Yesterday, I attended a friend’s
wedding. For the first time at a close wedding, I was not a participant, I was
a spectator. And being a spectator, gives you time to think through things, to
speculate, to reflect about your own life and where it is headed.
So what’s the big story in my
life right now? Well, I am in love, rather been in love for a good 3 years now.
I am 25. And like almost every girl my age, my parents’ only concern in broad
daylight and in their every night’s sleep is my marriage. They have been
brooding over it for so long that they probably by now have everything planned
out to the T, including the venue, the guest list and also what to do with the
extra space in the house when am gone. The only thing they do not have
finalized is the guy. I have that detail for them. Just that I can’t get them
the surety they are looking for.
It’s not that I myself lack this
surety. I have never doubted my decision to love and partner this guy all
through my life since the day, I decided that ‘This is it’, almost two years
back. I am as ready for marriage as I could ever be. For me it’s the next goal
to achieve in life. It’s something I look forward to, something that excites me
in my otherwise extremely boring life.
I have talked it out with him; I
know I can trust him when he says he’d marry me. I know he would someday soon.
He is finding his feet, getting steady on them before he can sweep me off mine.
I totally agree there. I can definitely wait. I am in no hurry myself to be
married. But in this picture perfect world that my parents and he have for me,
there is a nightmare I live.
I have no dreams of my own.
Everyone has a picture of who
they want to be, what they want to do with their life, where they want to reach
in their career. I have now for so long in life lived each day as it comes that
I’ve forgotten how to dream. I have forgotten what having a castle in the cloud
feels like.
The wedding, the one I attended
yesterday, made me think. It made me question myself. Being so close to that
milestone in my life, do I have plans? Do I look forward to it? Do I envisage
it in a certain way? Does it make me feel happy?
No, no, no and no.
The thought of marriage, at least
today, makes me utterly uncomfortable and leaves me very confused. I don’t want
to get married because that is something I want, but because I want to be
wanted. I feel worthless when every day I ask the same questions, when I try
and push him every day to agree to marry me sooner than later. I would have
wanted him to propose marriage to me, like they show in the movies. Maybe not
that elaborate, but at least ask me. I didn’t think then, but I repent it now.
That moment is lost. Forever. I feel shitty when I think it’s only me who
dreams of this marriage. I don’t want it rushed, I don’t want it forced. On
either of us. I want him to be comfortable with this idea. I want him to feel
happy and excited about the idea of spending the rest of his life with me. It’s
not a decision we can change, I want both of us to have thought about it and be
mentally prepared to tolerate each other for eternity before we take that leap.
I wish my parents understood that. I wish I didn’t push him. But it’s done. The
golden moment so lost that nothing in life can make up for it.
When I retrospect I feel it was
only yesterday that I was drowned in the idea of getting married, I wanted to
move on in life to a more beautiful place, to a new set of people who would
make me family. It was all about starting my family anew, leaving behind a past
I don’t really cherish, something I have never been proud of. But that was 3
years ago. Or was it more? I can’t remember, and I am glad I have no memories
of that time.
I have matured too much for my
liking. The love, the relationship is not bubbly. It’s not infectious. It’s not
the typical teenage love everyone dreams of. Maybe I didn’t realize when I aged.
It is age. It’s not the same anymore. The talking for hours at a stretch,
walking hand in hand, mesmerizing in each other’s stare, thinking about him at
all times and places don’t happen anymore. I feel scared that I have altogether
stopped thinking with my heart. I fear that this decision is too rational. So rational that it takes the essence out of
itself. Maybe that is why I see it as a milestone, a goal. On the other hand,
my heart scares me. It’s turmoil in itself. It doesn’t want to do, it wants to
get. When I think with my heart, I am an emotional fool. A fool who wants
everything for herself. The lavishness, the cheesiness, the teenage drama, the
pampering. On a very conscious level, I hate it. I fringe at it when I see
others doing it. But I am a girl after all. Does that explain all this?
I let my heart do the talking
today. I let it speak to me today and tell me what it desires. It wants me to
feel like a princess, it wants to see me pampered. Oh it so sounds like a
mother!
It dreams of him getting down on
his knee, in a crowd, and saying out those golden words to me. It dreams of the
smile on his face that I miss today. It yearns for the reciprocation of the
eagerness I radiate for this bond. It yearns for a fairytale wedding. A happily
ever after.
My heart looks at me and pities
my state. It begs of me today to stop my continuous pestering. It compels me
today to stop trying and let it be. It tells me to stop fighting a battle I would
eventually win. It tells me the war would only get me injured and hurt and
broken. It might just make it all ugly. It compels me today to step back, to
breathe, to take in all that I have for so long been avoiding, ignoring, side
stepping.
I will listen to that oh-so-sweet
heart of mine. I will sit back, wait, be patient and let the world around me
surprise me. I would wait for the rest of my golden moments to happen, not preempting
them and stealing away their charm. I will wait, as apprehensive as I might be,
I will.
I hope this hope in my heart doesn’t
take me crashing down with it. It’s been so capable of it in the past.
