mommymasala

Some days I feel hurt, angry, and resentful towards Zahara’s father and his family for everything they put me through. The beginning of the end of my marriage was mind-numbing at times and I had a newborn to focus on, so with what little energy and self-control I had left, I mustered the courage to put on a smile and sing songs and change diapers and breastfeed at all hours and on and on. And I loved that part of myself, the mommy who could be happy and loving with my baby. It was good for me, because I had no choice but to turn off all of the contemplation, the doubts, the whys and the maybes, and the loss of self that I felt threatening to swallow me whole. The ever-present ache that was my reaction to everything that had happened was diminished, even shockingly forgotten, when I chose to focus all my faculties on my daughter. Yes, chose, because I had every manner of means, motive, and opportunity to incapacitate, injure, or even eliminate myself but I wanted to be a mom to Zahara and that mattered more than my broken heart. (By the way, can you tell I’m a crime-show junkie from that last sentence?)

The simple act of choosing to lock up my thoughts and emotions during my mommy moments was a fake it ’till you make it experiment that turned out to help me heal. When Zahara fell asleep, my mommy mask fell off and all of the feelings I was struggling to get rid of would come pouring in and sometimes I’d start to sink into it like quicksand. But then, blessedly, I’d hear the unmistakable shifting of a little body, and the first tentative cries calling to me, asking me to please come quick and hold this warm little person against my chest. It’s not all sweet and Hallmark-appropriate with a newborn, but those first moments of wakefulness really were. And I never thought I’d be so grateful for the sounds of a sleeping baby waking up as I was in that first year. It gave me a responsibility to fulfill an unspoken promise to my daughter that I would always be there for her, that I could make us happy. So the quicksand would recede for the moment and I’d pull myself up and be a mom.

One thing this shoving aside of problems did was make me incapable of analyzing my situation. I didn’t think much so I wouldn’t feel anything, but then that meant I also couldn’t see how much better off I was. I knew that I wanted a certain kind of life for my little girl, and that included a man who treated her mother right so she would know what to expect for herself one day. I also knew whatever my life had been it was not working, but I still felt just as hurt, resentful, and angry as ever, so figuring out that I liked being single took a while. In fact, if I’m honest, I still have times when I wish I could just go back and somehow fix what went wrong. But not only can’t I go back in time, it wouldn’t have helped anyway. Just like I chose to be a good mother, Zahara’s father chose to be a bad husband.

Lately I’ve been feeling stronger and calmer, and I’ve realized that some time in the last two years and without my knowledge, I had stopped faking happiness and actually started experiencing it. I am sexy, single, and oh, so satisfied! And there are a bunch of reasons why that’s so, which I’ve decided to list so I can look back whenever the sadness creeps back in. Because, let’s be honest, no one is happy all of the time but a little self-encouragement does go a long way.

Reasons why I LOVE being single

1. I don’t have to share my bed anymore! Well, I do, for half the night, with my toddler who inevitably wakes up and comes to me, but at least it’s not a huge, sweaty, comforter-hogging man who disturbs my sleep with his lust at 4 a.m. And if I ever miss the occasional arm across my waist, I’ve got sweet baby snuggles which are so much better!!
2. Speaking of lust, I do not have to pretend to like it or that I want it. Yes, he knew what I wanted and sometimes it was perfect, but mostly it was sort of a job. I’m your wife and you expect me to want you so I will even when I’d rather just sleep, or read a few chapters of a good book, or eat ice cream, or watch one of those crime dramas I’m addicted to! But now, it happens on my schedule, how I like it and how long, because the only person I worry about pleasing is me.
3. I cook the food I like, trying new recipes for myself. When I was married I thought it was also my job to make my husband’s tummy happy regardless of whether or not I liked the dish I made for him. Now I bookmark recipes that look interesting to me and I make them at my whim. I feel like having spicy veggies tonight? Let’s whip out the old cell phone and find something I could love. I’ve already made a ton of stuff that’s become part of my cooking staples, and if anyone wants to try them they can, but whether they like it or not my tummy’s happy and so am I.
4. I can go anywhere I want without asking anyone’s permission or explaining myself at all. This, of course, includes doing whatever Zahara needs, but I am in charge of our lives and I don’t have to answer to anyone but myself. I can go to Stroller Strides every day this week or take my daughter to a different toddler-friendly restaurant for lunch each time and it’s up to me. Living with my parents, I do forget sometimes and think I’m 15 again but then reality kicks back in and I realize that I’m twice that (oh dear God, insert minor nervous breakdown here) and a parent myself, so I am really the adult now! :~)
5. I can write! I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s so important to me I have to say it again. Somewhere along the way I lost my writer’s voice, my inner poet smothered by the life I was leading. I was uninspired and my words were inadequate. But look at me now. I am well on my way to rediscovering my passion for literary endeavors, and I’m doing a damn good job if I do say so myself.
6. I can appreciate myself and critique myself constructively. I don’t have to look in the mirror and care what anyone else sees. I know that I want to lose a few more pounds to get my energy level back up, although it will sadly never be what it was pre-pregnancy! But I love how I look. I even fit into my prom dress from 12 years ago at a Halloween party last week and I was absolutely beaming. I looked and felt sexier than I had in years. And I also have started figuring out the things about my personality I love, and what might need to change (but that’s a whole other post!)

