The story of nesting

I think nesting is in our genes. We, as women, are genetically inclined to nest. To create a nice, cozy home where we can fuss around with our family and friends. There is something incredibly relaxing about returning home and putting your feet up on your couch. It is extremely fulfilling to whip up meals for your near and dear amidst friendly banter. And it is contentment you feel as you relax in your favorite spot with a book in hand or sit in your balcony with a cup of tea or a drink in hand.

The mere fact that I feel all the above makes me feel that I am indeed a woman. I like all the above things. I like my space to be all the above. And that’s when it becomes home for me. And home is the most comfortable place for me.

It is one of the primal needs for a human, according to me. Food, Sex and Home are the most important things that drive many of our behaviors and it’s the way its evolution intended it to be. Good so far.

It’s the rest of the stuff that comes with nesting that I don’t get.

A wise man once told me that settling down is for rocks. As I listened to him utter those words and shrug nonchalantly is when I realized that he spoke my mind, something that I had never realized I actually felt. Settling down feels scary. Settling down reminds me that I am committed. Settling down means I have a chance to become complacent. Settling down might mean I might not push my boundaries. Settling down , or rather the fear of settling down has been a very important fear/emotion/feeling for major part of my adulthood, driving most of my decisions. As much as I like home , calm and peace, I have never been able to imagine myself settling down. Anywhere. I’ve always been the person who enjoys the moment as it is and keeps reminding herself that this is not permanent and that I shouldn’t fall in love or be afraid of the moment. At least, I try. And oh yes, I married the wise man. That’s the only kind of long term commitment I’ve allowed myself to get into, getting married, that is.

Accumulating stuff. Now this is something related to settling down for me. Makes me feel like I am committed to something. Something I might not be able to change. A fear of loving all these material possessions. And having to move with it all. What would I do if it doesn’t fit the back of my car? From the 22yr old who carried all her possessions in two duffel bags and moved to a strange new city to the 25 yr old who had to pack all her possessions in a suitcase to move to her marital home to the 30 yr old who gave away all her favorite books to move to her ‘dream’ house to the 33 yr old who wanted to shake up that dream , the goal had been to not accumulate stuff - Stuff that I don’t need to function in my daily life, with all its luxury. Stuff that has no utility value and exists only for aesthetics, or the stuff that I love so much that I shudder to imagine existence without it, or stuff that I am scared others will damage.

The fear had always been that I’d be tied down to the stuff and I wouldn’t be able to move ahead. Where ahead, I don’t know myself. Don’t ask me. Now, this is the fear that’s been driving most of my life decisions.

From the person who never wanted to even buy a dining table because it felt ‘sooo married’ , I’ve accumulated a lot of stuff, thankfully, all of it dispensable. And that is going to be the goal, at least till I find the next thing that I fear the most! Or value the most. Whichever way you look at it!

Now, don’t ask me how many clothes or bags or shoes I have. That’s for looking good. That’s for myself. Not for the world! :)

What I miss…

 

Next month, I and the husband hit our 6th wedding anniversary.
Its nice being married this long, especially when you have not thought you’d do it yourselves. More so, when you both knew it was a gamble you were taking on and had even told that to yourselves and each other.

Being as different as chalk and cheese apart, sustaining a marriage this long with serious full time careers, pursuing independent hobbies, having enough space between each other, and still finding time to spend with each other is a big deal. At least for those of us who are commitment-phoebes even after having being married, i.e.., the two of us in this household.
Also, any two people who have no reason to be together except that they want to be and hence are.

Well, now you can now imagine how elated I feel every time we hit an anniversary. We made it to another year. With our head and heart intact. And sane too. A big big big deal!

Like I said, its nice being married this long. You would’ve shared all stories you’ve ever known. All experiences. All the people you’ve ever met. And all you have are stories you make together, people you meet together, and places you mostly go together.

You get comfortable around the person. You grow along with the spouse. You learn to laugh at and with your spouse. You make your own weekend routines. You have your own inner jokes. You arrive at your own holiday vacationing patterns.
Many things don’t have to be said any longer, they are implied and understood because that’s how you both have done them. For all these years.

