A tribute to my parents' marriage

    I hope that I’m not jinxing anything by writing this, but I couldn’t wait all the way til December to write this. This is my tribute to my parents’ marriage, which turns yet another year older on December 21st. I am currently in the midst of planning a surprise wedding anniversary party for them the day after. Due to a short catastrophic crisis, they found out that my brothers and I are planning something. Before that they were completely in the dark. I just hope they don’t realize the scale of what we’re planning.
    Ten years ago if you had told me that one day I would be hoping for a marriage, a relationship as solid and good as theirs, I would tell you that you were batshit crazy. Yes, that is exactly what I would have told you. But there’s something about growing up, having relationships of your own, and learning to understand your parents not as your parents but as people that makes you realize that a great marriage isn’t fireworks and epic storylines. Rather, it lies in the small things.
    The way his arm cradles her shoulder and the way she fits perfectly into his hold, the comfortable silences where they just sit together doing nothing, her absurd humor that no one else gets but him, they way they always come to each other’s defense when one of us starts criticizing. How he would always kiss her before going off to work in the evenings, they way they poke fun at each other, their fierce love for the three lives they brought into this world, and the commitment and love that brought them through more than two decades of a marriage. (they haven’t quite hit the thirty year mark yet).    
     These are the things you only realize when you’re older, the insight and clarity that comes with age. Or, while you’re sitting there writing an anniversary speech for a public speaking class in college. I guess in my case, it’s a little bit of both.
     My parents were not a love marriage in the traditional sense; it was arranged and thank God for that! My brothers and I wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for that. Two completely opposite people would never have gotten together, if it weren’t for fate.
    If this was high school, she’d be the head cheerleader: funny, cute, beautiful, the perfect social butterfly. He on the other hand would be the complete wallflower: quiet, completely random at times, actually the exact opposite of her really. They say marriages are made in heaven and I’ve spent my entire life watching their marriage to know there must be some truth to it.
    When my dad had his stroke, she spent a year not sleeping right. Every time he skipped a breathe, she woke up and wouldn’t sleep again until he was breathing became normal again. As for him, he wouldn’t even know what clothes to wear in the morning if it isn’t for her. If he has any sense of color coordination, it’s all thanks to her. He’s her rock when anything goes wrong, especially with us three, their troublesome kids.
Together they make the perfect person. Every day I see them together and I know they were meant for one another. I see the love in her eyes in the things that she does for him. Although, he’s not always good at showing it, his love is ever present in the little things he does for her.

“The development of a really good marriage is not a natural process. It is an achievement.”

Life and Its Friends

      I read somewhere once that you should never forget the things or the people that made you smile, just learn from the tears that followed. Sometimes, I'm not a 100% sure I've learned my lesson as well as I should have, but hey, it's a learning process. What I do know is that I try to remember the good memories. It is always easier to remember the bad. I'm not sure why that is, but I guess it's our mistakes that end up haunting us through the rest of our lives.

     This blog is also a way for me to remember the times and the people that made me smile, laugh, and take a chance on life. It's always a pretty amazing thing when two absolute strangers become the best of friends. It's also equally sad when they fade out of each other's lives and go back to being strangers. Every story I write makes me think about those people and just how much they've impacted my life, transforming my life. A part of me will always wonder if I impacted you the way your life as you have mine.

    Without these people, I would not be the person I am today. So this is my tribute to those who made my life the crazy, half-hazard, wonderful thing that it has been, even if they may not still be in it. Thanks

Something Borrowed

I ran across this on facebook and thought it was pretty amazing. There are lessons in there that we could all use as a reminder. If not anything else, it's a pretty thorough prayer. 

A prayer to my former selves and the men who loved them

Forgive those who have misled you 

May you cherish those who tell you the truth about yourself 

May you never know the lonely bed of wasted time 

May your personality never attempt suicide by lowering its standards

May you never succumb to the death wish of vapid companionship 

May you find your future self in every lover

May you always remain ready to leave  

May your improvement and self-mastery come before all else 

May you never obligate yourself to another’s validation 

May you never worship your partner, may your love and your religion never betray each other, 

may you take pride in your company, 

may you remain willing to put your pride aside for your company, 

may your connections be a result of your pre-existing fulfillment and not a source, 

may your company and solitude enrich each other, 

may each lover introduce you to new methods of creation, 

may you recognize when you are being groomed for abuse, 

may you remember to provide everything you seek, 

may you never be seduced by politicians who seek your validation before considering your emotional welfare, may you never breach respectful distances before allowing another to make an informed decision, may your experiences improve your language and vice versa

