A Penny for
Your Thoughts!
If I had a penny for
every time I read the minds of people, I’d be a millionaire! The question I
mind-read from people who’ve known me the longest is usually one of these:
“Don’t you want to get married again?” “Are you looking?” “What about your
parents, aren’t they looking for you?” “Doesn’t your brother in-law have single
friends?” “Have you tried Shaadi.com?” (The Indian equivalent to match.com,
except the parents make most of their sons’ profiles, and if that doesn’t
explain why they are so creepy, then it explains why those men have profiles on
Shaadi.com!)
I’m 36 years-old and I
don’t think it’s my parents’ job to find me a husband anymore. They’re retired!
And if I have to resort to fake profiles of people on dating websites, I may as
well jump off a very high wall and break my leg! I can’t jump off a cliff,
because I don’t have a reason to die yet; I’m not married!
To be unmarried in my
culture is as sinful as talking to boys through the “segregation curtains/room
dividers” at your local mosque! If you dare to do it while in plain view of the
elders, you bring shame on the family and keep the wagging tongues of the
aunties moist with reasons for why, “She still not married?”
To be fair, some have a
sincere interest in my happiness, but this post is for those who are insincere
or just plain nosey and bored with their own lives! When I explain why I have
been uninterested in the endless pursuit of husband-hunting, people like to
throw my son into the conversation to add a guilt-trip twist to their probing!
“What about your son,
he deserves to see you happy with a man!” “He needs a man in his life too, poor
thing.” “He needs to understand the importance of being married and in a
committed relationship.” “He needs a male role model.”
While I agree with the
last one, what I wish the meddling aunties and my well-meaning friends could understand
was, if you could read my mind, you’d
hear: “If marriage meant a life-long commitment to someone, (regardless of
interfering in-laws and idiosyncrasies in your partner that wouldn’t be
tolerated even in the animal kingdom!) then we wouldn’t have the legalized institution
of divorce! (Or a society with such a heavy dependency on drugs and alcohol!)
And to use my son as a
pawn to make me feel guilty for not getting remarried, shows how little they’ve
bothered to get to know him. I haven’t had to read his mind to understand how he feels. In his exact words, “You’re
not allowed to get remarried, unless you marry someone like Steve Jobs or Bill
Gates.” In other words, they have to be tech savvy billionaires who would spoil
him rotten with every electronic gadget/screen in the world! Another one of his
favorite lines is: “You’re not getting married again because step-dads beat
their step children. I’ve seen it on TV!”
He wins the
guilt-trip-and-scare-me-to-death-about-the-prospect-of-getting-remarried battle,
hands down! Sorry aunties! His argument is way better than yours, because I’m
the only one allowed to abuse my child!
Now, here’s where it
gets complicated and tricky. Why doesn’t anyone believe me when I say that I’m
content (sometimes, even quite happy!) to be single?
Why does my comfort
level with being a single woman in my thirties ruffle the arm hairs of so many
women in my culture? Why am I considered “abnormal” for not pining for a
husband? Why do people assume that I must be putting on an act, or that I must
be in denial, or deep down in a lot of pain about my life? Or worse, why do
they have to wonder if I’m secretly gay?
Just because I have
developed a deep seething hatred for men over the years, doesn’t mean I prefer
women as life partners!
Aren’t we encouraged by
Oprah and all the self-help Deepak Chopra gurus to become comfortable with
ourselves, and to love who we are - even if we are overweight or have bad skin?
Doesn’t self-love go beyond our outward appearance and require a true
acceptance of ourselves -no matter what our circumstances in life may be. We may
not be as outrageously rich as celebrities, but we should still love our lower
paid, hardworking selves; we may not have the latest fashions, but we should
still love our Target and thrift store finds; we may not live in mansions, but
we should still love our homes; and if we are not married, we should eat a lot
of Breyers Extra Creamy chocolate ice cream. No! Wait, that’s wrong! I eat
chocolate ice cream, because my taste buds like it!
