Love hurts...like a bitch!

‘Loving my parents hurts because I can't be what they would have me be’.

I read this one liner by one of my favourite bloggers and it struck right home. I don’t think anyone but a rebel would understand this kind of pain. There are times I have bowed to down to my family’s wishes, but never have I come out successful. Oh! It has nothing to do with their decision or wish, but with me. I have never been completely happy till I have felt that what I am doing is right for me. That’s the strong headed, stubborn, mulish person I am.

One of the biggest decisions in my life has hurt my mother, to an extent that I can never forgive myself for. As I see her suffering, as she has through the past two years, especially the past few months, all I feel is profound sadness, guilt at the impact that this decision has had on her. The kind when the loss of someone or something envelopes you like a fog that simply gives you blinders.

Yes, I am marrying a Muslim. He’s a Dawoodi Bohra, the community known for its forward thinking, yet conservative in its own way. And the thought, the very idea, of me becoming part of this community, this religion, from one where I have never had to bind to the rules of my religion or community, where I have been my own free bird, scares the shit out of everyone. But, on my good days, I must confess, I feel, freedom is a state of mind, no? Love, too, is a state of mind. A common saying is when love flies out the window, reality comes in. But what if that love is strong, stronger than anything else? What if it is that love that has borne the understanding, the respect, the emotions that two people share? Why would it fly out of the window, unless we let it loose?

I have hurt my mother more than I can ever imagine to have hurt her. But I have faith – faith that it will all be fine. Through every step, every obstacle, every single barrier that has been put in our way, although I have cried, pulled my hair out, screamed, begged, grieved, gone temporarily insane, that faith, that strength to bear this all has remained. We have both endured everything we can of each other, we have been rude, we have fought, we have blamed and hardly left each other with options. He too shares what I feel, the pain, the emotions, the hurt, the guilt of hurting his family.

Yet, somewhere through all this crazy thick fog, we are merely two people walking towards each other, blind, yet aware that we are all we want, stretching out our arms, yearning for that one touch, that one magnetic field that constantly brings us closer and closer, till we meet as one soul, one being, one entity.

And, that is when the compromises (each of us has made and will make) fall off, that is when the sacrifices seem but like miniscule decisions, and the bigger picture, the wholeness of our love, our unity and our strength rises like the phoenix from the ashes, again and again!