Trust me, even for someone with a vagabond-ish heart expecting new things everyday, this kind of familiarity feels good. That’s me we are talking about.
There is just one thing I miss by virtue of having been married this long. Because of having known the husband all these years -

Butterflies. :-)
The ones that make their presence felt in your stomach when you meet someone special for the first time. That kind which makes you smile to yourself amidst a crowd. That very kind which makes you feel unsettled and want to call up that person every second minute. The ones which you feel when you anticipate the first kiss, the first touch and the first few moments you are alone together.

Yes, I miss that. :-)

1 down... 49 more to go... !

 

I was chatting with this friend, and telling her how its been 6 yrs that I’ve been married, and how the husband used to be a poet back then. Also that he is still a poet, just that the poetry has always been confined to one set of women – Anyone who is not a wife. In fact , he has been exercising all forms of art that I married him for, for this same set of women. Great, no? :)

During this chat session, I remembered a blog post I wrote on the eve of my first anniversary, almost 5 yrs back. I read it, and chuckled at how I wrote all that I wrote, and how that is all true. Well, there is tonnes of mush in that post which I will cut back for your benefit, but then, well… even that mush part also is still true… ;-).

Now that you’ve barfed enough, here is what I wrote 5 yrs back…

Long ago, someone wrote a nice poem to woo me, something which no one did for me ever. Though I understood that the poet is obsessed with tans and tanned beauties, which I am obviously not, I obliged to his wooing and decided that I should let myself be the object of more of such poems.

Now, not so long ago only, I met a guy who called himself a charcoal painter. He looked into my eyes deeply on one of those very romantic evenings and tried to look deeper into them and announced to me suddenly – ‘Someday I am going to paint you in the backdrop of Hussain Sagar!’. The innocent me blushed and secretly did a monkey-jig at the thought of being the object of someone’s painting. Then I gave a very shy, demure smile which was so unlikely of me.

At around the same timeframe, I happened to meet this guy who called himself a wannabe-musician because of his small stint with a few musical instruments and he was also trying to patafy me and convince me to marry him.

Oh well, that also reminds me of this guy who was supposed to be a kinda-model, whom I met. Seeing his obvious attempts to line-marofy me, I told him that I am not at all open to meeting or getting married to models and that I don’t trust the lot. This guy had the guts to look straight into my eyes and tell me what marriage and commitment meant to him and what his wife would mean to him and how close I was to being there. He also went on to tell me how he intends to keep his marriage happy and exciting and somehow got me hooked.

But then, I was also supposed to be meeting this dirty IT-geek who has been lauded as the next best thing to Hyderabad. When I told him how much I hated being in IT myself and how I had no idea to get married to someone who wants to retire from IT, he had the self-confidence to tell me that he doesn’t intend to do that either.

Now I didn’t want to disappoint any of these guys who displayed flashes of qualities that I liked, and so I ended up marrying all four of them – thankfully it was just one person! :)

God only knows where the poet flew, or where the painter hid himself or which instruments the musician wants to try next, but I got the husband part minus all these extra additions and frills. Since then, every morning I woke up hoping that today would be the day when I would become the object or inspiration to any of these art forms, and every night I slept with the feeling that ‘Tomorrow is yet another day!’ *Sigh*

I go on to talk about how marriage has made me feel complete, how true love feels and all that stuff that relationship-help books write about,  a truckload of mush which even I cannot handle now, but yes, you get the drift right? :)

By the way, just to get things straight, the husband still is all those things I mentioned, and has even gathered a few more talents under his sleeve, yet again, all of them are for the betterment of the set he is most interested in.

Am now going to show this post to the husband, just to rub it in that I’ve never been a ‘muse’, a term he uses for anything which catches his fancy, generally of the female kind and falling into the aforementioned set. And see if I can squeeze material out all this emotional blackmail I plan to do.

Note: The title of this post is same as the one I wrote back then, I couldn’t think of a better title. I will not get into the meaning and significance of this title for the readers’ safety (yes, all three of them) , but please be assured that this itself is enough to make you barf for an entire evening.

Being married

 

I read this quote somewhere and its so awesome that it deserves to go on my blog -

Always carry the photo of your boyfriend in your wallet. Look at it whenever you face any problem. This makes you realise that there are bigger problems in life.

Shall we change the word ‘boyfriend’ to husband, coz I am past that stage in life?

Now anyone wants to take a wild guess on whether I have the husband’s pic in my wallet or not? ;-)