. His authority. His insight. The things I am sometimes resented for, but I am proud of.

I wish I could’ve learned more from him. More about his thoughts. More about the world.

I often tell Mom, I don’t miss his presence in the big things. It’s not the massive emotional phone calls. It’s not life updates. It’s not those things that seem to matter to the world.

I miss him in the little things. The news cycle I can’t rant about. The movie I can’t describe. The philosophies and entirely overthought ideas about the world that nobody else will relate to. 

He was my person. 

Yes, my husband’s my person too. He and I talk about so much under the moon. My Mom is incredible. My sister is the shoulder every time I need one. But it’s never the same.

Because they didn’t watch me develop these thoughts. They weren’t there when I said God doesn’t exist. They weren’t the ones who told me to wait until I became an adult. They won’t understand the transition between “Why a temple?” to “I felt goosebumps in front of God.” 

But it’s beyond that. It’s the alignment. He understood everything I said and everything I didn’t say. He knew me better than I knew myself.

The conversations I had with him about me, my world, the world in general, him, his thoughts, culture, religion, politics, career, life, relationships – these were so unique and aligned. I have moments when I have a rush of thoughts and I realize I’ve got nobody to share it with. Not because they won’t listen but because they’ll never get it like he did. 

It’s a lot to lose a parent. It’s a lot more to lose your favorite one. It’s worse to lose the only one who’ll ever truly know you. 

He loved that I never changed my name. I told him my husband showing up doesn’t erase the fact that I am my father’s daughter. 

He loved that I called him for advise. “Your husband’s going to think, what is this wife, calling her Dad for life decisions while I’m here.” I told him I could be 60 and I’d still need my Dad for life decisions. My husband’s only my age. Can’t expect him to have the wisdom my Dad does. 

I remember I got a temporary tattoo early last year and called to tell him, “I don’t like it. I don’t think I’ll get a tattoo.” He said he was proud of me. Not for my book. Not for my career. For finally admitting what he hoped I would. 

He said he named me Poornima because I was round-faced like a full moon, and he hoped I’d have a full life. My last call with him was June 4. I sent him a photo from my trip to Bondi Beach in Sydney. He said, “Wow. Round face. Happy smiles. Good.”

I’ll regret hanging up that phone that day. My adult life needed me and I didn’t know I would never speak to him again. But I wish I hadn’t hung up that phone. I remember thinking to myself, “I should buy him something nice when I go home next month.”

I was home in a van on the way to a cremation room 48 hours later. 

I don’t know how we get over this. How we move on from losing a parent. 

They say grief is permanent. The heartbreak comes in waves. A part of our soul lost and never to return again.

It’s been a year. I’m in grief therapy. Every session, I remember more and more about him. About growing up with him. Memories long forgotten.

The person I want to reminisce with after each session is him. 

I want to call and ask if he remembers. Hear him tell me one more story that I used to roll my eyes at. About my childhood. About his life. About what it was like to be a dad.

Every little part of him feels precious. His phone. His clothes. His scent. 

Maybe in a year, it won’t feel so raw. I won’t feel the cuts my heart is struggling to heal. 

Maybe in a year, I’ll be able to smile when I think of him and not hurt. I’ll be able to throw the small pieces of paper his wallet held, which have no significance except the fact that he held them at one point.

Maybe in a year, I will finally change the fading strap on his watch. The one I smile, and hold close every time I wear it. Maybe it won’t feel like him holding my hand. 

I don’t really know how this ends. This post. These emotions. This moment in time that feels so excruciatingly painful to process, but life has left me with no choice but to endure. I don’t know how I continue to grow my family, my career, switch jobs and never ask him if I’m doing it right. Never hear him talk me through my fears.

But I also know I hear him in my thoughts. He’s there in the decisions I make. My instincts are shaped entirely by his words, his advice, his slow push that has taken me through this life for 32 years.

When I negotiate salaries, I hear him say, “There is nothing wrong in asking for what you deserve. Don’t undervalue yourself.”

When I second guess myself, I hear him say, “You’ve made the decision, that’s it. Move on. Don’t go back and forth once you’ve decided.”

When I cry from how this hurts, I hear him say, it hurts him too. “I don’t want to see you cry. You’re my happy child.”

He prepared us for this. A lifetime of telling us, “All those who are born must one day die.” Yet, I feel more unprepared than I ever have for anything ever.

