Sunday 14 December 2014

Relationship Dynamics

Today was a huge revelation for me in terms of relationships.  I learnt that the world would want you to handle your life in a particular way. You can cry yourself hoarse from the rooftop that this is not your way but they would not leave you alone. So you have two options: Either you can continue to get mauled by people with their opinions, or ride the waves, rise up and declare, "Sorry buddy, I refuse to be abused anymore."

I was in a workshop, which ironically spoke about relationship dynamics. A very old friend: old in terms of the periodicity of the relationship (we went back twenty five years): was also there.  Now this relationship no longer existed on my radar. Though i know that relationships need not be purposeful, there definitely are times when you look to those people for support. In times of our greatest need, in times of crises when we are struggling to stay afloat, and this very person adds to the salt in the sea, well, then the loss is multiplied manifold. 

They say when it rains it pours... It really poured. Two years ago, when i felt lost, stranded and was swimming in the storm of life, this very friend disappeared from my life. I wouldn't wish what I went through on my worst enemy. But when this so-called "best" friend turned her back on me, for reasons best known to her, I wrote an elegy on the death of that relationship too, and buried it away. I know no reason would be good enough for her acting the way she did and I did not care if she had a good one.

So I understood that people view relationships differently and I was okay with that.  And then today, she comes up to me and catches me with a flippant remark of remembering old times when the facilitator remarked on friends.  Didn't she know that I had moved on?  Did she really think that with this huge chasm between us, created by her deliberate unavailability when I needed her the most, I could actually respond to her remark as a casual observation? And when I mentioned to her that I did not think of her when the trainer made the comment about friends because I had moved on, she says, "Yeah i know..."

What do you make of such people, who come across as plain callous and do not even think of apologizing when they stamp your feet? Not that an apology would have salvaged the relationship: it didn't exist anymore. But how do you handle the deliberate stampede? 

I walked away with the feeling of loss... Loss of the fact that I had wasted 25 years befriending someone who had no inkling of either human emotions or the tenderness that goes into handling them.

PARKING RIGHTS VS. BEING HAPPY

I saw a lady peering at us through the high gates of her bungalow, as my daughter switched off the ignition and we started getting out of the car. We had gone grocery shopping and after driving around for more than twenty minutes we decided that we would go quite further away and park though it meant lugging heavy bags back. 

So, to come back to the bungalow lady, she came out and peremptorily declared... you can't park here. I thought for a moment it was really a No Parking zone, and looked around for the sign. But no, we had not parked in front of any gate, or hospital, or even blocking access to any parked vehicle or building. So I told her politely otherwise, but she became aggressive... We have our car coming in a while. We need to park here, she said. Hearing the commotion another member of the family  joined in, and declared that they have two or three cars and they need parking space. On the road? By right? In a public space? They claimed my car  was in their space,  their property and in front of their boundary wall. One of them picked up their mobile and threatened to make a phone call. It would have been funny if I was not so irritated by then. I mean, here was an apparently decent and cultured family, owning a huge property in prime space, yet was fighting a street brawl for a car that had not yet come, reserving the space as one would by putting a handkerchief through the window of a third class compartment in the trains.  

I could have just walked away without giving them a thought. Legally I was on the right side of law. But frankly I was scared. People who could come  down to this level would stoop to even damaging my car if I left it there. So, we went hunting for a space to park again, and found a slot further ahead. The evening was lost, we shopped half-heartedly and came back.

The people I related this to all said I should not have moved away, that I had been in the right. Maybe. But then, I would have wondered why we fight certain battles... Would it have proved a point to them? When I said I had my right to park there as it was a public road, they wanted to know on what basis did I have the right! Did they want to see my ID proof as a citizen entitled to use public spaces? Was I going to teach them something they already did not know?

It was a plain and simple power struggle. And who does not like to win an argument? But I wanted parking space, not a feel-good emotion of having won an argument.
 
But I am human after all; and I couldn't help but feel a sense of glee when, on our way back, we found the girl standing guard for the parking space! In my mind, I relegated her to be a watchman...! An hour later, when we passed by the same house again, the expected car still had not arrived. However, their gates were left wide open, presumably for someone to rush out on hearing the sound of any car attempting to park in "their slot". What a way to live! 
 

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Of angels and demons...


It has been a while since i captured my feelings into words. Not that I was not feeling in words, just that it seemed an enormous effort to put them down on paper. But then seeing that everything seems an effort these days, this almost seems like a comfort zone, like coming back home.
 
I keep declaring that i would like to live on my own, but then keep getting drawn into interactions, which upon reflection seem to be of my own making. Be it the start of a project, or the securing of something for someone, I have observed how easy it is for me to be drawn into a conflict, which only seems to pull me into a quagmire from where I emerge scathed, wounded, and perhaps scarred for life. 

I am expected to have the ability to take any judgment from people about me, simply because I am strong, and that very quality is my undoing, I guess. That also does not stop people from doling out unsolicited advice on my people skills, though in the same breath, they also comment on how I am the only one who could get things to move! 
 
It all makes me wonder then, what urges me go out searching for such situations... Or do I invite them?  I think now, that it is because I am wrong in my assumption that I make a difference in this world, and that if there is anything that needs to be attended to, I am the one who has to do it. I think it is because I care too much about everything, and in my anxiety to make sure that the world moves on well-oiled wheels, I rush in where even angels fear to tread.... So does that make me an angel, who has her wings rudely snipped off, or a demon that in the end I am made out to be?