537. IS DESI GIRL CHILLING OUT AND FINDING ZEN?

I don’t notice that January has slipped into February and that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. It has been a long, long, long time since I have had a date on Valentine’s Day. Fret not, yes oh yes, I got love today. Desi Niece and Desi Mom send me paper valentines in the mail. The one from Desi Mom included $10, which I find, cute, heart-warming and so typical Mom. Just a little something to let me know she is thinking of me.

When I was in college, my sorority sisters and I, who did not have dates on Valentine’s Day, had a “Lonely Hearts Club” where we were one another’s dates. It was fun, just to get a group of gals together and be girls. I think that is one of the great things about being a girl, you never stop having meaningful, fundamental and relationships with women.

This year, I am spending Valentine’s Day alone. But that is fine. I am having a fundamental relationship with myself --- so far, I can’t complain, 2010 is going great. I am deeply engrossed in my writing classes, blogging, and writing. I have gotten into a massive fitness kick, working out six days a week. The weight machines at my new gym are not nearly as nice as Planet Fitness, but I am making due. I cut out the alcohol again and am completely focused on writing and working out. I think I should investigate bringing mediation, yoga and green tea into my life. It is possible that I am moving towards a state of Zen?

536. THREE CONFESSIONS AND ONE TRUTH OF A DESI GIRL

Confession: When I moved to New York, I thought, I really thought in 18 months, I would be married, mortgaged in Scarsdale, munchkins en route, walking a dog I barely liked, curdling yougurt, mastering the fine art of rolling a round roti.

Confession: I have wanted to be a writer for a very, very long time. I have been a lover of reading and books for even longer. When I was seven years old, long after lights out, Mom would check on me. I was notorious for reading under the covers with a flashlight, so she routinely had to confiscate my things and make me go to sleep. I was an avid reader, who always had a pencil in my hand and a notebook in the other, drawing pictures and writing sentences.

Confession: I don’t want writing and a man to cross over. For some reason, very strongly, I wanted to be an accomplished writer before I got married. I don’t know I wanted this. I just did. Sometimes I felt that a man would not take my writing seriously and see it as a hobby and then relegate me into some subservient role. I don’t know what I thought this. I just did. So I thought if I had established myself and had a “name” in a “business” before marriage it would be better.

Truth: Maybe I should have thought any man who did not value my dreams or passions, was not the right man for me.

535. FEEL, WRITE, SHARE

Once I start I cannot stop. Between work, volunteering, ordering in take-out, spin classes, I write and write and write. The only other break I take from writing is to call my parents, my brother, Tate, Ainsley, Siobhan and Meera. But then I go back to writing into the wee hours of the night, into the early morning. There have been times when I finish a post as the first glimmer of day breaks. But I am committed to posting five times a week. Originally, I had hoped to post daily, but I could not keep up that pace.

At times the writing is electric, alive and on fire, just pouring out of my head and heart and soul through my fingers. For the things I cannot remember, I have my journals and souvenirs (museum maps, text messages, admission tickets). I often am surprised by my memory. The dates I can remember, the conversations that I have had. I am reminded of joy and pain I have forgotten but chronicled in little pieces of paper, scraps tucked here and there in books and files. And I piece, piece the story, my story together one post at a time.

For hours upon endless hours I sit and type.  I have not mapped out the story per se. I have mapped out what I want to share. I have never thought about the timeline, like how many posts will I post. I wonder if anyone will, read, why they will read. If one person reads, if a few people can relate, that would be more than enough. I know I cannot make a novel out of 100 bad desi dates, but I know I can work on my craft, work on the story, edit and refine my words and my story telling. The blog site contacts me, suggests that I set up ads. But I am not doing this for money. If I wanted to make money I’d take classes on how to pitch to magazines.

Each post of approximately 500 words takes me about four hours per post between the writing, editing and publishing.  But this is the first time in a LONG time I have felt that I am being true to myself, fueling a passion, having a purpose. Sure, if I could cure a disease, I would. But that gift was not given to me by God, so I do what I can. I feel, I write, I share.

534. THE WHY FOR MY HOW

I recently read a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, “he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

So I am removing all the hows that are in the way of my why. The first thing I am doing is getting on a rigorous work out regiment. I do love working out, and sometimes I fall off the exercise wagon. But when I get back on, the endorphin rush makes me feel unstoppable, energized and electric. I have recently gotten into spinning and think I may have a new addition.

The next thing is, I am off dating, desi or otherwise. I am done trying to stuff a square shaped peg into a round hole. Besides, I am a romantic. Yes, I’m a cynic, but a romantic. I believe that love finds you when you are not looking for it like an obsession. Not that I am living by why for how mantra because of Town & Country, but he does have single vision – work – and nothing gets in the way of his success. And it is time to focus on my single vision - my writing.