The point is that I know I like who I am and being single gave me the strength to not care who else likes it. I’m not going to hide any part of me because I don’t have to. I’m not trying to please anyone else and I’m living my life my way. And I am sexy and satisfied because of it. There are things I want to do, personal and professional goals I have, but I know I’ll accomplish them because I’ve learned how to listen to what I want and also that I can make it happen. Yes, I’m single, but I am so over being married that my single status is a source of inspiration and clarity. And more than that, it’s a way for me to be happy. What more can a single woman want?

DESI- of, or belonging to, a specific land; slang for Southeast Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis) living outside of their own or their parents’ homelands.

In Boston’s Tufts Hospital at 7:48 p.m. on November 13, 2009 I finally met the baby girl I’d been carrying for 41 weeks. All of the movies and television shows around the world depict a woman suddenly glowing with pride and awe and love as she gazes at her fragile newborn and cries. It is an image universally portrayed, but in our case, it was my husband who sobbed as Zahara entered the world. I heard his half gasp, half sob, “My baby!” and then I saw her hair, her face, her body for an instant, before the nurses took her to the other side of the room. I didn’t cry. I was amazed by her and got caught up in trying to wrap my head around the fact that she was really finally here. This was my little girl and I had been waiting for what seemed like forever just to hold her in my arms. I know I’m a bit biased as her mother, but honestly, my daughter arrived as this curious little genius with an innate strength I marveled at, grabbing a nurse’s stethoscope as she tried to measure her. Then I was holding her, and I kept telling myself again and again so it would truly sink in, “I am a mother.”

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I had been staying with my parents since November 25th in New York where I was born and raised. Desi women go to their mothers for the first 6 weeks after delivery to recover and learn how to be mommies themselves. And in my case, my husband’s parents had decided to hold their daughter’s wedding in New York exactly 3 weeks after my due date, which ended up being when my baby was only 2 weeks old. I was upset that they hadn’t chosen to have it in December, when the groom’s family wanted and when I would have been able to really participate and enjoy myself, too. December would have been perfect for my baby, too since a big gathering like a wedding is really not recommended for newborns.

In desi soap operas, there is always one saintly female character who sacrifices everything for her husband, his family, her children, because by loving, respecting, and caring for them she will eventually win them over and they will appreciate and love her, too. I’m no saint, but I was as close to this as humanly possible, with room for errors in judgment and unintentional mistakes, of course. Even though I was recovering from painful emergency surgery that I had to have a few days after Zahara was born, I was so happy for my sister-in-law and the rest of my husband’s family that I felt it was my duty to get us to that wedding no matter how much my doctor advised rest.

