On The Different Ways of Not Caring
In my mind, you and I are always tending to our plants in silence, or sipping our beverages while reading or dusting together in silence. Sometimes I am lying on the couch with my head on your lap and we are both reading. We exchange smiles occasionally when our eyes meet.
There is nothing unmet or wanting between us in any moment. In our 'yes'es and 'no's to each other there is perfect understanding.
I look at your handsome face for a long time when you are fast asleep during a lazy afternoon nap in the weekend - as if to forge your peaceful face in this particular moment permanently in my mind.
On another early morning, you tenderly take my puckering left nipple in your mouth while I am still dreaming in deep sleep.
When I shift and look at you with sleepy eyes, you have this sheepish, apologetic look on you face - for having woken me up yet not being able to help yourself. I reward you for your gentle ways by allowing you to make languid love to me.
There is nothing left to say on most days. We work in content unison tending to the life we are trying to build. All of this is in my mind.
In real life though, there is no common garden we tend to as we lead two separate lives. Every conversation is a negotiation about meeting my emotional needs vs. your physical ones.
You are mostly funny, kind, concerned and charming till you are not. Direct and cutting, then you are - never softening the blow or being subtle. If our hearts don't speak the same language, how can we be friends ?
If it isn't the same life, the same rhythm,the same routines, we'll always wave at each other from two opposite banks of a river.
In my waking life, I am always being on guard from your advances, the jokes you make at my expense, mean and sarcastic remarks you could make about anyone and everyone randomly.
I am constantly sizing you and myself up to the idyllic version in mind. The result is exhaustion and disappointment. Yet I cannot let the version in my head go - the more of yourself you become, the clearer my vision becomes of how it could be.
I tell you that perhaps someone else is better suited to match your expectations. This has happened several times now and is the reason for a dull, constant ache in my heart.
This afternoon I had a vivid dream. In that dream, we had somehow decided to cross over to one side of the river and tie the knot - 'Jo hoga dekha jayega' we said.
Our families though surprised went along with the rituals. Everything took place in a courtyard and strangely somehow my parents and your relatives were present. I couldn't see anyone's faces clearly but I just knew in my bones it was us.
After everything was over, I sat with my parents on the steps and my father strangely asked - 'But why didn't you select a govt. servant ?' He went on to compare my choice with my sister-in-law's - who made a sound decision by selecting my brother eventually moving with him to the United States.
My mother was disappointed that I kept this thing between us under wraps and only informed them in the last minute before our wedding. To this I responded that had I introduced you to them before, she would find faults with you and interfere with my final decision which I didn't want. I was very clear about this in my dream.
Your friends had taken you away for drinks after the rituals were completed. Next I found my self with your relatives who were clearly quite unhappy with your decision. I felt your relatives conversing in Gujarati - someone asked me how I could go ahead with this being elder than you - how would I give the family children ?
To this I replied that you didn't want children and that you had said that you preferred an elder, mature women for a partner. I tried to reason that you had started all this but somehow your parents implied that I should have known better and left.
In any case, they were annoyed with all our differences - in religion, language, customs, even the way I looked.
I remember thinking how I would narrate to you everything that transpired between me and your relatives - and if you would believe me or be annoyed that I was stirring up the hornet's nest from the very first day.
I find you sitting by yourself and solving a cipher puzzle in which the key was the word COBALT.
It is at this point that I wake up sweating and so relieved that all this was only a dream. As much as I like your face and how briliant you are at trivia, I do not have it in me anymore to take so much rejection and responsibility in my stride anymore.
There is nothing unmet or wanting between us in any moment. In our 'yes'es and 'no's to each other there is perfect understanding.
I look at your handsome face for a long time when you are fast asleep during a lazy afternoon nap in the weekend - as if to forge your peaceful face in this particular moment permanently in my mind.
On another early morning, you tenderly take my puckering left nipple in your mouth while I am still dreaming in deep sleep.
When I shift and look at you with sleepy eyes, you have this sheepish, apologetic look on you face - for having woken me up yet not being able to help yourself. I reward you for your gentle ways by allowing you to make languid love to me.
There is nothing left to say on most days. We work in content unison tending to the life we are trying to build. All of this is in my mind.
In real life though, there is no common garden we tend to as we lead two separate lives. Every conversation is a negotiation about meeting my emotional needs vs. your physical ones.
You are mostly funny, kind, concerned and charming till you are not. Direct and cutting, then you are - never softening the blow or being subtle. If our hearts don't speak the same language, how can we be friends ?
If it isn't the same life, the same rhythm,the same routines, we'll always wave at each other from two opposite banks of a river.
In my waking life, I am always being on guard from your advances, the jokes you make at my expense, mean and sarcastic remarks you could make about anyone and everyone randomly.
I am constantly sizing you and myself up to the idyllic version in mind. The result is exhaustion and disappointment. Yet I cannot let the version in my head go - the more of yourself you become, the clearer my vision becomes of how it could be.
I tell you that perhaps someone else is better suited to match your expectations. This has happened several times now and is the reason for a dull, constant ache in my heart.
This afternoon I had a vivid dream. In that dream, we had somehow decided to cross over to one side of the river and tie the knot - 'Jo hoga dekha jayega' we said.
Our families though surprised went along with the rituals. Everything took place in a courtyard and strangely somehow my parents and your relatives were present. I couldn't see anyone's faces clearly but I just knew in my bones it was us.
After everything was over, I sat with my parents on the steps and my father strangely asked - 'But why didn't you select a govt. servant ?' He went on to compare my choice with my sister-in-law's - who made a sound decision by selecting my brother eventually moving with him to the United States.
My mother was disappointed that I kept this thing between us under wraps and only informed them in the last minute before our wedding. To this I responded that had I introduced you to them before, she would find faults with you and interfere with my final decision which I didn't want. I was very clear about this in my dream.
Your friends had taken you away for drinks after the rituals were completed. Next I found my self with your relatives who were clearly quite unhappy with your decision. I felt your relatives conversing in Gujarati - someone asked me how I could go ahead with this being elder than you - how would I give the family children ?
To this I replied that you didn't want children and that you had said that you preferred an elder, mature women for a partner. I tried to reason that you had started all this but somehow your parents implied that I should have known better and left.
In any case, they were annoyed with all our differences - in religion, language, customs, even the way I looked.
I remember thinking how I would narrate to you everything that transpired between me and your relatives - and if you would believe me or be annoyed that I was stirring up the hornet's nest from the very first day.
I find you sitting by yourself and solving a cipher puzzle in which the key was the word COBALT.
It is at this point that I wake up sweating and so relieved that all this was only a dream. As much as I like your face and how briliant you are at trivia, I do not have it in me anymore to take so much rejection and responsibility in my stride anymore.
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