The blog post where I say things because I can

There are two ways to blog. One is to be honest, spill the beans on what I feel and clear out the clutter. The other is to use the blog as a way to take stock of things, with the hope that writing will help me go beyond the overwhelmingly negative thoughts, reflect on some of the positive stuff and just balance out my thoughts. I suppose I can be ecstatically happy and feel the compulsion to share purely happy emotions, but more often than not...

I would like to be honest. So often I feel like the words that come out of my mouth are already conditioned to the reaction I would receive from others, a blog is a rare opportunity to not do that. But then again, when I browse through my posts, I end up thinking, what the fuck is wrong with me, why is everything such a downer with me all the time. Maybe I need to project my positive plans rather than whatever negativity I feel...and so I try and do that sometimes and then when I reread it, I find it so insipid. To be raw, without being pathetic, tricky tricky.

I am not sure why I feel like I am being dishonest all the time. This didn't really happen in India, its been a US phenomenon. I think partly, its because I am older, and I feel like I cant really state with much starry eyed conviction, the hopes and dreams I have for myself. Come on, lets face it, you know whats happened here (I say to myself), you have become a wife, you will have a job essentially as a teacher, you have defacto become responsible for keeping your house clean, you have become the nag, because now you need to get shit done as a couple and don't have the luxury of letting your significant other do things on his own sweet time...overall, just being used to things that you never wanted for yourself (other than the wife part). If you are lucky you will make a few friends, but you could very well end up in the middle of nowhere, in a house far away from humanity in a place where an Indian is a brown person with a funny accent, with a kid or two to look after, and you would be so bored out of your mind that you will invest all your energy and emotions into your kid(s) and their well-being and feel better or sad when you see that at least they are not out of place and displaced like you are.

I am not a writer, or a painter, or an interior designer or an architect. I am my mother's daughter through and through and simply relocated to America.

The other reason, could be that I am just viewed differently now, and I have all these new perceptions and ideas to make sense of and fit into. Parvathi knows more english than what we typically expect of foreigners, oh, its so much easier to understand her accent now, aren't you feeling hot in those jeans in this weather? oh, why are you wearing earrings? and many many more.

Honestly, initially I thought, why should I change so much, its not like any of this is wrong, but you know what, it was easier, easier to just be what people expect. Its the same in Syracuse as it is in Kayamkulam or any other part of the world. How much time are you going to spend defending how and who you are? After a point I decided I don't have the energy for it. But I also just don't know myself anymore, I don't have friends around whom I can be unadulteratedly myself with and despite the generous texting on whatssap, they too seem to be fading away.