Do you still feel "at home" at your mother's home?

Mother's home. Mom's place. Tavaru maney... These are phrases that really hold a deep-rooted emotional umbrella of feelings over your heart. They shade your heart from the rest of the world.

Yet, its so ironical how you feel so out of place in this same home you grew up in all your life, once you move out and have your "own" life. The umbilical cord connecting you to that distinct world "before marriage" gets stretched and strained in unimaginable ways.

No, I'm not in distress or anything...I just got thinking about it a few days ago, when I made a comment to an aunt of mine. I was visiting her. Hubby was on tour as usual. "So will you stay back at mom's tonight?" she asked casually. "No, I'm going back...I just feel more comfortable there...." without realising the horror of what has just escaped my lips. But my aunt, a decade older than me, completely identified with that and said she feels the same way too...we swept over the issue with an understanding smile for each other.

But, it is true...for me at least. maybe it is too for some other women.

My mom has always been a very strict disciplinarian, and post-marriage, the freedom from that I guess makes me feel this way. Even now when I go back to mom's I hate being whipped by her -- put the glass away after drinking tea- don't let it dry up, don't enter kitchen till you've brushed your teeth, "go, go have a bath fast", make the bed as soon as you get up, don't keep the oily ladle on the kitchen counter, don't drop food on the stove while serving yourself dinner....

I know, small things...still, no one tells you that in your home! (It's a different matter that you're saying all that to husband and child perhaps, in your own role as mother...) Sometimes I feel miserable that I take this home, these people and their presence in my life for granted. My friend who recently lost her mother always points out in times of distress "But at least you have a 'mom's home' to go to....." Oh how miserable I feel for her at such times.

I don't know if it's age, but every conversation with the parents is no longer a conversation -- it's an argument, very often a fight. Because we disagree on most things. How and when did I grow so different from them, and they from me?

I don't like being told what to do. I never liked it, but I was never so vehement in protesting either, earlier. Perhaps then, I didn't have some place to "escape" to. No "escaping to husband's" when parents piss you off.

But it's amazing how I'll still run to mom's when I'm sick, when things aren't smooth with the in-laws or hubby, when I'm just feeling low, when I don't feel like cooking. It's still a place I go to seeking solace, comfort, food, love, and the familiarity of all things childhood and growing-up. But then, there's a point when I want to return.

Whenever I point out to mom "My pollen allergy always gets triggered in YOUR house," in between my allergic sneezing bouts, it gets her all teary. "MY house..? You grew up perfectly fine here all these years..."

This thing of yours and mine, mom's and mine, parent's and husband's ... how easily we cross over, leaving behind more than two decades of what shaped us. How casually we sift and separate, distinguish and compartmentalise. How foolishly we claim what we have now is ours.

Why can husbands never care for sick wives, while wives do it so well?

Like it wasn't already bad enough, my situation, I fell sick on Saturday.

A dinner to celebrate the in-laws' anniversary on Friday resulted in a Saturday morning welcome with vomit.
Ugh.
It was a disgusting day of purging my body of excesses.

It was also a day when that old feeling comes reeling back and hits you when you are sick, making you sicker -- the realisation that a husband is so incapable of "caring" for you the way say, your parents do/did or you dreamt "husband person" would.

Again, I speak from my experience and i know there ARE some husbands who just know how to be chicken soup for their their wives' souls when they are sick. I'm really happy for such women and goddammit, very jealous of them too.

So on Saturday I ran in front of husband, who was merrily featsing on breakfast by then, to puke for the first time in the morning.
He knew I had gone in to puke, but never came after me to help -- i mean just rub my back dude, I'm sick.
So i was poking around the clogged sink with a broom stick, clearing it myself and puking again. A sort of DIY it was! Yeah gross!
I finished, cleaned up, went out to the room and lie down. After some 15 more mins of watching TV, he comes in and says "O so did u puke?" That's it, I burst into tears.
And told him in clear terms that he really doesn't care for me when I am sick, when, even if he has this fever-cold, he'll wallow around, bury his head in my lap, ask me to sit on his bedside.
I make him tea whenever he takes ill, give him the mandatory hot water bottle, and he'll make all these stupid whiny noises and mope around and I try to be nice and pamper him and bah! When I'm sick....he sits out and watches the effing TV!
So he admitted "yeah I'm sorry I really didn't realise it", stood around like he was mourning someone's death, ...and then walked back to finish breakfast and watch TV! Hah!

