Recently, I’ve been reading Jordan Peterson’s book ’12 Rules to Life’ . Well trying too. Cause each chapter, each page brings up memories of all the stupid , Idiotic logic and preconception I had on life. Especially when it came to dating. If you have read my previous posts, you would have known that I’m a loner and later bloomer. So when It came to dating and girls, I was lost as any other teenage boy would be. But my problem didn’t stem from any antisocial behaviour but societies norm of segregating the sexes.
I’m sure it sounds weird but yes, my society has deemed it necessary to tear the fabric of norm to separate boys and girls at an early age of 9. My Family thought I would be a good little Indian boy and marry the girl they would point too. Unfortunately for them , I turned out to be a rebel. Back to Idea of dating. I thought dating would be easy. Like Boy meets girl, girl would show signs of interest. Girl and boy go on a couple of dates and viola, in a relationship. Screw you, Romeo and Juliet. Up yours, all typical Indian love movies of love on first sight.
So far the Cupid has been missing in my life. But I wasn’t deterred. I tried to friend the opposite sex, building a repo with the girls I liked but I didn’t see any signs of Interests. This lead to me questioning my very existence. Was it the colour of my skin or how I presented my self. Were it for my accent or how I came across. I’ve even read a few chapters of the Book ‘The Game”, Only to through the book out the window cause the Notions and Ideas were ridiculous. So basically it came down too “would I want to spend a great deal of energy to change who I am to find a soul mate?
The Answers was no, I didn’t want my very existence to be an Casanovian, a seducer and a charmer. I wish not to be who I wasn’t for I wasn’t even yet comfortable on whom I was nor did I know who I wanted to be. But this didn’t mean I enclosed myself in the bubble and stayed at home. I still enjoyed meeting people. And was happy in the company of people who loved the same things I did. But I was still reinventing myself. Hatching from my shell. Breaking off Ideas layered on to me by my parents and Society.
During my lowest moments in my life, I discovered travelling for the sake of travelling. It was something completely different from escapism. I was good at escaping by delving into a dream. But Travelling was different. I met people from all walks of life. Many whom have passed on, stayed, misunderstood me or have accepted me as one of their own. And of those rare people whom have stayed, I met her. Soft spoken, gentle by nature, an Aphrodite reincarnate.
And She loved me. I knew not how but she loved me. And it scared me. Cause we were from different worlds, Different countries, different cultures. You may be wondering, what was the big deal about borders. well good question. Cause when I met her, She knew what she wanted. She wanted a Marriage, a partner and a father to her kids. As for me, I was still lost and wandering my way through life. I still haven’t understood what marriage meant to me. For I wanted my life to be more than marriage, kids, mortgages and death.
I lead with my brain instead of my Heart. For this scenario was very knew to me. I should have been mature as an adult but I was a still acting like a bumbling teenager. We had a few Issues that needed to be resolved too. Like, where would we live post marriage? Where will we raise the kids? where will the kids be born. One of the Issues, was the inability to have dual citizenship. It may seem like a simple Issue, but Imagine going back and forth on visa runs while raising a family. And there was also the Issue of work.
I was still figuring what I wanted to do work wise which would give meaning to my life as well as provide for me financially. I didn’t wish to be stuck in my current dead end IT Job, only to be replaced with a younger more agile worker who could perform the same skills I could. And thus, did I really want to take up the responsibility of marriage with her while still struggling to find a sustaining form of monetary income? And I also have to deal with my broken home and ailing grandmother. I knew I couldn’t drag her through these endless hardships unless we had migrated to another country, put up with a job that paid temporarily and put off my search for the meaning of my existence. I didn’t want to bring her into my madness, to drag her into my fight, my struggles and hardship. Imaginary as it seems, I didn’t want her to carry my burden. That’s how much I loved her.
Though I wish I had shared a bit of my sorrow, worries and frustrations. Should I’ve opened my her and let her in? To have eloped with backpacks, we could have wandered off the trail or I could have found a job, bought a house. We would have struggled for a couple of years and I would have been with her. But I wasn’t confident in my abilities and was afraid of the hedging my bets. I was afraid of failure of being a Unable provider, frustrated husband and an angry father. Well in retrospect, I didn’t want to be my father. For these were the same Issues my father had faced. As an Adult, my father had to leave his country to live in an inhospitable place, raising a family while worried about keeping his job with a horrible boss.
After so many years of being loyal to the company, he was let go, with no pension, no dreams and no financial support. I didn’t wish to follow my father’s footsteps and be a slave to the system. And I guess she understood my fears. She may have wanted love and Mountain which would enclose her from the storm but I lacked faith in myself. I wish I gave her hope, a dream of a better tomorrow but I couldn’t. I lacked a path, stuck in a quagmire. Self absorbed in myself. I Regret to have not been a romantic, to not have chased after her. To hold her and to have never let her go. But what has passed shall live on in my memory to form lessons from my thousands of regrets and One.
The Narrator 