COCKTAIL OF EMOTIONS

 Just last post i wrote about dealing with extremes.

My grandmother passed away the day before diwali. I have been experiencing mixture of emotions. I was very cold initially. I couldn't accept the reality. Its been a journey of 43 years together and she is  like a constant in my life. Whatever i speak, shout or scold or crib - she was my outlet but when all of a sudden it happened i was so numb.

One thing which i keep telling myself was - she didnt suffer at all. She passed away quite suddenly. It was instant and she didnt fall sick or bedridden . She was 94. And what more i can ask for.

Still sometimes i feel guilty , sad, overwhelming, cold , relieved - all like a cocktail.

Hope, i start living my life - keeping myself as a priority.

Random thoughts-1

I was randomly going through the posts of other bloggers and it was nostalgic and it was very much emotional too to read the comments and bring back the memories associated with it.

As i have stated earlier , none in my dear and near circle knows about my blog and i like to use this blog as my diary sort of thing. I now wonder on my much good for nothing posts and sweet nothings and most of them about P. 

Where has that person gone, now i dont have time to just sit and enjoy a good book or day dream by just lying on the bed and listening to songs.

My mind always jumps on the next thing and the other thing to complete. My schedule is jam packed and iam always on toes. Yes, partly its for money,(if not here where can i be honest) and the other is i dont want to think anything. I would like to keep myself busy.

I was reading a post about depression. And yes , i know iam on the verge, maybe i should go for professional help. Its very difficult to deal with people in various extreme spectrums

My grandmother - 94 extreme dementia ( in the beginning it was not duty but affection later it turned out to be duty and now its extremely hard to cope up) . Though my mind accepts that it is a different scenario , the events which lead to this state where i feel conned and my true affection was taken for granted and i was literally used puts my back up and what remains is now just a cold duty.

The other extreme is pre-adult son whos is in his last stage of teen and you got to be always on your wits end to cope up. I think it is extremely difficult to be a mother to this x-gen kids. You have to be a friend and responsible parent as well and be the caretaker of previous generation too.

And not to be left behind my daughter who is just 9 years old (and its like ippave kanna kattuthe) this is more sophisticated version 2.0 and very delicately to be handled. 

All this literally taking a toll on my health both physically and mentally and not to mention the job challenges in dealing with various statutory departments and my other job involves students of 12th.

ONCE I REMEMBER , WHEN P WAS GOING TO SCHOOL , DURING 2010 OR 2011, AFTER SENDING HIM TO SCHOOL - MY ROUTINE WOULD BE COOK, WATCH SOME ENGLISH MOVIE IN STAR MOVIES OR HBO AND HAVE LUNCH AND JUST LIE DOWN WITH FM IN THE BACKGROUND , WAITING FOR P TO COME HOME. AT THAT TIME, I WAS THINKING HOW MY LIFE IS SO MUNDANE. NOTHING ADVENTUROUS OR INTERESTING.

WHAT NOT I WOULD GIVE TO GO BACK TO THAT OLD LIFE. SIGH

ITHUKKUTHAAN PAATHU WISH PANNANUMNU SOLRATHU. SO MUCH FOR ADVENTURE

One signature

 We usually talk about everything in our class. I dont like it to be just academics. We talk about life and all the things under the sun, literally.

Yesterday, during a similar session, one of the student said ma'am, my parents have high hopes on me. My brother is an engineering graduate and when they were talking about their retired life, they were building castles. Not metamorphically, but real castles saying X (my brother) will find a job and settle in his life, but S (me) would do CA along with graduation and would buy big mansion with just few signatures. 

Ma'am, ist real we would be paid lakhs for our one signature??????????

What should i answer for this? Nejaththa sollanuma illa avanga hopes ah kalaikkakoodaathunnu poi sollanuma............................

Any field you get into, so many factors determine how you fare about. Those days when people say study hard , you can earn well, but does it  always work?

I tell my students, whatever you choose to become or study, the success depends on your skill set and the environment. So many factors determine our path - our family environment, our skill set, the lengths we determine to go about to achieve our dreams, our ambition and so on..........

What i feel is we should always enjoy whatever we do and should give our best. Even if i choose to mop the floor, i should do my best.

I can see a change in my pattern of thinking too. Being my first born - P suffered the most. I wanted him to excel and be the best, but later changed and now when he wanted to shift his stream completely, we accepted. Because, for us, now, his happiness is more important than the money spent or the year wasted.