I have been single for
most of my life, and what people need to understand, is that this is my “normal.” The shock of losing
Hamzah’s father hasn’t completely sunk in for either of us either. (I doubt it
ever will.) I’m not using his death as an excuse, but it is a process that we have
to continue working at, and one that cannot be rushed.
Many of my friends and
relatives felt the need to find a new spouse immediately upon the dissolution
of their marriage. I don’t get it, and I don’t agree that a spouse can fill a
void, or that he/she is necessary for survival. I definitely don’t believe in
doing things to fit in with society; Hence, my marriage to a Black man while
belonging to a small-minded desi community! Marriage should be an option, but not
the ONLY option. And you really don’t know me if you think I’m advocating a,
“date till you die” option! This is about the choice between getting married
and remaining single, not about getting married and remaining uncommitted. (Not
the same thing at all!) And anyway, the
greater question we should be asking ourselves is, now that women have degrees,
jobs and GPS on their cell phones, are men even relevant anymore?
I use the same
reasoning behind the choice couples make when deciding to wait to have children
or the decision not to have children at all. Of course, the latter is ignorantly
seen as selfish and unnatural, but with a population of 7.15 billion isn’t the
argument for procreation outdated now? (Not to mention all the orphans in need
of loving homes.)
As a parent, I can
completely understand why people wait or chose not to have kids. Children talk
back and find fault with all you do, so you’re not always right anymore; They don’t
listen to you when you tell them not to leave their wet towels on the floor
anymore; They don’t brush their teeth unless you’re standing over them in the
bathroom anymore; They get three months off in the summer and they don’t even help
around the house/farm anymore; They eat more calories than they burn and they’re
bloody expensive, so they’re not cheap anymore! You have to put away money for
an education that they will end up taking for granted, because people in their
teens and early twenties are not serious about life anymore!
The point is quite simple:
Don’t expect people in the 21st century to continue thinking the way
people in the 10th century thought. More importantly, what’s
“normal” and “ideal” for you, (aunty!) is not “normal” and “ideal” for me.
The fact that I have to
write about this and try to explain myself shows how little society is
progressing. I’ve always been a thinker (or ‘inside my head a lot’) and I don’t
think my beliefs have remained the same for more than a year or two. “The only
constant in my life is change!” My ideas and beliefs adapt and change as much
as the arrangement of my furniture in my living room, and that’s not because
I’m bored or inconsistent as I’d once thought it was. (Well, maybe I’m a little
bored with my furniture!)
My self-discoveries
have a lot to do with the new people I encounter and the wonderful places I’ve
had the great fortune of visiting. I could write a whole chapter on the
exhilaration I feel while traveling alone! Interactions with others, vacations
and self-exploration are the best way for me to evolve. Staying in the same
mental space for too long has always resulted in self-destructive thoughts. I
need to move, to be able to move-on. (I don’t mean “leave” when I say
“move”…though moving out of York would probably result in even greater
self-discoveries, like how much more I’d have to pay in rent just to live
closer to a big city and an airport!)
Back when I was a
day-dreaming teen, I was sure that I’d have two boys and two girls and the closest
Desi equivalent to a Johnny Depp lookalike I could find at the annual Pakistani
Independence Day festival in D.C. I imagined a life of driving my BMW to lunch
dates to meet my equally happy friends and relatives, and we’d gush about our
fabulous lives and flawless complexions! Can you tell I watched one too many
episodes of some sort of trash television?
But life had a
different plan for me, or was it that I followed the wrong path, or made a
wrong turn? That can’t be right, because I believe that we have a say in the
direction of our lives, but I also believe that God leads us on journeys, and
that if we stay open and allow Him to lead us, we will eventually realize that
we are exactly where we’re supped to be, with/without who we are supposed to be
with/without.
That’s God’s way of
saying, “You’re either with Me or against Me.”
And if you’re with me,
I’ll know, because you don’t ask me why I’m not married. And if you’re against
me, I’ll know, because I can read minds, remember!
