Behind the Wall

It's dark in here. Dark and damp. In the distance, I can see a flickering light. I don't like it. It casts shadows. Ghoulish shadows which send a chill down my spine. I divert my mind from the shadows and go back to focusing on the task at hand. The splinters on the cold, wooden handle on the hammer dig deeper into the pale skin on my palms as I relentlessly hammer against the concrete wall. The cement begins to crack and chip, but barely gives away.

These walls were built with a lot of care, so meticulously, with the intention that they will be impossible to break. The difficulty of the task is best known only to me. I’m the one who built it painstakingly, brick by brick, layer of mortar by mortar. Like a mother who nurtures the child within her with her own blood and flesh. Strengthening him with her determination, extending the best of her capability towards his development. This wall was my baby. It was my creation. It was my key to survival.

And now, as I hammer away at it, my heart experiences for the first time what they call a sense of freedom. An emotion I have never felt before. With every speck of cement and brick that chips off the wall, I feel my wings break out. Those invisible chains around my wrists begin to unlock. The shackles on my ankles slowly start to dismantle.

Again that flickering light. Again those ghoulish shadows. This time they mock me. They throw stones at me. They point at me and laugh out aloud. “Stupid! Naïve! Immature! Foolish!”

My hands feel weak. I can’t hold on to the hammer anymore. The splinters on the handle have dug way too deep. I can feel the nauseating smell of sweat mixed with blood rising from my palms. I throw the hammer away and recline against the wall. I soak in the damp, cold sensation of the wall against my bare skin. It still reeks of my tears. The crevices between the bricks are alive with the moss of broken dreams and promises that were never kept.

I shut my eyes and let the voices of the shadows in. They grow louder and louder. They grow stronger and stronger. They thunder, they rumble, they fill up the room, they fill up my mind, they fill up my soul, they fill up my eyes and then they come to a crescendo.

Suddenly I feel a sharp pang of pain in my back, my wrists and my ankles. The wings are receding back under my skin. The chains around my wrists are beginning to lock again, tighter than before. The shackles around my ankles grow back, stronger than before.

I go back to lying down on the cold, hard floor in fetal position. My hands clenched, knees curled up and face curled down till they meet. One last tear flows down my cheek as the wall looks down at me and whispers into my ears “You're not ready yet. Go back into your deep slumber. I will watch over you” 

Some realizations...

With valentine’s day just around the corner and daily facebook updates on friends, colleagues and classmates getting engaged or married or having babies, I am tempted to go on another occasional visit to my old friend; my blog.

Here’s the deal. For the last 3 years of my life I have been single. During these 3 years, I came across several occasions where I could have got into a relationship, but every time, something or the other went wrong. There are a wide range of reasons why things didn’t go “as per plan”. Either the guy initially felt strongly attracted to me and over a period of time realized maybe he just wanted me in bits and pieces (why can’t you keep the good stuff and get rid of the bad) or I was branded “not marriage material” or my past wouldn’t go down too well with his “family” or the guy simply wasn’t “ready” for marriage. But those reasons or those “almost there” relationships is not what this blog is about.

This blog is about how each and every one of these “encounters” impacted my overall well-being and sense of self and my subsequent realizations. My first reaction to each of these “backfiring” situations was self-doubt. The second reaction was developing an extremely low sense of self-esteem. So much so, that I ended up dropping my standards and falling for men I would never have considered even for having a cup of coffee with, let alone spending my whole life. I can safely say my standards dropped even below what my ex would have thought befitting of a “woman like me”.

That’s when I took probably the most important decision of my life. The decision to move out of my parental home and live by myself in a house I could call my own and run by myself. A house that I would gradually transform into a home. I am somehow convinced that this decision is even bigger than my decision to divorce the man whose girlfriend, wife and subsequently “property” I was for almost 4 years of my life….that too at its prime.