Also, for Pa, even though i ensure she prepares for her exam, i am not that paranoid or i have adopted a laid back attitude. We just want her to enjoy the process rather on insisting she excel in everything. Ist, because naan thirunthittenaa or the age gave me wisdom or i understood the reality.

Whatever, I like this phase, lets just enjoy :)

No school

 For the past 2 months , this has been the rambling of Pa. Never before she used to say this. So this came as a shocker to the mom, who didnt have trouble with P at all during his entire school days. (I know he was very much interested in escaping from mom's hands)

First thing was, I was unable to comprehend the reason behind that. She is very much amukkam type . P usually tells everything(even today - if i just say appadiyaa, ok) , but nothing works with Pa. Only recently i have started to get something from her (at the least). So , it was all the more difficult.

And people who know me well, can understand. I tend to imagine all the worst possible situations in my head and would be kavalapattufying within myself, though i would put up a very brave front. Only my aathu would be able to decipher me. He can immediately say from my voice (naanga thaan long distance kudumbam nadathurome) that iam troubled.

So, being a very sensitive and body strong basement weak mom, i started panicking and tried to get information from her friends. This process took me whole day because i called their moms and tried to first make them understand the situation. (What else u expect , when you child starts crying uncontrollably the moment you wake her up for school)

By that time i had imagined various situations from all the psychotic movies.....

Fine, coming to the point, it turned out that she had problem with her classmates. For the past 6 years she was in one section, which means they were all used to each other and a safe haven was formed. Now, this year, there was shuffling. Initial days were like honeymoon, where they all showed their nice side and it was fun for everyone. When things slowly started settling, bullying and ego problems cropped up.

But, as a mother, you imagine the worst possible scenario and think of all the bala and selvaraghan movies and let your own screenplay playout in front of you. Ist too much exposure to information or as a society we have turned worst or there is lack of trust?

Ithukku nadula when i was asking her - she was like

Why should i go to school?

Why cant i learn everything at home?

Anyways you only teach me everything, why dont i opt for home schooling?

Iam going to be an artist and fashion designer, why should i study science and other subjects?

Maths , i agree, i need for calcuations because i will open up a retail store for my fashion label

Intha kelvi ellam enakku ennannu kooda theriyathu at that age. Hmm enna pandrathu

Somehow, convinced her saying, its the Govt policy that every child should compulsorily go to school.

Life story

P is a college going kid now and when i was writing the previous post i couldnt but go through this post chennaigirl: Shock of the life (oreponnu.blogspot.com).

Hmm life is a cycle.....They say pls think before you speak and it is so true and now it has become reality.

And he is a movie buff and when he was doing his 10th after his exams, he used to write the list of movies he wanted to watch. Thats how crazy he is. And meticulously he started striking off the list.

It doesnt matter which language, he wants to watch movies, so when the time came for him to choose his group he chose commerce. I was not so surprised  when he wanted to join college, but when he opted for CA along with Bcom. 

There also, we didn't put pressure. He wanted to join college - co-ed (i couldnt find roll-on eyes emoji) . He missed his 11th and 12th due to Covid, so he wanted to experience that. Being understanding and gen-x parents we just nodded our heads.

Enakku therinju he was disillusioned of all college movies. But the reality bug bit him. He is like me - konjam self respect athigam and also konjam ego vum. The difference is he gets easily bogged down and gets into depression, whereas yours truly is very adamant and will try to get the best out of that situation - what may come iam not easily rattled.

Now, back to the story , he got bored of the course , the classmates who couldnt gel and the environment and totally lacked interest in everything. Slowly, he started hinting at change in course and starting fresh.

Initially, we were apprehensive, soon realized we cannot force and shifted him to VISCOM.

But the process was exhilarating. They start blaming us for everything - 

Why were u not clear about your course when we asked in the beginning - YOU DID NOT GIVE ME SPACE

We asked you thousand times and it was you who wanted to join college that too in the last minute when we ALREADY DECIDED to go with UG-CORRESPONDENCE and CA - I THOUGHT I NEEDED A BACKUP AND YOU ONLY BRAINWASHED ME WHENEVER U SPOKE

FINALLY - YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME 

Ennatha solla, whatever we do, we just want them to be happy more than anything.

Now, the justification for the Post title - When we used to have arguments , we used to tell him - we had none to guide us - we had to literally go and learn everything on our own and from our teens we have been taking care of ourselves as well my grandmother. 

