Small changes, to big emotional turmoils in our little lives.
As I count the indefinite number of days I need to spend at home to protect my family, I begin to find a hidden loathing creeping out the pores of my skin. As I try to act and walk as if everything is normal, I have emotions tugging at my heart. When all I want to do is bang my head against the wall, I control myself to show people around me a fake smile.
You are my family, and so I'm being very forgiving to you. You suck energy out of my soul but I try to ignore you and live on. I try and try until it hurts so hard, I cant breathe through this. I struggle with the smallest of tasks. Making coffee appears like a chore these days. We look at each other and stare back at our phones right away. How much more could I bear looking at the face again?
No matter how dear I am to anyone, I feel no self-worth. I find no reason to wake up every morning. Nothing excites my neurons any more. I hate the isolation as much as I hate the collaborations. I hate being answerable to every question just as much as I hate typing down every yes and no's into my laptop. The pressure of being understood, just the way I perceived it is what is not happening. Explain and again going back to where we started is not what we want. Inspite of all this, deadlines are met, excess work is being done. But mentally I'm a zombie producing work like an AI machine. I could beat it fair and square only if I wanted to
Life at home ain't no fun. I feel a sense of disdain creeping behind my back. Every boring minute makes run to my my laptop and set to work. I hide behind my laptop to save myself a lot of work. Lockdown increased the number of meals to mid morning and afternoon snacks. Tea was like constantly boiling on the stove. While the world starved, we tried our hands at baking and burning out of our rations.
The men slept as they pleased. While we women were expected to wake up early and cook for the family. Cleaning was a whole new norm. Marie Kondo couldn't have been prouder because all her video were becoming practical in each Indian household with lockdown giving free time. Kudos Marie Kondo, we have become OCD patients thanks to your skills that we tried to copy.
I could only wait for this lockdown to eand, and me head back to office. Family is fine but not 24/7 for 3 months straight. Staying with kids is a pleasure, but it get my sanity wasted. There is only so much of tantrums and pampering that I could handle. I love them no less, but we need to have ourboundaries: the generation above us and to the one below us.
Now the worst part: WHO predicted 6 million unwanted pregnancies due to the lockdown. I really wonder which era they been living in. I can on;ly imagine so much sex on memes and porn websites. In families, there is still a lot of worrk for women who are exhausted by the end of the day to initiate any sex. So are there a lack of horny men anymore thanks to Netflix, Hotstar and Amazon Prime. Life started reviolving around binge watching and so sex has gone on a binged pause.
When will this end, because I am done being the struggling employee while playing the role of a perfect wife, a cool mom and worthless bahu.
If I survive this, I can survive any COVID-19.