Maybe I’ll be okay. In a year. In ten. In fifteen or twenty. Maybe all these emotions will subdue, and I won’t remember ever feeling this way. Maybe his voice will fade, the instincts more experience than him. But I know that no matter what, no matter when, no matter how life takes on, I will never stop knowing in every inch of my existence and being in every second of my life, a daddy’s daughter.

Forever his first daughter,
P.

TO THE GIRL IN HER MID-30’S

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I said girl, not woman. Because it doesn’t quite fit, does it? The mom jeans and the extra weight and the heaviness of the world on your shoulder. But somehow, none of it makes the word woman quite right just yet.

And still, our lives are nothing like when we were just girls. There’s so much pressure. Of life. Of love. Of living. Travel, friends, health, and babies. Marriage, if you’re married. Marriage, if you’re not. The people that never stop telling you how you’ve failed them. The disappointment of not living up to someone else’s imagination. The disappointment of not living up to our own.

Realizing earning a few million isn’t as easy as we thought. The house they had us draw as kids comes with a cost. You can have the house, or you can be close to home. It’s exhausting. And don’t even get me started on loss. That’s a thing now. We’re old enough. It happens and it just feels so rushed, doesn’t it?

I remember playing Barbies and running around the apartment like it was a few years ago. I’m a 90s baby. Wasn’t it just 2005?

I hear you. I feel what you feel. I am you in so many ways. And when people tell me, “Stay positive, it’s gonna be alright,” I want to grab a glass of wine and roll my eyes.

So this letter’s a little different. This isn’t a ‘don’t lose hope’ or ‘life gets better’ letter. Because let me be real – I don’t know jackshit about what life gets. But here’s what I do know – “fuck it, what can you control?”

Your client is driving you insane? Fuck it. You can’t make stupid people smarter.

The “elders” troubling you for a kid? Fuck it. They don’t know how good wine tastes in the middle of the day.

Society asking you why you’re not married? Fuck it. Why would you repeat one dish when you can order from the entire menu?

Career not quite there? Shitty boss? Shitty work? Shitty pay? Fuck it. The system, it’s problematic.

No hate to the girl who wrote a letter full of hope to the girls in their mid-20s. She needed that to get through that decade. But that’s not this decade. No, this decade is not for hope and stars and glitter falling from the sky – if it does, please hide as it may be hazardous.

But no, this decade is for us dreamers. Actually – This decade is for those of us who’re realizing the dreams they fed us isn’t quite how the world works anymore. I think the word for it is…. bullshit? So we’re really the anti-dreamers? I can’t tell, but you catch my drift.

This decade, that’s still got a few good years to go, is for those of us who want to laugh out loud, think out loud, speak out loud. It’s for us to be ourselves, messy buns and a messy home. Or if you’re like me, messy buns and an extremely clean home. Whatever works for you.

But really, it’s for us to learn to come into ourselves. To embrace the quirks, the little nuances that makes us who we are. To let toxic people, relationships, and things go – Unless it’s paying you good money to fund your life. This decade is for us to be unapologetically ourselves. Bold, abrasive, silent, introverted – whatever the heck makes you feel like you’ve come home to yourself.

So let the noise drown out. Let people with loud opinions be who they are, wherever they are, in their own ignorance. Coz you know what? Fuck it.

Put on your favorite clothes. Turn on your favorite show. Read your smutty books. Get on OnlyFans. Roll your eyes at the Karen at work and fake-smile until it hurts. And every now and then, treat yourself to something a little nice. A dinner. A bag. A great bottle of wine as you tell Karen to go fuck herself? Actually, no, don’t do that.

Because here’s what I’ve learnt as I’ve found love, doggos and a home away from home while dealing with loss, anxiety, depression and a permanent state of existential crisis – Fuck it. What can I control?

Losing you, losing me

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Death is such a funny thing.
One second someone’s here and suddenly they’re not.

I’ve learned a lot about death in the last year.
From dogs to humans. I see them.
Breathing alive humans. I know them. I love them.
And then they’re not them anymore.
There’s a body, a vessel, a person long forgotten.

I think to myself, the one I loved is still out there.
In a soul.
In a feeling.
In a spirit.
In the air.
Around me, thinking of me, blessing me.
Cursing me, perhaps.