My daughter Pa used to hear these things and yesterday night when we went to bed she asked for a story - It was already 11.30 ( she was studying for unit test) and i just said i dont have strength to think about one. Then she asked for my life story. I was like " Ennathu life story ah? " She was like - Nee P ya thittarche neriaya solluviye athu sollu

I was dumbstruck . Hmmm all times of India.

kiddie talk becomes Teen talk

 Just when i restarted to write the blog again i was going through all the Kiddie talks of P and was reminiscing the old times. 

Sometimes, i would just self evaluate, do i really behave like early 40's . Am i matured or do i atleast pretend to act matured. Whatever, the real test came.

If not here, where can i pour my heart out. I can really come back lets say 10 years later and introspect my feelings.

Well my Kiddo P is into college now studying Viscom, and how did i react when i figured he bunked college to go to the movie Barbie, with his girlfriend. Hmm, I was more mollified not because he went to movie with girlfriend but by telling me all bullshit stories underestimating my intelligence.

How did i figure out, he went? Well, that's a secret even my diary cannot know :)

When i confronted him, he openly cursed me taking classes and assumed one of the students would have spilled the beans.

Then he was trying to save his face by showing me the most cringe  instagram story he posted after the movie. He also assumed one of my student following him would have koluthipottufied.

I can even forgive him going to the movie but not the mega cringe post he posted " In barbie with my barbie" or something like that........ithellam enga poi azharathunnu theriala

And he tried to use the situation and wanted to bring her to home the following weekend. A big fight ensued not because i didnt want her to but i had already told him by busy schedule of that day. My daughter had a workshop and classes back to back that day and i had to reschedule my classes to accommodate. All these were communicated earlier to him. IN spite of that he planned and wanted to bring her.

Obviously , the nagging kid disguising himself as kid won. 

And i really had to give a pat to my aathu who was not in town but gave me a supporting hand ,shoulder and everything and was guiding like movies where the heroine who gets directions through blue tooth

Enna panrathu, these things really test me and indeed tells me KARMA IS A BOOMERANG

hmm , oru vazhiya i behaved very normally and also with dignity, and the event passed without any bloodshed.

I really dont know how i could have handled this better or how i can keep myself grounded and levelheaded in handling the future situations.

Kadavule enakku ellam handle panrathukku patience and strength kuduppa nnu daily pray panrathuthaan vazhinnu nenaikkaren

Kiddie talk - Pa

 When i posted 2 days back, it felt nice to go through all the posts and especially Kiddie talks by P.

So, i thought i should also record about Pa, who is in 5th std now. Though i have missed recording so much, something similar to P's incident happened. It was like a rerun of the old movie.

Pa is very close mouthed. She is not very divulging, in the sense, she filters her thoughts and actions when recounting the incidents. So, yesterday we were having the bed time. 

This year beginning all the sections got mercilessly shuffled and that is another story by itself. So, Pa is struggling a bit to adjust. And also the teachers behaviors making it worse for her.

As such Pa is very quiet and does all her work and is studious too. But daily morning she would say NO SCHOOL . I cajoled, coaxed and did what not to get the reason behind. The reason being " THE TEACHERS ARE RUDE AND ARE HITTING KIDS" 

All these 9 years i havent even called her name loudly. She would just get her dam going the moment i call her sternly. And P would always mock me saying ' nee enna evvalavu adichiruppa' . Though the realisation and gnanothayam is late, i do regret being that parent. Anyways everything is TRIAL AND ERROR , what say.

Coming to the main subject, when we were having bed time conversation , i recalled her friend saying the boys of the class were naughty and asked her who were the naughtiest. She said some 5 names and said S is the worst and he almost got TC. And i asked what the reason was - He was using words like "LOVE and all" in class. And V complained to the vice-principal and they warned him.

I was so shocked and taken aback. Then i started explaining its not wrong to talk about love and it means affection. Its nothing but affection shown among people. Like me loving Pa, her appa and her appa loving her and P. There is nothing wrong in thinking in those lines  unless it disturbs the other person and makes them uncomfortable.

I think bringing up kids these days is in itself a task similar to tight rope walking. You cannot just say ' YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME BECAUSE IAM YOUR PARENT' . They are past all those things. Each and everything should be explained and given reasons.

As my friend said, ithukke ippadinna, innum evvalavo irukku.