I’ve been constantly been perceived as a tomboy since I was a child. However, I must admit, that for the last 2 years or so, I had been feeling this strong nesting instinct. So much so, that I told my parents to search a boy for me so that I could get married again. Not because I thought I was lonely and needed company or because I’m 28 and that’s the right age to settle down or because I genuinely wanted to fall in love again. But simply because there was this unmet need to create and nurture a space of my own. How extremely stupid of me! I should have done this moving out business long time back, but I guess in my head, there was this strong age old notion that the natural answer to one’s nesting instinct is to get married. So when I was finally able to get over that idiotic notion, I went ahead and created a nest of my own, minus the man and marriage aspect I previously attached with it.

There are a couple of strong realizations that emerged out of this situation:

• Every guy who thought I wasn't “marriage material” can seriously go to hell. I wake up in the morning, make breakfast and tea for myself, shower, offer morning prayers, go to work (which by the way I take very seriously, and I am proud of that fact), come back home and cook for myself, call my mother, do my laundry, clean my house, write a blog (occasionally), go for a walk (again, occasionally) play my guitar, chat with my friends and extended family, listen to music, watch television, read a book while I sip my bedtime cup of green tea and then go to bed. Your mediocre, biased mind which would never have looked beyond the beer mug in my hand may have never perceived this, but you losers, I am much more balanced than probably your own sisters or your future wife is going to be. Unfortunately, the loss is yours!
• Every guy who thought I’m some kind of a “party animal” can seriously go take a walk in the zoo and probably get eaten by the lions there. A girl who enjoys going to a pub or hanging out with her friends occasionally is not a party animal, but a normal human being like you who likes to socialize because that’s what human beings are. Social animals. But obviously, you're too obsessed with your “baba aazam” ke zamaane ke views of what a woman should do and shouldn't do. Which includes “women should only go to a party/pub when accompanied by her husband/boyfriend/father/brother. What the hell was I doing even contemplating life with a male chauvinist pig like you? FYI, I’m so busy doing all the things I mentioned in “point a”, that I anyway don’t have the time to do all the activities I have mentioned in this point. Again. The loss is yours! I hope you enjoy carrying your future wife’s hand bag and shopping bags!
•  The men who found my “past” to be something their “family” wouldn't be able to digest, I just have one thing to say to you. If your family thinks it would have been wiser for me to be married to a man who resorted to unmanly means of controlling his wife, I think it’s good that we never ended up together. I can understand a person being dominating because that is a gender neutral characteristic which could be applicable to anyone, but using emotional and physical abuse as a means of dominating another human being is simply barbaric. And if your family has contempt instead of respect for someone who opposes this barbarism, then it’s good that things between us didn't work out because they would never have been able to understand or respect me, no matter how much of “point a” behavior I would have demonstrated in your house. This time, I think more than your loss, it is my gain.
• Every guy who thought I was “demanding and stubborn”. I have nothing to say to you. Only time and a couple of relationships and probably a marriage will enlighten you on what “demanding” women look, feel and behave like. May the forces be with you!

The last and final thing I want to say to each of the guys with whom I had an “almost there” relationship in the last 3 years. I am glad things didn't work out between us because I now know for a fact that I’m capable of a lot more than I knew myself to be capable of and if it wasn't for each of you, I would have probably spent my whole life being ignorant of these capabilities. Thank you very much for saving me from making a mistake once more and good luck to each one of you in finding your “happily ever after”.

Before I end this blog, there’s one more thing I'd like to add here. It’s not that I came across only jerks in the last 3 years. There might have been someone who genuinely appealed to me, understood me and struck a chord somewhere. Someone who was so different from me, yet so much like me in so many ways. Someone whom I think I understood better than a lot of other people. Someone with whom I didn’t have to put up any pretense and who didn’t feel the need to put up any pretense around me. Someone who kept up with me even after having borne the brunt of my sometimes aggressive and sometimes passive mood swings. Someone who I think felt a great deal of comfort in my company simply because I never judged or condemned him for being whatever he is. These last words are for that person. 

It’s unfortunate that circumstances, time and a lot of other elements are not on our side, otherwise, life would have been very different. Yours, mine and ours. Having said that, I hope you find your "happily ever after" soon. You need it more than I do :)