For moments I didn’t spend with them. I could have, I didn’t.
I made choices for me and today I wish I’d made those choices for them.
I tell myself every day to not judge myself.
For yesterday’s actions
With today’s knowledge.
But is life ever that simple?

Is anything ever that simple?
The complicated concept of existence vexes me.
So their soul lives on?
They will follow me around?
The people I lost? The pets I want back?
Does that mean they never existed or does that mean they never leave?

Do I process the grief then?
Or did I not really lose them?
Just their bodies? Their vessels for their soul?

But then, what am I really missing?
Because their voice belongs to the vessel and I miss their voice.
I miss phone calls.
I miss silent groans.
I miss the smell of cigarettes and soap.
The stink of grass and mud and thick fur.

So did I never love the person?
Was it a marketing thing,
Loving the packaging?

When do you stop missing it?
When does it stop hurting?
When do they come back?
When do you stop hoping they would?
When do you no longer look at the door, aching
Wishing.
Praying.
For one more sight.
One more hug.
One more conversation.
One more puppy lick.
One last bark you can admonish lovingly?

Death is a funny thing
Because there is nothing quite as painful as it.
And if you don’t learn to laugh at the pain
And the loss it causes deep within,
In your vessel, perhaps your soul,
It will laugh at you.
At the power it has over you.
How it wrecks you.

A little bit every day
Until suddenly
You’re only the vessel.
There’s no soul left.
None that will haunt those who love you after you leave.
Your body will exist.
It will function.
Your spirit won’t.

So you put on a smile and you go on
Like death didn’t matter.
Like all of it was a blip in your moment.
Like you never loved.
You never lost.
It never happened.

Because – if you don’t
And you start to let these things become real
You’ll have to start living.
And goodness gracious,
who wants to do that?

Love.

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Love.

It’s such a heavy word. It is good and it is bad. It holds so much power over who we are, how we live and everything we become.

Love.

Sometimes I think it’s a cliché in a word. Overrated just a tad bit. Adds an unnecessary twist to basic everyday things.

Love.

Versions of it can be found in every corner. You can feel it, you can share it, you can buy it. It is a new perspective for every person – rarely the same in two. This one’s mine.

Love.

I found it in a broken home. In food we ate, movies we watched, late night beach drives with her friends and family. In how the world felt when I would lie on her lap, her hands on my hair. She felt it too. She always knew and she always will. Simple but consistent. Through arguments and rebellious teens. Through crazy good and insanely bad. We knew.

In the way he stocked up my favourite food when I visited Singapore. Washed the curtains, changed the bedspreads, carefully keeping my dust allergies at bay. The way he woke me up at 9am with a gentle knock and soothing words. I never startled, never panicked out of slumber. The way he taught me how to really drive two hours before my license test. His pride knowing I’m doing everything we planned for my future. His smile when I said I won’t change my last name. A daddy’s daughter can remain one with a partner, with a husband, with a life for myself. He doesn’t feel it from me. He doesn’t know by instinct the way he guides me, in my head, every step of the way. He can’t process the impact he has. His affection, guidance and protection have every minute of my life.

How she knows me better than I know myself. Her hatred to physical affection but eye-rolled hugs. Three years younger and a decade wiser. Her smart quips that she thinks tease but make me happy. It means things are okay. It means she’s not mad for the third thing I did or said wrong that day. It is the lunch she packed when I woke up late for work. The way she listened when I complained about the same thing yet again. The small words of appreciation that make me feel recognized. Her presence around me, giving me a piece of home.

Love.

It’s abundant for her. It’s complicated for him. It’s streamlined for her. It’s them for me.

Love.

I found it in a sister unrelated by blood. Harsh words when the dating was too much. Hugs when the world was tough. She was my guardian angel, my best friend and my family in one person. An inspiration in many moments. Her calm, her sanity and her patience. Nothing quite like it. I felt it in the times she trusted me with her life. I knew it when I could cry about mine to her. I don’t cry to friends. But she was always more.

Love.

Not very traditional. A myth not to be prioritized. Life requires more things than just that. Responsibility, towards duty, towards family, towards society. A career, a plan. More things mattered in the long run. A sustainable future is so much bigger.

Love.

It had a type. A mould that you needed to fit into. A person that you absolutely must be. Kind, calm, patient. Skinny, fair, attractive. Not too much make up but made up. Kitchen skills don’t hurt. A shyness around the bedroom and topics of sex. Don’t know what you want but don’t be an idiot. A job is great but family first. Duty to the future and wellbeing of the partner and the babies yet to be conceived.

