Oh yeah, I remember:-)
It is 4 AM and I am surfing the web. That means only one thing, either I am sad or I am stressed.
I was re-reading some old emails from a friend. I have saved thirty-three emails from her spanning six years. This is an old friend I have known for ages (since I was nineteen). The first email starts off by lamenting how she would like to marry and settle down. Then there are sporadic emails about seeing boys that she doesn't care for. News of an illness in the family. Changes in jobs. An almost-engagement. Then a real engagement. Announcement of the wedding. The big-if-rather-hurried shaadi itself. Pictures. The boy is in the States (Is it just me or does everyone outside the US calls it that?) and has to hurry back. Emails detailing the seperation between the couple. Arrival of the new bride in the US. Frustration of a magazine editor having to work at a department store. Thinner emails on domesticity, about being busy. Silence. Thinner-er emails indicating not all is well. Announcement of seperation. Arrival of mother from India. Divorce (reaffirmation that I was the only one who ever told her that marrying was just the worst way to get to the US. Second, being on a CIA transport plane from on overseas secret prison that may or may not exist). Relocation back to India. Life after divorce. Complete insanity at Indian workplace. Insane former mother-in-law.
Silence.
All of us have our tales. This one took 33 emails to tell. Thirty-three emails of a life, interrupted.
(Irish Proverb: Never marry for money. You can borrow it cheaper.)
Drafts of new proverbs in the making:
*Never marry for a green card, being on CIA watchlist will get you here faster.
*Never marry because your mother is controlling, she will still control you after you marry.
*Never marry to shut-up your parents, shutting up a spouse is a lot harder.
*Never marry for a good mother-in-law, she will always love her child more.
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All your images of winter
I see against your sky.
I understand the wounds
That have not healed in you.
They exist
Because (..) love
Has yet to become real enough
To allow you to forgive
The dream.
[..]
A true saint
Is an earth in eternal spring.
[..]
Your wounds of love can only heal
When you can forgive
This dream.
- Hafiz (Shamsuddin Muhammed 1320-1389, Persian Poet)
