I feel like writing it all out. everything that happens the injustices the lack of utter maturity but then
this blank white whiteness of this screen glaring like
the insides of my eyeballs eats
me up and i'm running in a hamster's circle
white and spinning and my mind forgets
what it was it was trying to explain.

things get lost in black holes but in
white holes too,

did u know?

-eeda

yes it sucks.

when u bend over backwards to please ur in-laws. do things that no 6-month old bride would be doing..cooking, cleaning, scrubbing the floors, bathroom tiles, cleaning out the fridge, microwave, taking care of everyone in the family, nashta dena, khana dena, laundry karna, fold kerke achay se two flights of stairs upar neechay karna, aur uski shaadi ki leye ghar ke eik eik kona sajana, uski gadi sajana, uska karma mein apna sara neya saman bhar dena takay usko sub naya aur acha mile, aur subah ke 6 bajay tak uske leye shaadi ka slideshow bana ker, 9 bajay uth jana sub ko nashta dene ke leye, and all those little little things....theek hai ke sub respect kertay hain usko,..lekin yeh jo eik second mein paraya ker dena hota hai na, yeh meri samajh mein nahee ata.

like okay u did a great job, and I loved u when I needed u when I was getting married and none of my friends were there, and ill hold ur hand and no one elses when I said my yes's, lekin jab meray hisay ki baat ayegi to use mein nahee nibahoungi..that bites.

when they all go out for goodness-knows-what. and they ignore that im on the dining table with them. and forget asking me to come along, don't even bother to tell me they're going...

that bites.

aur mein upar se jitna bhi muskura loon, aur jitna bhi hans loon, aur jitna bhi pretend kerloon that yes they're a family and I don't have to be included, and they should get their alone-time now that she's married, and I don't have to tag along when i'm not wanted there, the fact that I wasn't asked to come along.

that really really bites.

kher. I've learnt that the achai u do should never be contingent on the response u wish to receive from other people, because other people are also human. maybe in pain, upset, moody, with their own problems...the goodness you do should be completely irrespective of that with any kind of appreciation or respect as just a mere bonus. but my heart is human too, and if I don't acknowledge that this being left behind feeling really stings me, I would lying to my core. And I can't do that.

I think that's the thing with this post-marriage re-birth. I've gone back to the old me. The pre-Vancouver, pre-khalu, pre-Golf me. I'm overly happy, overly nice and under-anxious now. I've gone back to being the no-drama no-games saaf dil eeda I was. And it feels Great to return to core. To return to the ideals the 14 or 16 or 18 year old would have loved to know that the 23 year old would continue to live by.
But it stings. And everyone around me tells me it's impractical. My husband, my friends..My own mother and father. They tell me that my selflessness is killing me and it shows. I put myself so far back behind I'm not even ON my own list anymore. I looked like a mess at her wedding, because I got ready last, I took all my hair pins from my hair to tuck her hair in place, so she would look great and me, who cares? I was in two photos. If that. In both of which I looked like a mess, and people said it. But that doesn't matter, to me it didn't. I saw her overwhelmed and smiling and that was it.

But ab aisa to nahee hona chaheye na?

I can't stop myself though. There's no off switch that makes it easier to be heartless. I cannot just say No. I don't know how to do this, how to tone the goodness down, sadly, so I don't over-ride myself, I don't get hurt. I don't want to be bitter, I don't want to hold back from doing any little thing that can be of service to anyone. It's actually not even a matter of I don't want to, I can't. I just simply can't. It's hardwired into every fiber of my being.

Kher. I'll just put on some good old mopey songs and mope. And when they come back I'll be all smiles again and pretend that it never really mattered to me that I was left behind like a rejected member of their family they thought a burden to take with them. And maybe with all the pretense, I'll believe my own act, like I always do, and it will just fade away as well. In due time.

-eeda

dil

kyun yeh mera shor karay..

thrre is an internal, somethingsomething thats leaving me restless. the imposter of ur visage
, Golf, stands so close, so tangible to me each day..leaving me oddly bitter, sullen, withdrawn..i punish him for the injustice you bestowed....

