Vein in Vanity

What’s it with women and adjustment? Maybe its the way we are made. But frankly I think a lot of us overdo it. Most of us have internalised the idea that to live well we need to be accepted. To gain this acceptance we conform, adjust, alter and accommodate. It is only natural to seek approval for the things you do, from your family and friends but the transition from approval to acceptance is often quick and uncalled for as it is unpleasant.  This is what happens with women in marriage. A perfectly independent and confident woman,  when living with a new family, suddenly remembers too well, the chalk talk she has been given by her mother, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and everything with the double x chromosome in her body. Then she is transformed into this docile and gullible pup ( for want of a better word) that can fetch, sit, stand and OBEY as required. After a while, when what is new becomes old the curtain drops, realisation dawns and we wonder- why? what for?  ...

For about a year now things have been on and off!! But the take away has been a lot more than what can be packed into a years’ time!! It began with getting married. The next one was coming to live in this country where hardly anyone spoke the language I did and neither could I speak theirs. So it’s easy to deduce that finding a job was a far cry. For a person fresh from having done her Masters, so eager to work (guess to my own regret later on..)  And finally make some money of her own, it was a big letdown. It is in such confused times that one begins to think about dreams unfulfilled. So that’s how we hit upon the idea of learning German. Moreover that would be the logical step 1 to doing anything here. That was the start button. Once that was on, my life was full again. Meeting people from many different countries (like Slovenia, Slovakia don’t we leave them with our Geography lessons??) and learning their Culture brought a massive change to my outlook.  It does feel...