who are you gonna call?

When it's that time of the year (work-wise November usually) and you are in an UGH mood, the one victim who comes to mind is the poor sod who agreed to be with you for better or worse, in richer or poorer and in sickness and in health.
These days, k is learning the other side of loving me.
The side which has me walking in at 11pm from school, blasting the systems of justice for the policies being followed at that particular place of work, or an emotional tirade about my students who are a great batch and why should the "real world" judge them anyways? He's gotten used to me working till 3 am these days, while he unsuccessfully waits up for me, blasting those bleeping aliens on his playstation.

He's learning the best way to keep me happy is to just listen to me rant and rave and express my vehement opinions and burn myself out. After that I can actually be a pleasure to live with :)

bbq's and birthdays...

Last year, November 27 was a strange strange time.
I hadn't said yes to k so the question hung heavy in the air.
We were suspended in that odd, zingy place where you aren't quite friends anymore, but you aren't more either.
At midnight we were at Hussy's where we cut a piece of mithai and sang happy birthday, completely oblivious to the fact that this year, we would be eating a cake made by the same Hussy at a bbq on the our rooftop, and I would be his wife of 4 months. Life is one of the most hilarious things I have seen...in my life.

two to tango

as the wedding finally turns into a marriage, and I'm learning all those tiny little things about k that I said "yes" to so clearly and confidently, thinking I knew him so well at that time. Looking back, I wonder who I married compared to what I know of him today.
Some wise old lady once said that you can't know who you are marrying until you are sharing a living space with him and she was so right.
Bathroom space,
room space, bed space,
lounging space, reading space...
all those spaces that in my 28 years of being I had become fond of and luxuriously used to are suddenly "shared" spaces. Where I can no longer do as I please, where I must now keep in mind the sensibilities of another person. A person who, similarly, has a sense of his own set of spaces that I have now become a part of. And as we tango together, around each other spaces, finding common ones, it's another kind of realization of what our mothers always told us, that, sharing really is caring.

She's Back!!

It's a fantastic high to discover the my reading time was only messed up because of adjustments to lifestyle after marriage ( and lack of a book good enough to extricate me form my real world) and that I can still get engrossed in a book to the point of the world crashing around me, and me obliviously and furiously page turning.

The Night Spent at Momma's- Yet Another Much Awaited Moment in Married Life.

Right before I was married, lots of already married friends told me about the first night spent back at mom's house and how familiarly unfamiliar it felt. They mentioned how much more appreciated they felt by the family, especially previously squabbling siblings and how the time spent together was "perfect in being short". Austen would understand. No time for differences, arguments, or extended fights.

My first night spent at my momma's house coincided with a sudden bout of fever and flu on my part, kookie's minor eye surgery, k's trip to lahore and kAy's absolute breakdown after 3 major assignements. So basically, all of us spent the entire time "together" drugged and asleep.

blurry good times...

As it is the wedding passes by so fast that one doesn't get round to feeling much. Most emotions are in some kind of a radial blur tool and half the time you are ecstatically happy and the other half ferociously moody. Later on, many details crystallize with the help of photographs and home videos and you actually start appreciating how amazing the whole experience was. But of course, by then you are married and everyone's gone home.

These days I'm missing that pre-wedding butterflies in the stomach. The anticipation of a blind turn and not knowing what is on the other side. That feeling of the backward freefall because really, even to your best friend, it can only be described as the biggest change in your life.*sigh* I wish I could get married again...this time I'd try to be there more consciously :D

The Younger Woman

Maybe it's the "gora chamra" like daddo says...or his pleasant smiling face like my mother insists, or perhaps aafi simply knows a good man when she sees one; whatever the reason, my tiny little niece is doing her best to lay on the charms, thick.

Whether it's as subtle as coyly shy smiles and glances being thrown in k's direction, or something as blatant as patting him on the cheeks after hitting him on the head (remember the girls-only-hit-guys-they-like rule from grade 2), or constantly handing him flowers and oranges through the course of the entire eid dinner, she's a woman with a mission.

Master of My Own Fate.

A decade of eids spent in the back seat of my father's car with my sisters, fighting over the music choices and I am finally the master of my own destiny. Or atleast the planner of my own eid route. I re-realized a lot of things about the relationships we keep with people. How little they mean sometimes (and we drag them on) and how much they matter (and we don't try enough). How making an effort is so relative. And relatives are just so much an effort.

1. Visiting my parents' house on eid with k felt SO right.
2. Friends cannot be your family.
3. At the best and worst of times, all personal issues can be set aside.
4. Dressing up on eid when with hubby takes on a whole new dimension.
5. New clothes on eid are an affirmation that there is a tomorrow.
6. When you want to meet up with someone, you will. Occasion or no occasion.
7. We make our own separate individual relationships which no extrenal factor can harm or influence unless we let them.
8. With the right people, the energy is always buzzing and you are always beautiful.

a new addition

this eid, we have a new addition to our room. we bought our first plant and he has lovingly been christened edouard. the nursery wala assured us hes a foreign type and that he will not die on us or wither away. eid is all about acceptance and thankfulness. so we accept edouard and are thankful that he provides greenery in our life now.

p.s: although he got cut out in the pic, you can still see part of his head in the corner. :)