.what an irony God, to have the man who forsake me take another form in my sister in laws husband? so similar in manner, speech, physical form, and..the eyes? the.exact.same.piercing.gaze. i find i cannot even bear to look upnwhen he's in the same room, it leaves me in a state of such confusion. had the loose ends of my distant past been tied up, maybe this oh-so -real reminder of how your and mine story unfolded wouldn't have been so bitter. i cant refer to it as 'we'. you saw to that didn't you?

needless to say, the hapless victim might be equally as confused as the inflicter of this awkwardness, i dont know how what where, my mind is relieving those 20 days over and over again and the 6 month that followed....the only peace i get is when S is in the room and i can focus on him, and the goodness and love he brings in my life, unquestioning,...undemanding...and then i can temporarily clear my mind of the painful what-ifs that you left lingering in your wake.

but ur married now. with a child. and i have a partner who is, by every means, my missing half. i cannot fathom existing if i dont' see his face every morning..then why is this pinging at my heart so so intensely? i just wanted closure. i really honestly just wanted to hear the 'no' from you...not this houdini act of disappearances and illusions and questionsquestionsquestions....and then the news you were engaged.

im hoping i can minimize my interaction with this innocent imposter for the few days every monthni will have to be in the same vicinty as him, somehow by then i can rip these two personas apart into two entities, not have one as such a poignant reminder of the other.


kahan ghayab rehta hai ye dil.
soch.

im thinking at the back crevices of my mind enclosed in little black holes, plastic jars covered in fuchsia clingfilm ( its always important to clean up very nicely and look pretty on the outside'. inside im swirling swirling in tendrils of smoke joy and visions pastfuture. not the grumpy stooge yet tho.


enough meandering. back to life,
-eeda

conversations

worth remembering.

me-so maybe there was no need for moeed to get personal with you when you fixed that bulb that tripped the electrcity in the house, there was no need for him to say that you can't think for yourself, and therefore you shouldnt have done that.

niz-but he always says that i easily get influenced by my other room mates...and it has happened in the past, it's true, i sometimes let them make my decisions..

me-niz, if you never try, you'll never learn. that's the whole point of living by yourself, and it's alright to be influenced, that's what friends are for..listen to their opinions, but as long as you always have your own inner voice there, that's fine..

niz- but sometimes i can't hear that voice, its so influenced by other people, current events..

me- and that's fine. look, your voice is always there, and always changing. it's like your moral compass, like...when you get mad at ammi for saying certain things to deejay, that's you inner voice.

niz- but if i listened to every time when that inner voice told me to say something to ammi, it would be war..wouldn't go down too well...

me-i guess that's what being an adult is all about....finding your inner voice, the part inside you that says this is wrong, this is right, but knowing when to act on it and when not to.. like, there's a lot of things that my in-laws do that i feel aren't right, but i can't tell them that.that doesn't mean i change how i feel about it..just acknowledge it, and be wise not to say anything.


i love talking to him, love learning things that are inside me, that are happening to me, that i'm only just acknowledging...
what a wonderful thing...



-eeda

What greater blessing than to lie down next to him each night, than to breathe him in with every tired breath?

Sasural gainda phool

Indeed.

Sometimes they make me wanna scream. An over protective mother defends hypocrisy and ill behavior in a beloved daughter who, with her twisted Islamic dogma and holier than thou facade, punishes people for no good reason other than the fact that they didn't read her mind for what she wanted. spoilt much? Oh, and i'm supposedly included in the silent/bitch treatment by said sister by virtue of belonging to her ( not so guilty either) brother. Innocence kills too sometimes, and being a martyr to my own kindness is my very favorite well rehearsed act.

Sigh.

Patience. Cook clean kill your dreams your voice and make submissive everything you ever held dear. And when they invade your space, hide in your little hole whimpering injustice.

Such is life.

Atleast the husband is a sweetheart.
#consolation.

-eeda

Marriagethings.one.

Can there be anything sweeter than the sound of his somewhat labored breathing while I lay on his forearm?

Yaqeen nahee ata.

On a side note, installed blogger app on phone...I might just come back alive.

ehem.

this post has nothing to do with an update, to warn loyal readers who've been nudging me out of darkness.
but it is, quite literally, a clearing of the throat to maybe get me started...i don't know why my voice has dried out in the first place.
can happiness choke vocal chords into all-consuming golden silence?
maybe it has.


ach aawaz phir ruk gayee.
bye.