I continued to be the best daughter-in-law I could while dealing with a new baby and taking Percoset for the post-surgery pain. And when my in-laws expressed doubt for my love for them, I thought if I wasn’t able to help out with the wedding than at least my husband could. I told him he had to go be with his family 40 minutes away from me and Zahara, because once his sister left that house a married woman his relationship with her would change forever. I insisted he spend every waking moment with his family, because at the time, I believed in sacrificing for the family I felt was my own. Whether he ran around finishing wedding preparations or just sat on the sofa and talked with his parents and siblings, that was where he should be, I said. All I asked was that he come sleep with me and the baby, even if that was only an hour a night. I wanted him and Zahara to bond, and honestly, I craved that little bit of time when I could just fall asleep in his arms, exhausted but peaceful because I knew Zahara was in good hands. My in-laws erupted. My husband erupted. I told him to stay with his family until everyone went to bed and then to come be with me and our daughter when there was nothing going on there except sleep. I didn’t want him or his family to miss any special pre-wedding moments together, but I also wanted him with us, even if only for one hour out of every 24.

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Cut to New Year’s Eve.

Zahara’s father was supposed to spend New Year’s Eve with us at a party my parents were having at home, but since we’d been arguing a lot recently he told me he wanted to be alone. He’s a pilot, and was in and out of New York with temporary duty in random states around America since Zahara had been born. Until I had the baby, I had moved around like crazy with him to support his career however he needed. But this New Year’s he was in St. Louis and I was on Long Island, and all evening I kept trying to call him because as mad as I was at him, I still loved him and thought it was my job to somehow appease him and make it all better.

As much as my “American” independent streak made me expect certain behavior and voice my demands quite loudly one minute, my desi upbringing including the need to pacify my husband made my voice soften, my words tinged with the calming notes of forgiveness and moving on. The two sides of my personality fought hard as they had done increasingly since I got married, but eventually I decided I had given the man enough of a cold shoulder and being together at midnight on New Year’s, even over cell phones, was more important than my anger. So I called and texted and became more and more uneasy.

And when midnight came and went, and my daughter slept with her head on my shoulder, unaware of anything but me, I got angry again. How could he not call? Not call me, not call his daughter, not be there as a last minute surprise? Didn’t he want to wish our baby girl her first happy new year? We had always said that whatever you’re doing at midnight is what you’ll be doing all year. Like if you’re on the tiny island of Jost Van Dyke in the Caribbean with friends (as we were 2 years in a row…oh yeah, there were some out of this world experiences), if you were laughing as the clocks hit 12, then your year ahead would be full of laughter and good times with great friends. So this, Zahara’s first ever New Year’s and what was supposed to be the end of my 6 weeks recovery at my parents’ house, what was this?

I fell asleep, troubled and sad as a wife, but genuinely pissed off as a mother for my child who was ignored so easily. I was more than disappointed in him. I was mad as hell, and although I didn’t know it then, the mother in me was turning out to have a backbone I hadn’t noticed before. There was a core strength in me as a woman, desi and American combined, to become exactly what I needed to be for myself and my sweet baby girl. That night will forever remain a turning point in my life as it was the end of my marriage, although I didn’t know that yet either.

On January 1st, 2010 I woke up so early it was still dark out. Some instinct was telling me something major was happening and I took out my IPhone to check if Zahara’s father had at last called. Seeing no missed calls, texts, or voicemails, I quickly started checking my email with a nervous, focused energy I have come to rely on. One email caught my eye, a notice from my bank for recent suspicious activity. Even as I opened it I knew. Even though I had never seen any evidence of it before, I knew. Even though in the desi community it is still the most scandalous thing, and no one knows anyone who it has happened to, I knew. There, in that innocent little email at some random hour of the early morning on the first day of the new year was a charge for a roundtrip ticket to St. Louis from New York on Southwest Airlines for a woman staying with my in-laws as a wedding guest. I hardly knew anything about her back then, but the one thing I knew, from somewhere deep inside me that was unwilling to flinch from the truth, was that this woman represented the end of my marriage.

Just like when I gave birth, I didn’t cry but was amazed at how life had changed so suddenly again. I reread that email so many times, and then something took over and I investigated in as many ways as I could online to see what other facts and information I could gather. There was something raw and choking somewhere in me, but I closed that off and found myself able to function. Even now as I write this, I don’t know what exactly kept me from falling apart right then and there. But I just couldn’t, I wouldn’t give in to the emotion that threatened to devastate me. Whether it was that American pride or the desi definition of a woman’s duty to her children, I’ll never know, but I found out what I needed to and I kept breathing. With my baby girl asleep in her bassinet beside me, I repeated to myself again and again until it would sink in “I am a mother.”