Love.

Synonymous with change. Obsessed with being found. In a person. Preferably of the opposite sex. Ideally with a job. Perhaps a bit of faith and religion. We can include a few things from my list too – Taller than me, smart, well-spoken, career-obsessed, an equal partner, well-travelled, independent of me, a partner I share a life with, no decision-making authority about my life. An unreal list for an unsuitable person. It’s not about what I wanted. Not about what he wanted. It was a parent’s list. Mine. His. Maybe theirs?

Love.

Adapting, adjusting, understanding. Silent, submissive, sweet. Smiles at everyone, never has an opinion, never argues. Does not dare raise her voice, takes care of their son and creates a home that’s acceptable. To them. To theirs. To everyone else.

Beliefs that adapt to theirs, lifestyle that modifies to their plans and parents that become them.
Child over career. Bounce back culture. Partner Husband over everything else. The perfect wife for their perfect son.

A list from the parents. That’s all that matters.

Love.

It hit me like a train without a break. For the first time, I could be anyone I wanted to be. I could be fat, I could be rebellious, I could be anxious. It didn’t matter. The things about me I was criticized for became things he admired. My smarts, my passions, my job.

He supports, encourages, motivates. The person of my list and then some. A perfect partner for a ‘perfect’ me.

Love.

He gets me. My quirks and my rambles. Every word I speak, every emotion I feel. He gets me. Who I am, where I come from and everywhere I want to be.

I am a better me and I can’t remember how I got here. But this is how it should be. Empowering, enabling and enticing. Pulling you through life, only stopping when you need to. Letting you catch your breath while taking it away.

Love.

Happy, glowing and content. Accepted, appreciated and adored. Away from the lies they told about problems he doesn’t see.

A magical place. A life of the past irrelevant amidst the laughter and all-knowing glances.
A moment, maybe moving, maybe here forever. But you feel it. In cups of coffee and lingering goodbyes. Excited travel and lazy evenings. You will be everything you were meant to be. But better.

Love.

The way they curl up right next to me, eyes staring, mind relaxed. I never feel alone. They think we rescued them, but really they rescued me.

Love.

The way I feel when I write. In the strokes of paint across a canvas. For me, for my emotions, for my satisfaction. The moments between work and home. The perfect book that makes me cry. The perfect song to the tune of my world. In silence and loudness. Excitement and disappointment. The overplanning, long lists and never ending piles of colours.

Love.

In the middle of a work day when inspiration strikes. I type as I listen to songs from the 90s. The dogs right next to me. My mother texting me. I see him through the corner of my eyes.

Love.

Hamster On A Wheel

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In conversation with one of my closest friends, I told her about my life. The routine and the things I hated that have become part of the new-normal. She interrupted, “Like a hamster on a wheel?”

Nothing had ever made more sense to me. 

I was that teenage rebel who swore she would never live a life where two days felt the same. It’s been two years of the same day every day. A few breaks every now and then, but I miss so much about life before all this. Surprising even to me, it’s not the fancy vacations, the trips to Paris for “work” or the drunk stumble home. 

I miss the little things I don’t get to see anymore. The different people on the train every morning. The ones with earphones, wet hair and a lost stare. The ones in a suit, hoping to be more productive today than the day before. The familiar face that worked in the same building, a small smile of “I see you even if I don’t know you.” I miss elevator rides. You never know if you’ll be in time for your best friend or your boss. The walk to get a morning coffee, not always because you need it. It’s more for the conversation, the steps, a loud sigh about the people we had to deal with as we waited for a latte we all knew wasn’t worth the money.

I miss walking into the office, turning on my computer and knowing my day has begun. The random knocks on my door for “Lunch?” “Second coffee?” “Walk?” or “Yay you’re here. I need help!”

The moment I walked into my house at the end of the day. I knew the day I’d had the moment I dropped my bag – productive or procrastinated. Did I spend too much on Starbucks? Do I continue to feel energy to pre-make lunch for tomorrow? Am I cooking? Netflix and instant noodles it is.

There was a joy in knowing I would wake up and see a whole new world of people the next day. A different train, different passengers, different barista and a different routine.

I miss familiar moments with strangers. Getting ice cream at McDonald’s as I headed to my apartment. A little treat to myself. Her stories of a boyfriend that refused to respond as she swirls the ice cream cone perfectly. I’ll never know her name but I’ll always know she’s annoyed at him. 