may you never take it personally when another person’s requirements do not involve you, 

may you never apologize for your distances, 

may you seek gratification in the rarity of a person and not in the title they assign us, 

may you transcend the need for reciprocity, 

may you forge invincibility by effectively communicating your pain, 

may you nurture yourself through nurturing others who know what they have when they have you, may you commit yourself to the magic of union by granting your lover’s wishes, 

may you remain free from shame by embracing the truth in all experiences, 

may your freedom set your lovers free, 

may your love for each person make them special and unique, 

may your lovers never retrospectively resemble each other in their patterns of disappointment, 

may you submit yourself to the paradoxical spontaneity of contradictory feelings, 

may you find liberation in complete submission, 

may you always choose wisely and find a teacher and friend in every lover, 

may you never overdraft your emotional account to fall for poetic advertisements for ego-stroking, 

may you go all out for the sake of romance and let the chip fall where they may, 

may you never expire for unrequited love, 

may nothing ever be too good to be true, 

may your truth be best possible thing, may you never compromise your vulnerabilities to protect another’s guilt, 

may you never insult your own intelligence with meaningless and convenient sex, 

may you embrace your urges as a divine jolt of the senses, 

may you never be demonized for your arousal, 

may you never apply masks lest you attract more masks, 

may your connections be evidence of your revolutionary drive for self-autonomy, 

may your heart be the compass, may you find comfort and thrill in both home and vacation, 

May you never know a place where love is not, may you never know a place where love is not, may you never know a place where love is not . . .

Discovered on http://brownitapplebum.com/

Sorry for the tardiness . . .

For those who actually took the time to read my stories, thank you. And for those who are waiting for new stuff, sorry for being M.I.A. School, sleep, study, traveling, planning, and dating have kept me busy. But . . . I do have four (incomplete) stories sitting on my desktop currently.

I write because each and every story has made me the person I am today. I write because through writing I realize the simple truths gained from each experience. I'm just an ordinary girl who likes to write, not some deep philosopher or literary expert. There's no profound wisdom to them, just the many (mis)adventures of a normal (whatever that means) girl/woman. I write my stories the way I would tell them.

For those who know me, I bet you read these stories with my voice narrating them. Tell me I'm wrong.

Quote of the Day

         My dad is a pretty great guy. He's a jack of all trades. He's our plumber, electrician, tailor, mechanic, but most importantly, a great dad. He also has a tendency towards the random. I blame it on Discover Channel and Animal Planet. 

       One day he and I are sitting in the waiting room at the optometrist’s when all of a sudden he says, “Do you know where Komodo dragons live?” 

I reply, “Some island in the Pacific?” 

He then proceeds to talk about Komodo dragons for the next twenty minutes. That is my dad for you. 