(hubs is here)
-eeda

I have

forgotten how to write in paragraphs.
maybe phrases. stories.
words let t e r s ....

things are fragmented in my mind. i write, wrote, for an audience and then i promptly
became overburdened uninspired old and
stopped
writing explaining expressing the overwhelmingness chaotic inside me.

am i destined to be forever this way? curse of the poetic or is it, me? bad decisions. rashness and life and all its tests.

is it me, ya Allah?

this year by all means has been..tumultuous?
i met a lot of old friends, i renewed a lot of relationships that had stagnated in empty pools in my heart. lammy, hinny, rima, shifoo,...sandy, in a few weeks.
i have had an overwhelming urge to write about my last few months, but somehow i couldn't. they were so much of a roller coaster, ..so intensely great and so intense...a sense of loss..

why is there no sense of gain? i have gained a whole family, adopted a husband..so to speak..but that feeling of euphoria is just translating to dread and fear and nervousness..apprehension..
is this anxiety? me? normal?

i feel like a dictator about u. puppeteer towards moral and rational good and i don't want to feel this way. i don't want to dictate moves, decipher intentions and actions and teach, teach TEACH oh.
why must u not. why must i always ALWAYS.
why can't i stop!!!!
let.you.be.

if people  are truly compatible, does that mean they let each other be? or is ur purpose in life to fixguidelead someone else towards a path that is more...just better.
but by whose what standards?

i shouldn't be thinking these things. not right now.
or saying them, even to myself.
or even whispering them in the darkest corner of my heart where the trespassing arteries carry the torturous whispers back to unsuspecting ears.....heart.

suchay huge decision eeday. kia soch rahee thi? kiun dimagh chal para tha. kiun NAHEE chal raha tha would be more contextually appropriate.

sleepytime. at least the ice has cracked.

welcome back, world.



-eeda

of apples, and direction.

want to write but im not sure of what.

the person you love and the person you marry may or may not be the same person,
and i wonder sometimes what am have i getting gotten myself into?

do you only ever understand the singeing consequences when you have achieved what it was you so wanted to achieve?
why do we never listen to Adults when they tell us otherwise.

i see glimpses of you sometimes in our conversations, but most other times i see a Stranger i don't know. Most definitely not the person i intended to marry and yet it is his voice on the other end of the phone, dictating, almost always dictating in matters which do not suit him well. the tiny stubborn particularities with which his family is well-acquainted and i, once, had the power not to bow down to but now i don't, or didn't need to.

the exclusionary principle has already expired, ladies and gentlemen; a most thrilling show.

(and a most difficult life person)
.................................

they say original sin was not in the eating of the apple but of Eve's intense yearning that her subconscious belove, Adam, eat of it. i went along for the ride and you were Eve and this apple maybe i was not ready for.

what to do what to do what to do. to go on and have faith or set boundaries right now? to ask to be respected or to bow down just to end the conflict?
..................................


it is an open field. most romantic visuals show you this. or how stories start always with 'once upon a time' and 'the end' (almost always happy) and the many cliches with which we surround and fool ourselves.
nonetheless, it is an open field. wheat grass goldenbrown waist-high and blue blue brightbabyblue sun. knee-high boots and mud in hair and white wheat clouds and staring at an infinite heaven.
there is no end to this visual. it just exists in my head rolled up next to other mental happyjars.
.............................

desi people tend to interfere too much. its not your shaadi its mine, so keep your in-my-face-religious-dogma only-recently-discovered to yourself and let me find my God my own way. would that be okay Allah? i hope so. i think so.

when will i EVER be allowed to be my own person?
..............................

i wish i could run away. to an open field. lie in mud without having my almost ocd cleanliness perfectionism not haunt me but just let me be at peace with beetles, bugs and the blueblue sky.
..............................

i can never look you in the eye again until you tell me you loved me once, despite making me feel insignificant as a child, and that was the true reason for our friendship and your invasive almost concern. i cannot stand dishonesty and it lurks in the walls in your basement room below me. come clean to me, your lies haunt my mind.
............................

there is no innocence. not even in open fields. there is something sinister in the very earth we live in, the earth of which my flesh is made. i feel earthquakes when no one does, the earth shivers for the lies we stamp on its face, the hypocrisy we feed into its soul.
.............................

yeh kahan agaye hum? this is NOT where i intended to be.

this is Not where i intended to be at all, S.




-eeda

conversations....

....between married folk.....


.................................
S- hey baby, whats up? such a hectic day, sooo busy..what're you upto?

Me- nothing much, just tackling the to do list. tired. how're you?

S- to do list for what?