The last and most important thing is to take what I learned in my memoir writing class and incorporate that into what I learned in my blogging class and finally launch my blog. A blog that I will write in present tense about past events.

So I sit down at my desk and begin writing. I want about 11 posts written before I launch, so I can post two a day for almost a week. To get ahead so I can catch back up.

 The why for my how, that is my focus.

533. MATCH THIS BABY

This is painful. Really painful.

One of my resolutions was meet a nice (desi) man. But I am back on the desi matrimonial site, trolling through profile after profile. And it is one endless blur of brown faces, some with hair, some without, brown eyes, architect, banker, dentist, doctor, engineer, lawyer, height, weight, this, that. None of them. Not a single one of them seems or feels right. I don’t feel any interest or attraction to anyone. How is this possible? Is feeling dead inside normal? What the HELL am I mourning anyway? That wasn’t a relationship.UGH. I make stupid choices.

I get up from my desk and go into the fridge and find some yogurt. I peel back the top and drive my spoon into the pale pink calcium snack. My preferred snack is of course sour cream and onion potato chips, however in the New Year; I am trying to stay as far away from them as possible. I am also trying to eat healthy before naughty/bad. So I tell myself before I can eat chips, I must have 1-2 servings of dairy, and at least 2 servings of fruit and one veggie. Only then can I have something sinful. This is a philosophy I should have applied to dating.

I stand by the window that I have wide open to combat the relentless heat that bursts out of the radiator. I find it ludicrous that in the middle of winter I am wearing boxer shorts and a tank top, yet still sweating inside my apartment. It has to be over 80 degrees Fahrenheit in here! I have called the super twice to tell him how hot it is. He says he cannot it turn down because people on the first floor complain. Well – I know he is full of shit because I know three out of four on the first floor and they are as hot as I am. Every now and I then I consider calling 311 about the inhumane heat.

I finish my yogurt, toss the container in the garbage and go back to the computer. I log out of the desi site and type match.com into my browser; and let my finger linger over the search button. Is desi love REALLY my destiny? Or is it expected of me that I believe it is my destiny.

532. DESI GIRL YOU MAY HAVE A DEEPER LESSON HERE TO LEARN

Siobhan once said to me, that if I wanted to be married, I would be. And that the reason I am not married is because somewhere deep inside or subconsciously I don’t want to be married. This is what I am thinking and re-thinking as I pay the sushi delivery man and try to determine how I came to be attracted to Town and Country.

I mean I am a realist. I live in the real world. I live in real time. I don’t have false illusions about myself. I am shy of 5’-3”, this is why I fluff my hair and am a slave to high heels, despite the havoc they create for my feet. I know loyalty is my best and worst quality. I know that I love openly, and expect nothing in return. There is a dark side to this blind love and adoration. Because I have a REALLY long fuse, and I tolerate a lot of nonsense in relationships when I care about someone, things that the average person would not, but when I hit the no point of return, then I have no issue in cutting someone loose. And when I hit that point, I know I can be ugly and say things that cut. And I mean for my words to cut. Balance is something I have yet to learn. I gain and lose the same 10 pounds annually.

So I cannot help but wonder if it is due to this lack of balance is how I became attracted to someone who made it clear that I was nothing more than a time pass. Town and Country made it clear that some sex was great, but he was not going to be emotionally available to me. And I do give him props for being honest. He could have been a complete a-hole and led me on. Sure I feel that there was some mind game shtuff going on. He would have had to have been blind, deaf and dumb not to notice my attraction. I am so thankful that I knew I was nothing to him.

And what was he offering that I was so attracted to that I forsake others? Like Another Mate from Chicago. He was nice. Really nice. Then there was Dr. Froggy – though he kinda sucked since he was unable to show any emotion when Dad was in the hospital those first few days of Guillain-Barré syndrome. And if I was into men for money, I would have married Dr. Froggy.

So I am sitting here, cross-legged on the floor, dipping my salmon avocado roll into soy sauce, thinking that getting married and meeting a man is not my problem, in that is it not the core issue. That it is just a symptom of something greater that is inherently wrong with me. Is Town and Country attractive because he is Indian? And represents all things Indian that I think I want – successful, well educated, smart, Hindu, funny. It helps that I find him wildly attractive. But am I searching and trying to be a good little Indian girl, which includes marrying a “good” Indian boy, a big house in the suburbs, 2.5 kids, a dog I barely like walking? 

I just don’t know that I want any of that. I don’t like grass; I have learned to live in small spaces that I think I would lose my mind in 2,000+ square feet. When I visit my parents I can never find my phone and I love living in the City. I don’t like pets. I don’t know that I want kids. So maybe I don’t want the life associated with “a good little Indian girl”.  Maybe that is the problem. Maybe I don’t want what I think I am supposed to want. Maybe this is why I pick guys that I go no where with. Because I am not meant to go anywhere with them.