seeking unconditional love

There's certainly Sunday evening and Monday morning syndromes, I know from the years I spent working in the corporate world. These past few years, I've come to realize there's Friday night and Saturday morning syndrome too!

Friday nights come with plenty of promise, but unless we've made plans in advance for the weekend, it mostly disappears in catching up on chores and errands and wondering why life isn't any more interesting than how it is turning out to be.

Friday nights and Saturday mornings were also typically the times we reserved to speak with a certain family member. I remember the trepidation building up inside me ahead of those weekly phone calls.

Over the years I've come to realize that family, in a broad, idealistic definition, is a person or a group of people who accept(s) you unconditionally for who you are.

We shouldn't have to walk on eggshells to be accepted by family. We shouldn't have to lie and scheme and manipulate, we shouldn't have to become someone else, in order to deserve that belonging.

But love almost always seems to come with conditions. It is a rare one that can be called unconditional.

I've come to see that KrA's love for me has always been unconditional; I can't say the same for myself truthfully because I know I place too many demands on him. At least, I'm aware of it, and that is good enough for course-correction when it matters.

Is my love for D unconditional? Of course, not! There are things I'd like him to do or ways I'd like him to be, but I know better than to express all that to him.

That unconditionality is something I work on. I often resort to humour or silence when I'm at war with myself, my very human self wanting him to do something and my ideal persona understanding that my very demand is utterly human and utterly irrational, that no child or person should have to bear the burden of it.

But I want it too, this unconditional love for myself. I want someone to be my cheerleader, someone who can encourage me to carry on on days when I feel like a complete failure, someone who can promise me they will always be there for me or that it will all turn out to be OK even though fate can prevent them from keeping their promises.

I must have been 10 or 11 years old. It was pretty late at night and I woke up remembering that I hadn't completed a homework assignment that was due the next day.

I woke up and told my mom about it, and she offered to stay up with me. She puttered about in the kitchen while I finished my homework. Just her company was a pillar I could lean on when life felt difficult.

This morning, D wanted to do some homework and when he asked me to come up and join him, it reminded me of how I felt when my mom gave me company. And I was only super happy to sit alongside D and watch him do his work while also keeping my mouth shut as he joyfully experimented with writing his letters in all sorts of topsy-turvy ways.

So much of parenting is sitting and watching and witnessing without giving in to the temptation to voice any judgement whatsoever. It's akin to meditation!

I understand now why people turn to God or religion or self-love; the idea that there is at least one source of unconditional love available to us at all times, if only we paused to look for it, is very seductive and appealing.

Without it, we're all like flotsam and jetsam, residues of wreckage, unwanted goods, debris largely set adrift in deep waters with no destination in mind. Just an eternity of coasting along, feeling helpless, looking for that one thing or one person or one God or one great love that can come and save us from ourselves.

Gosh! This is so depressing!

I'd be better off reading a few more pages of Homecoming and taking a nap, even though it's not even ten in the morning. But we have a busy afternoon with friends coming over, and this is not the mood I wish to be in when they are around.

I miss India so much. I miss home so much. But if you ask me what constitutes home for me, I can say it's not my parents' home or my in-laws' place, it's neither Ranchi nor Chennai where most of my relatives live, it's not Mumbai or Bangalore or Pune where I spent a lot of my childhood and adolescent years.

It's probably that place in Thane, on the outskirts of Mumbai, where I spent a few years of childhood. Maybe not.

In all likelihood, it's a place that doesn't exist. A place I could spend my entire lifetime looking for, a place I wish existed somewhere outside of fiction.

Perhaps, rituals would help me. Now that I know I struggle on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, perhaps creating some rituals, something fun to look forward to at these times, would help.

Or better still, I should get a dog. A panacea for all the sorrows of life, until the time comes for one of us to depart!

It doesn't help that sleep has become elusive once more. I fell asleep at 8:30 PM last night, only to wake up at 10. And after that I couldn't sleep until 2 AM. Then D woke me up at 4 AM, needing to go to the loo. Drifted back to sleep once more, then woke up at 7 AM eventually.

Somehow I never manage to sleep in. Even if I've had the worst sleep or have gone to bed very late, my body wakes up at its usual time. Only, I wake up feeling listless and lethargic, unable even to look forward to an entire day of activity and fun.

Lack of good sleep is certainly a major factor in how my moods swing up and down each morning.

Anyhoo, I don't wish to wallow too much on all the could-have-been's and should-have-been's. In that sense, coming here to type my feelings is far greater therapy and catharsis than anything else, and I'm glad I chose to do that, knowing this is what I need in this moment.

Now, I can look forward to the day and attend to the day's planned events with more optimism than I had been feeling until now.

So, dear reader, you may be wondering what the point of reading these outpourings is.

I share these thoughts to serve as reminders that there can be many reasons why we're unable to make it to the writing desk other than lack of discipline or grit or persistence or any of those faults we don't hesitate to accuse ourselves of.

Yes, for some people writing is an escape from the realities of life. For some others, writing scenes of difficulty can bring up past trauma and halt them in their tracks.

It's all OK. None of it is our fault. It's all OK.

As long as we can remember that, we can be far more gentle with ourselves on this journey. We ourselves won't fall prey to the fallacy of basing our love for ourselves on certain conditions being met.

Who knows? Perhaps we may become the one true and trusted source of unconditional love for our own selves.