Me- nani's visa, mom's child tax benefit payment, N's phone bill payment, internet phone line bill for home, magazine re-subscriptions, car fine payments, etc

S- I think you just turned me on...

Me- AHAHAHAHAHAH.. and here i've been spending money on lingerie, when it was PAYING BILLS. should've known.

S-lol i'm kidding, i'm impressed you're taking care of all that. so iss-mart. You are the swiss army knife of a pakistani wife. Love it.

.................

Swiss army knife of a wife?
BAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

i love the S to itsybitsyies. esp when he's weirdfunny like that.

-eeda

we

found love in a hopeless place.

.................................
some said i was an (early) settler.
perhaps. people may say. maybe i say it too, to speak the lie i have been told.
but truth be told, while i did have the wild romanticism needed to keep the core of my poetic soul in tact;
i also knew the ways of the world and kept my reality in check. i knew my values, i knew my worth, and while i may not have known exactly what i wanted, you knew. enough for you and for me and for the both of us. enough to tease the misgivings out of my mind and light my eyes with inspiration. enough, to get us here.
and somewhere, somehow, something in us ticked in together.
.............................

there were no starbursting violins when he spoke or when our eyes met, but digital media can do that to relationships. there was however, harmony. and peace.
and while there wasn't surprise fireworks, or fancy dinners or bollwoodesque romantic escapades, there were escapades.
real, firmly grasping onto this world escapades. where we did sit by lakes and held hands like an old married couple. or walked to the petrol station at 5 am for candy, or had you sweep me off my feet for piggy back rides, or watched movies huddled in blankets over shared styrofoam platters of leftover boiled rice and chicken kebabs.

this is reality. real love, not mired in fairytales and grime.
i could've kept waiting for prince charming. and violins. and red tipped roses. someone who sang prosaic verses to my soul and stared me down with amber eyes and amber lips, serenading my secrets in kisses across my skin.

but this happens in our minds and heart. or also in reality. but us, tortured romantic perfectionists, so caught up in fine-tuning the details of our 'love', we forget what is happening is just that..love.
albeit not the love we wanted but the love that is. the love in the eyes of my lover, husband, best friend, when he says that he hates mondays. it is when he miss me the most.

there is nothing hollywood about that. but my heart feels the eerie squish.
and sometimes, you don't need the roses for this feeling.
.......................................

i used to wonder how someone could understand me when i hadn't myself felt that instantaneous affirmation that my own soulstrings had unbounded to let him in. but he says so. and he proves me wrong everytime the little hesitant nag goes off in my brain screaming, but how Could he know me so well?
well he does. somehow.

and he knows me well.
.........................................


life teaches you interesting lessons when u have faith. u live in black and white hoping for technicolor, but it is only when u re-examine past memories does everything glare up in colors brighter than you could imagine. you feel that sweet awakening, perhaps, it really was as sweet as you had hoped it to be..only in hindsight.  had you not been directing this one-person romance you would've felt his presence. resting his eyes on the fallen trees behind you but always with the protective grip around your waist.

in hindsight.
....................................

quite the learning experience it is. love. what intrigues me to him, and to it, is that it is nothing i imagined before. and everything i had hoped it would be. in its own way.
only once you have your peace with its free-flowing uniqueness do you begin to appreciate the technicolor dreamrealities of love. and of companionship.
....................................

i miss you hugging me outside home depot and the Italian cafe as we waited for our take-out. i miss squinting in the sun in your arms, laughing and kissing you and holding you away from the world.
it may take me time yet, to know you, to let us evolve into one, but bear with me, as i know you will and as i know you have. you may not serenade with violins, but you are always there for me with your patience, faith,stability and above all, the most tender of loves.
..................................

i could list down my most favourite memories with u over my trip to newyork, last month's 21st, but i wouldn't know where to begin. the forest, or seeing the deer, or holding hands by the lake, or the ride to LI from NJ, or the room, or..the car. the intensity in your eyes. the most heartfelt of a goodbye.

all i know is, it IS beautiful with you. and while i acknowledge the rocky climb we left behind and one which still lies ahead, that is what makes for the most beautiful and most valuable of journeys..

in short, i love you Husband. here's to nearly two months of official, and 3 and half years to the unofficial Us.

