Games your MIND plays with you...!

Yes, I am back to my space after a somewhat long hiatus... after several (nagging) requests from friends and well-wishers... I feel like asking them to swap their lives with mine and then ask me again 'Why I haven't added any more posts after the introductory one more than a month ago...!' .........:) no, for once I am not irritated by your repeated requests (read: nags). It's somewhat comforting to know that I still occupy enough space in your MINDS to want me to share my thoughts with you.

I was reading Mimi's blog (http://mimisgl.spaces.live.com/default.aspx?_c02_owner=1) on the travails of motherhood and how it is so so difficult for a full-time career woman to suddenly switch jobs and become a full-time mother... I couldn't have agreed with her more. More so as it comes from a really and truly dedicated mother.

Maybe for Mimi it was a 'conscious decision', but for us it was pure and simple 'accident'. So, you can well imagine the compounded pressures we went through... Even after getting over the stages of 'breaking' the news at home and at work, going through the never-ending check-ups and regimented diets, dragging through nine long months, waiting for the bundle to peep out of her comfort couch and see the light of the day... phew! and then finally holding her in my arms... to trying to be a good mother in spite of the relocation to a completely different continent and the subesequent adjustments... it's been a long long journey, believe me. But then, I realise that my journey has just began - Mehuli took her first confident step last Monday (she's so hooked on to her new-found freedom that it's a task putting her to bed every evening).

I have miles to go before I can hope to get back to my old self... if at all! Will those days ever come back when I could stay out till late in the night partying with friends or get happily sloshed on New Year's eve with merry abandonment? When will I again dress up for an eveing out or dance to trance till the daylight creeps in? I would be a hypocrite to say I don't miss them...:) By the time my daughter grows up and gets independent, I would be too old to go on such binge outings... alas!

So, you see, I am almost cut off from the rest of the world - the world I was so much a part of even a few months back. My socialising, catching up with friends is mostly virtual... I feel so alienated at times that I wonder if my friends still remember me... now you can get a feel of how precious these 'nags' are to me...:) Really, really apreciate from the bottom of my heart!

Well, to be honest, I am somewhat learning to live with my present situation... coming to terms with the motherhood that's been bestowed on me without my asking (while so many actually yearn for it and consider themselves privileged when it actually happens to them)... I agree, I AM a bad mother. I am not the fussy/ protective/ caring types... you know what I mean. Neither do I feed her till she starts screaming with hunger and is tugging my shirt to draw my attention, nor do I remember to change her nappies on time and make her comfortable...

But it's moments like the ecstatic look on her face when I pick her up from her childminder, or when she wakes up in the middle of the night and looks around for me and only me, or gives that wide sleepy grin when she finally wakes up and tries to mumble sweet nothings in her own unique language - that my maternal instincts reach out to give her a warm cuddle. It's worth sacrifising my career, my life and even my friends... (I believe the good friends are those who stand by you through thick and thin!)...

So, what I teach her instead is to communicate, to talk... And, guess what, she does respond! Hope that day is not far away when I find my best friend in her...:)

The other day, a friend commented: Life is dynamic. Just to add to that: Evolving with it is what 'living it up' is all about!