I miss long nights at my parents’ house. It was in the dark that our laughter was at its loudest. Past bedtime, dogs curled up at our feet, talking about our day, our lives, the people in it and the many memories. A sarcastic comment from my sister that sends us into fits of uncontrollable laughter. A remark from my dad we tell each other we’ll remember forever. Unafraid, unbound. 

I miss the feeling of there being no end to my physical world. If I took a plane, I could go anywhere. I could get in my parents’ car and we would drive for hours. We’d pass fields and towns, windows down, music loud. We had a destination but if I chose to, I could drive on for days. I could see nature at its purest. That stretch of sunflowers I notice every time. The group of old men sitting together smoking and talking as cars fled past them. I look out the window, observing. Knowing I’ll never see them again. I’ll never remember their face or that exact place. But in that moment, they were there, and they were part of my journey to a destination my parents were taking me to.

That’s the hardest thing about the last two years. The feeling of being walled in. There’s no endlessness to my physical world. I can try all I want, there’s only so far I can go. It wouldn’t matter if I couldn’t travel for my ‘gram. But it matters that a plan I’ve been making to go visit my parents at the end of this month is yet again in jeopardy. I feel like I have yet again been caged in.

Repeating the same day over and over again. The same emotions, the same processes, the same people. Wondering when the groups of 5 will turn into groups of 2 again. Wondering when the imaginary walls of the country I live in will open to let me be free again. Wondering when travel to see my parents filled with fear and agony of infecting myself or worse, them, will change again.

I miss knowing my parents are healthy still. I miss not being afraid to lose people before I could spend enough time with them. I miss existing in a world where I don’t feel terror when hanging out with my best friends. Not having to wonder every minute of every day where every person I see on the street has been to over the last 14 days. 

I miss breathing. Not the “say no to masks” kind. The emotional kind. The calm as I took on the world kind.

Every morning, I wake up and for a brief minute, I imagine being somewhere else. Head out the window, driving for hours past fields, towns and cities I’ll never remember. Wind in my hair, nothing to think of but the stillness of my emotions. Calm and happy as I breathe in a world without walls.

I get out of bed and go repeat my day. A hamster on a wheel again.

Chennai: Never just a city

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I’m that girl that crossed oceans to sustain myself. I live a few hours away but it’s been a while since I’ve been home.

I hear about a possible third wave. I read about carelessness. A city unmasked and unafraid. It scares me all the time – I have parents and in-laws that are old enough for me to be worried. Two dogs I haven’t cuddled my weekend away with in a really long time. A flight to Chennai is almost impossible. And that small chance of maybe? I can’t take it because it all sounds so scary from where I see.

But in the chaos of the news that feels like my worst nightmare, I miss a lot more than just loved ones.

I miss home.

I’ve been talking to my sister about it – What makes us so special? Us adults from Chennai. It’s this tie that we can’t break. In a foreign country, when everything seems different, “Chennai-ah?” is all the connection you need to be best friends.

I miss that home.

That feeling of stepping out of the flight and getting into my mom’s car. The ever-familiar road that leads you away from the airport, “Wow. So much has changed. Traffic alone doesn – epdi poraan paaru.”

You know you’re home when travel is a musical experience – radio or roadside dialogue, to each their own.

The incredible food. Gangotree pani puri, Saravana Bhavan ghee dosa, Ratna Cafe sambar idli, New Woodlands full meals. I’ve never visited without a list. I’ve never left unsatisfied. Street corner akka or Shree Mithai aunty, I miss the friendly banter with total strangers. The extra mile they always go to ensure you enjoy your meal. I often wonder how the aunty and uncle with the delicious channa samosa stall opposite SIET are doing. I wonder if they had enough saved for a rainy day – or year. The bajji akka outside Giri Traders in Mylapore. The chikoo seller outside Ratna Stores in Pondy Bazaar. So many more like them.

The helpers who walk to multiple houses. The tiny arguments our moms always have with them. “Paavam-di ava,” is how the day ends. Have they remained employed? Do you still pay them through the lockdown? There’s so much uncertainty from where I see things.

But one thing remains.

This feeling. If you’re from Chennai, you know what I mean. This particular emotion that makes you play cheesy Madras songs on a cozy Sunday evening. You’re not sad, no. You’re wishful. Longing to be back in those streets. Amongst the colours, the energy, the people.