Which is why I usually run to my mom's place the moment I take ill. And this weekend my folks weren't in town. Which made me cry harder -- the thought that this is what my life will be when the inenvitable happens. Soon as i realised after my third month of pregnancy that my nausea and daily puking wasn't going to stop (it enever did till almost teh day i delivered) and husband dear wasn't much help, I had packed up and gone off to my parents'. Wise decision, now, when I look back.

So this time, I packed off the husband and boisterous Sonny Boy to my in-laws, sent the nanny packing and slept my fever away, picking at curd rice in the evening. It was so much better having some quiet in the house and looking after myself. I didn't feel terrible either because there was no one in the house to ply me with tea or a hot water bag anyway.

NOTE: This post and the number of people Googling for "my husband doesn't care when I'm sick" prompted me to write a more recent post "How to care for you ill, sick, unwell, wife". I do hope husbands are looking up as much on the net as wives are! Husbands, if you're reading this, please read the tips on the other article. Wives, please hope, liek I do that the husband reads them

Mourning for a life gone, fearing for a young one

It's disgusting and shameful how we take someone for granted, when they are alive. We realise this only when they die. My aunt who'd been staying with my parents died last week. Dear R, may your soul rest in peace. But I know it won't. Because you will be worrying about your young son you've left behind. For a child to deal with his parent's death, I think, is the most traumatic and challenging phase of life.

She was less of an aunt, more of a mum. She, along with grandma raised me when mom was busy earning the family's bread. She was the repository of all my childhood memories. She knew me through and through.
She wanted, even till about two months ago, wanted to start her own enterprise, and we had sat down to discuss the pros and cons of the idea.

Just days before she died she chided me, saying "You're not taking good care of your skin. How we used to pamper you and make sure your face was oiled and nourished when you were young!" It was, I think, one of the last conversations I had with her. She was the beautician who taught me how to massage my face, make banana-honey facepacks as I grew into adolescence. She embroidered beautiful saris and salwar kameez-es for me. She stitched me perfect white lace tops and pleated skirts when I was young. When I first sprouted boobs, it was her hand-me-down bra I got to wear till I could be bought one.

Now I can't sleep a peaceful sleep. Somewhere deep down is a guilt that I didn't do enough for her in return. That I didn't pay as much attention to her as I should have when she took ill. I took it for granted that she will undergo surgery and that she will soon be back in the business of life. It was never meant to be.

What I feel still worse about is her 13-year -old son. It's such a terrible, confusing age as it is. Add to that your mother's death and I think life for the child will be traumatic. Every night and morning when I kiss my own Sonny Boy, i feel miserable thinking my little cousin will never be able to feel his mother's hand on his head, or her embrace again...ever. He won't have his mom lovingly cooking his favourite food when he comes back from exams. He already looks lost, plodding through life at home, and pushing off to school amidst the chaos of weeping/mourning relatives.

I fear for his future, what he will think and do, what his father's attitude to him will be and most importantly, who will be there to hold his hand and walk him through life the way a mother does? His dad's going to drown himself in work, I just know it for sure. His paralysed grandmom will not be a source of much consolation. Which leaves ....us. The physical distance between our homes I know will ensure that after a time, when we get sucked into our daily grind, will not allow for much time to be spent together. I feel I owe it to my aunt to make sure her child does fine in life, but fear my uncle will see my interest in him as "interference", and so an insult to him.

I don't know...life suddenly feels so unlivable. So full of things that shouldn't have been and so full of promises it held out but we couldn't achieve...

Acceptance....

...is when you finally give away those pre-baby jeans that you've been clinging on to, in the hope that one day you'll be able to squueze your wobbly stomach into

...is also when you go to a plus size store and buy a new pair of jeans paying a hefty price for gowing hefty

...is when you know your episiotomy has left you scarred a certain way, for life

...is when you go home knowing that a cold facewash and a hot coffee are not the things that will greet you when yo get back home from work

...is when you begin to treasure your time at your workplace more than your home because it's the only time you are valued for your skills and for being "you"