Miracle on I-75

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 
  ― Albert Einstein
I graduated from undergrad on a Saturday. By 4pm the next day, I was all packed up and ready to go. I had packed my fridge, microwave, all my clothes, and whatever else I had in my room into my car and started the drive. As luck would have it, it was raining hard. As I got onto the interstate, I noticed a long line of cars. An accident, I thought. The roads narrowed down to two lanes and the rain fell harder. It got to the point that the car in front of me was spraying me with water. As I was passing over a bridge, ten exits away from school, my car hydroplaned.
I lost control. The car swerved to the right and hit the guardrail. The chances of my car flipping over the bridge were probable. I also knew that if it were to go over the bridge, I would not survive. All I could think was, please don’t go over the bridge, please don’t go over. Luckily, that did not happen. My car somehow swerved back to the left, flipped over twice, and landed upside down with its wheels in the air. Throughout the whole experience, I had this strangely strong assurance of my survival: He won’t let me die. Needless to say, I was in shock, still trying to process what had happened. Breathe, I kept telling myself. Two of the side windows were blown out. The windshield was cracked and broken. My neck was killing me. I did not notice my arm at the time. As soon as I was sure the car had stopped moving, I unbuckled my seatbelt and started to crawl out the window. 
As I crawled out the window, I stopped and looked down, finally noticing the pain in my arm. My arm was covered in blood, my blood. On the gravel besides the car was a mixture of blood and water, as if a painter had used a brush to slash over the gravel. I started crying then, while in my head I thought, why am I crying? Then: Crap! There goes my shirt. This was one of my good shirts!
By this point, people had gotten out of their cars and come over to help. They tried to tell me not to move, but any person in their right mind would want to get out of the wreck. So instead of sitting still, I crawled the rest of the way out of the car. When I got out, I was shoeless, phoneless, and without my wallet. It was all in that car, along with the rest of my life. I was visibly shaking, arm covered in blood. As I turned around and looked at the wreck that once was my car, I thought and I kid you not, Dad’s going to kill me. Then: I should have listened to my parents and left yesterday. And finally: I hope my laptop is ok. I guess you learn your main priorities when something like that happens. 
         Someone stopped and called 911. Another person ran back to their car and grabbed a towel. I cleaned off the blood and let them wrap it around the wounds. I did not want to look too closely. Finally, when I was sure I could speak without faltering, I asked, “Is there any blood coming from my neck?” The pain in my neck was terrible. I was worried that something had pierced one of the main arteries located on that side. One of the men who had stopped told me, “No, it just looks like a really bad seatbelt burn.” I could not have been happier, hearing those words. Another good Samaritan came over and said, “The paramedics are on their way. Is there anyone you need to call?” 
“Yes, actually I do. My mom but my phone is still in the car. It must have slipped out in the crash,” I replied. He handed me his phone and I called my mom. She was at work when I called her.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Mom. I got into a car crash. I’m ok though but the car is wrecked. Can you call dad and tell him? My phone is still in the car and I’m calling on someone else’s phone.”
           For a minute there I actually thought she was mad, until I realized I must have caught her in the middle of work. She took it a lot better than I thought she would. Then again, when you’re a nurse, not too many things faze you. I got off the phone and stood there, trying not to cry again. Needless to say, it was a fail. I stood there in silence with tears streaming down my face, still shaking. When the cops and the firemen arrived on the scene, I finally had the tears under control. I told the cop the story. The very first thing he said was, “You are VERY lucky to be alive and walk away with just those cuts.” 
“I just graduated yesterday. Some graduation present, huh?”
         In the face of disaster/bad news/epic bad luck, my sense of humor tends to pop up. They all smiled a little at that. Since my license was still in the car, I had to list out all the necessary information. When they got to my age (at the time I was 21 still), they asked, “Wait, you graduated college at 21?”
“Yes . . .” I was a bit confused. I guess graduating college at 21 is not normal in the south. 
          Conversation calmed me down; joking around stopped me from crying or thinking about what had happened. As we were waiting for the paramedics, I noticed that one of the firemen sitting next to me on the guardrail was really cute. As soon as I had that thought, I mentally slapped myself. Of course, I would notice something like that in the middle of all this. Honestly though, any thought was better than thinking about the crash. 
When the paramedics arrived, they went through all the basic stuff before having me walk to the ambulance. Inside they strapped me down to the board just to be on the safe side. Better safe than sorry. I made small talk with the paramedics, while we waited for them to get my wallet and phone from the car. Apparently, I was their third crash of the day. 
“Don’t worry, on days like this the number of crashes gets worse. So you graduated yesterday?”
“Yup, some graduation present right?”
“So wait, you graduated at 21. How’s that possible?”
“My birthday is in August?”
“Congrats either way. So what exactly happened?” 
As I told them about the crash, they looked shocked. One of them asked, “So what model was your car? I can’t tell from the damage.”
“A Toyota Yaris.”
“Jeez! No wonder the cop said you were lucky to be alive. You had stuff in there?”
“My whole life actually. I was driving back home with all my stuff.”
“Those things turn into projectiles in a car crash. You’re lucky that you’re not paralyzed right now. When we got the call, we were expecting more than one car crash.”
“What do you mean?”
“You must have been far away enough that the cars behind you had time to put on the breaks. Otherwise, you might not be talking right now.”
          I knew I was lucky when my car didn’t flip over the bridge, but now I had two more reasons to say, “I’m lucky to be alive.” Probability had been against me and yet, I was ok for the most part. The phrase, “Walked away without a scratch” came into mind, because that was more or less what happened to me. There is a name for all this. Some people call it highly improbably events. I call them miracles.

Quote of the Day

So my mom is a simple Indian mother who happens to be a RN.
One day as I was watching TV, she comes in and asks, "What is Real Housewives?"
I ask, "Which one? Atl, New Jersey, etc . . ."
"Oh, I don't know. I saw it on TV one day. Is it real?"
"You mean, do people really live like that? Yeah."
"So it's real? Wow . . ."

She was sincerely amazed by that idea that people throw money around like that.