-eeda


ps. a little unsolicited advice-> you don't need two fully trusting hearts in love to have faith. faith alone will bring the love you both desire.

fragments

(truth)
they sat in an empty parking lot of... a church? community center. just off wyndhurst drive, new jersey.
she was crying onto his white shirt, mascara running down her face, telling him to be real to her.
in a way in which he wasn't absorbed by his surroundings, eating him alive, puffed out in grey spirit smoke.
she would miss him.

the song played in the back, we learnt to love in uncertain times.
uncertain times indeed.
.......................

(fiction)
she lives in a one bedroom apartment in manhattan, with her scholarship, her cup of coffee, and her loneliness. another taste at freedom, this is what she was born to do, not a domesticated humble entity.
alternate reality. they had foretold her, in her childhood,
you will either choose to pursue your talent and thus pursue greatness. or you will be a nobody like everyone else. 
she wonders if, what if, she was that nobody. the domestic, married. in a house somewhere close.

Brooklyn..Queens...no, a little more suburban.
Long Island? yes. Long Island.



if.
..............................


do you ever feel like you've become the worst version of yourself?

no. but close.
i need to dream again.

..............................


-eeda

When

did you stop fighting for me, and just started fighting With me instead?












can i have my old S back? please
please


Please.

dont get me

wrong, i dont mind having a rock (several) on my hand which tell the world im married.

but its not just a label or a change of last names...it IS a lot of..responsiblity?
and i havent even moved in yet.

my husband. (wow that sounds weird) is a great guy. but he isn't the guy i saw across the room the day before we got married, in his sherwani doing a bhangra at our dholki. he is, but he also isn't. i don't know how else to explain it.
we grow old in seconds, not years, as people and life will have you believe. we grow old when we look into the eyes of our newlyborn for the first time, we grow old when we cross the podium at convocation, we grow old when we are done writing our last undergrad exam, we grow old when we get our driving license for the first time....and then we spend the rest of our lives trying to find ways to grow young.

but life WILL tell you that that doesnt happen.
not so easily anyway.

my husband is a great guy. he is, in ALL meanings of the phrase, my better half, my opposite. he is responsible, when i am not, organized to the T, when i am not, steady and stable, when i am spontaneous and floating... at times endearing...at times, it is most irritating. most overwhelming. we really are yin and yang in ways people will not believe, but we do come together and join seamlessly when we have to.

i love the metaphor used in the Zahir by paulo coelho about marriages and railroad tracks..but let's say with our marriage, we are two stokes of a wheel driving the wheel in two opposite directions.at least, with me i am.
it leaves me weary, the push and the pull. you must do this, you must do that, you must do this. i would let him be, but then the world wont let Me be. and at the end of the day, he is a better man for it, he knows it, his family knows it, and adores me for it.

but, it leaves me weary. the pulling, and the pushing.
i guess. but i have to clarify, for myself, for the audience, for the future me and for my child-to-be, he never pushes me to change, nor does anyone ask him to make me change, aside from my family (the in-laws think im perfect) and i dont want to think believe embrace that at all, because it leaves me cockysatisfied with no room to grow. i am, however, ever so grateful for it. mA

still. it takes patience being a wife. waiting for your husband to come home, being cheerful when he is down, being upbeat when he is depressed, being seductive when he, caught in the stresses of everyday life, barely responds. its only been a month, and it worries me that we are already old. but then, in hindsight, its been 3 years, not a month. not much should change or could change, given the distance.

he always says its the distance, he doesn't feel married. i do. something changes when you sign your name down for life, tenderness...love...protectiveness.
it was there, but now its more. and trapped in me.

there is a red indent in the finger where the ring is. it reminds me the fairytale happened, but not MY fairytale. not the roses, the proposal, the fireworks or the balloons, the surprise visits and the romance. things happen as you want, but not exactly what you want, and maybe that's popculture/holly-bollywood/magazine trash for you. my rational mind refuses to believe i would wish for these things, but the hearts mutters a tentative, embarrassed nervous yes, i do. i want the small, the simple and the sweet.

i guess it is the distance, it will be better when we are together. for now as the responsibilities and the workload, the upcoming event and the huge bill stands on his stressed shoulders, as our movie-nights and song-nights and romance-nights on weekends and the weekday 2 hour conversations dwindle to 10 minute daily conversations with weekend fights and makeups,  i just need patience and patience, and patience.

the little girl in me needs to be silenced so i can be the woman for the man he is and has to be for his family.

strength, ya Allah.
thats all.
-eeda