Unmasked, maybe, but unafraid we are. The news terrifies me, I won’t lie. But I’m hopeful. I’ve seen the Chennai I can’t stop thinking of. The one that saw trouble and didn’t wait for help. The Chennai that wasn’t afraid of flooding water, rising waves or an Earth that shook. The Chennai that rose to the challenge, together. The Chennai that risked themselves to save their neighbours. The Chennai that is proud, brave and resilient.

The Chennai my husband is tired of hearing stories about.

A Chennai we won’t get to be in until – for a change – we distance ourselves and stay indoors.

A Chennai I miss, every day of my life.

I’m that girl that crossed oceans to sustain myself. Years may pass, lives may change and roots may form, but Chennai will always be home.

And the music, the movies and the million keepsakes I can’t throw away will keep me wrapped in warm memories, until I return…

To me, to you, to us

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I think of January 9th everyday. It’s so crazy to think if I hadn’t worked where I work, if I hadn’t taken a cab because I can, if I hadn’t tried to not be on a call every morning, if the universe hadn’t connected a thousand dots together just so we would find each other…

I am two opposite people in one. I am traditional and I am liberal. My eyes search for the brightest of pink borders in that perfect Kanchipuram silk the way my hands are drawn to the little black dress that hugs the right places. I feel peace at a temple, sitting in front of God the way I find calm at the end of a chaotic day with a glass of wine in a loud Blues bar. I am the perfect conservative girl your parents always wanted. I am loud opinions and adamance like someone they can never tolerate.

I was raised with words of “change now” because who would marry the woman that didn’t want to be a wife? That wanted a husband who will run the house and have a career so she can claim she was tired after a long day? That wanted to wear the pants but wanted her spouse to be the man?

“How will you find a world of contradictions in one person just because you are? How will he be traditional and open? How will he accept you for all that you are while still being acceptable to your parents?

How will you trust him? You trust no one. How will he trust you? Your best friends are two men.”

It was the extra drink at a work party. The stumble home from Don’t Tell Mama. The desire to make my own money. To be richer than everyone we’ve ever known. To be married to my job. The flinch that was a reflex at the idea of becoming ‘someone’s wife’. The refusal to commit to “womanly duties”.

I was never going to find you because I was unsuitable for a man that didn’t exist.

Then you happened.

I think back to every day that we’ve spent together. Life put us through a lifetime in a year. To love, to lose, to feel helpless, feel lost, depressed and claustrophobic. To deal with anxiety attacks and temper tantrums. Physical and emotion pain. All in the middle of a pandemic.

Yet here we are. This morning I watched an episode of Schitt’s Creek. Patrick serenaded David. I hung on to every word.

“Give me a life time of promises and a world of dreams

Speak the language of love like you know what it means.”

I could see it. The stars and sparkle that enveloped us. It wasn’t my imagination. When I stand next to you, I feel it wrap around us, pulling us closer to each other. It feels like the words I told my best friend after our first date.

“It’s magic.”

Today, we finished something we started many months ago. Today, I married my best friend. My soulmate. The love of my life.

Today, I married you.

And the girl who swore she’d never be tied to a man, stands next to you, excited for the rest of our life.

When you know…

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“When you know, you know.”

How many times have we heard this phrase? I’ve never believed it. I thought people were lying.
“You can’t know. You can’t just feel content about someone without knowing anything. You cannot just know.
Relationships that last a lifetime have to be formed, created, built. From sharing stories, aspirations, dreams – love that lasts a lifetime takes a lifetime to develop. Nobody just knows.”

And then I knew. Deep within my soul. He smiled and I saw us – greyed and old, kids moved away, with a cup of coffee in our hands – content.

If you’ve been here a while, you know how I struggle with anxiety. How making a decision that affects me for any period of time crumbles my soul. But I didn’t blink before I said yes. Truth is, I didn’t even say yes. Nobody asked. We just knew. We looked at each other and we felt it. We talked about ‘when’, not ‘if’. We told our families, didn’t ask for permission.

It was like watching the perfect set of dominoes, except it wasn’t falling apart.

Our story still surprises me because… I believed in fairytales for a really long time. Girl meets boy, she knows, he knows, they’re married. It all sounded so romantic. But the real world tends to attack that part of you as you grow up. I think the saying goes, “Wake up. Shit like that doesn’t happen.”

So I believed those voices. I told myself my parents will find me a wonderful man that I will spend the rest of my life growing fond of, never knowing the love that the movies and books I’d spent so much time obsessing over had told me was possible. I made myself 5 plans for life – none of them included a partner.

Two weeks into 2020, on a lazy Monday night, I began texting him. It wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. We spent the next 4 days trying to find something we didn’t agree on. I remember our first phone call. My dinner sat on its plate for three hours as we talked about family, friends, school, university, culture, movies… It was like a teenage dream – the adult version.

I kept it a secret. I wasn’t ashamed, I was afraid. It was so perfect, I wouldn’t dare ruin it. Wouldn’t let anyone jinx it. That Friday, I told my best friend and there were tears in my eyes – my anxiety was real. “I’m waiting for the shoe to drop. Nobody is this perfect.”

I met him at 6pm on a Tuesday. I’d dressed to impress but I had never felt more like myself. Seven hours later, on my way home, I knew I’d experienced magic like I’d never known before. I knew.

It took us 21 days to go from strangers to engaged. People thought we were crazy. I was so happy.

The last year has been ridiculous. You’ve been around, you know how it goes. We’ve been through so much – we’ve lost grandparents, gone on lockdown, experienced a pandemic with aging parents in another country, been sick and frustrated – but I’ve never been more in love than I am right now.

We’ve found differences, we’ve found things that annoy the other person, we’ve found common dreams and goals – but beyond everything else, we’ve found each other.

So here I am, one more in the long list of people who’ll tell you words you won’t believe – Someday, you’ll meet someone. They’ll smile at you and your heart won’t melt. It’ll expand. You’ll feel happy and calm and chaotic. You’ll feel in love. You’ll know. And when you know, you know.

Counting Down… Endlessly.

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“I’m not alone.”

I say that because it’s what’s kept me sane for so long. As we went through lockdown and phases of reopening, my heart felt okay because I wasn’t alone. If I needed help, if I needed a hug, if I needed nothing but another human body to sit within my line of sight – I had someone.

I told myself every day that it made all the difference. For months, it really did. But as we continue to struggle with a world we didn’t think we’d ever encounter, it’s not working. My reasons, my excuses, my ability to convince myself – they don’t make sense anymore.

To no reflection of the person sitting with me, holding my hand and telling me it’ll be okay, I find myself feeling not okay.

People have different relationships that they’ve been stranded away from. I’m now counting 6 months since I last saw my parents. 6 months since I was home with them. 6 months since I last cuddled my aging dog. It’s the longest I’ve ever been separated from any of them but that’s not the problem.

The 6 months I’ve stayed apart has already passed. I’ve lived through it. Can’t change anything about it. It’s the future.

April 2020 – I told myself I’ll be with them by October. Flights will resume. The world will be healing.

June 2020 – I told myself I’ll be with them by December. It’s slower but everything will be fine.

We’re at the end of July – February 2021 seems almost unrealistic. Like something I can’t plan for because I don’t know if the world will heal – by then, if ever at all. I’ve watched my friends who live alone struggle with the depression that came from the negative news cycles. I encouraged them to remain positive. To not absorb it. I told them when restaurants opened, I’ll be there for a cup of coffee, maybe some cake?

But somehow, it was the opening of things that really made all the difference. When life showed me a glimpse of normal, I felt trapped – it was like dangling a dream in front of me that I couldn’t grasp. I could go out, I could meet people, I could laugh and giggle and have the time of my life – just not with my family.

I can’t get on an impulsive flight over a weekend because I missed my dog too much. I can’t go running to my Mom when my brain was overworked. I can’t be sitting across my Dad in conversation about my understanding of the world.

Before the pandemic, I got through long weeks by counting down days until my next flight home. I can’t do that anymore. For every week that passes, months add on. And that flight… it seems farther and farther away.

Maybe, at almost 28, it sounds ridiculous. Maybe, almost married, it sounds immature. Maybe, my parents are right, how could I be such a baby and cry?

But of all the things that COVID has thrown my way, healing a part of the world and not the rest has been the toughest to deal with.

I don’t know if we’ll ever go back to normal. I don’t know when I’ll get to hold my family – furry and human – close to me again. But I know I’m not the only one stuck like I am.

Do your part in keeping yourself safe and reducing the spread. When you help yourself, you help us all.