As she smiled broadly, confidence and elegance seemed to worship her, clad in a black abaya, just like the rest in the city, she stood within the circle yet so far apart from the rest.
I turned to her husband whose eyes gave away tales of their successful relationship. A gentleman of 78 with a heart younger and a mind fresher than ours, I could see how nobody else could have complemented him as well as the graceful companion he has.
Breaking away from my thoughts, I heard another middle aged lady compliment as she joined the conversation. A compliment rather was a thought provoking query -formed around the thought that not everyone gets a perfect companion.
The graceful one turned back and smiled again. She then looked at me and delved into a conversation which kept me thinking.
And here is what I understood of that.
Nobody gets a perfect life. I mean none of us. Every single one of us have our joys. We have our sorrows. Happinessand suffering. Pain and no Pain. We all have our share of it.
Those with a wonderful companion may have other fair share of pains to combat in life. Those who feel they lack a wonderful companion may have other joys to cherish in life.
Just as soon as the girl announces her engagement, the world rushes to wish her, congratulate her and make her feel like the luckiest. The world in its fable nativity, ends up inculcating a dream where she will be 'taken care of'. With dresses, jewellery, love and flowers from her husband, she is made to feel like the luckiest (read: emotionally laziest) person on earth. Her emotions are suddenly picked up and thrown into another human's lap. This is when a girl starts expecting a perfect bubble where she has just met a perfect prince charming who is now responsible for her 'happiness'.
My husband is a perfect prince charming for me. I understand the intensity of skepticism with which my statement will be viewed as 'I am just newly married and recently in love and haven't spent decades with him to realize so'. Sadly, as much as I yearn to express the depth of my statement, I can't. What I feel for my husband will be brushed aside as fresher love rather than giving it a chance to celebrate the togetherness of humans at this moment in Time.
But the only person who did seem to understand my view besides my own mother was this graceful lady.
From my inference of her conversation, cherishing that little bond of pain of differences (of interests, opinions, lifestyles and weaknesses) is what makes companionship worth it. As you live day in and day out with another human, you consciously, willingly make a choice of choosing to Feel the Joy of Suffering and Joy alike or surrender yourself to the inner confinement of Ego and Misery of how my life is not perfect.
Where we go, what we do and what we have matters less and seems to fall automatically in place when you consciously make a choice of living a peaceful life within. If your soul is at peace, then the journey of two completely different individuals living together becomes a happy one. They suddenly decide to look outside of themselves.
While the whole world closely monitors your frowns, your smiles, your gaze, your tummy bump and frantically wants to associate it somehow to your husband, you can choose to lovingly take back your emotions, own them as a strong human and decide to make your life with another person in a healthy way.
As we sat at Uncle and Aunty's place with a Valentine's cake that we had picked for them, they smiled, held the knife together and laughed a laugh independent of egoistic dependence of expectations. Living alone, their energy levels defy the burden of societal norms which often bog us down.
As we stood up to leave, she held my hand and gave me a little card. With words so cliché but with intensity of gaze that narrated a true story of her long term successful companionship.
Companionship which took time, energy, effort and Love. Nothing is perfect she whispered, make a choice to respect the man he is.
It made me recall my mom and dad's words of wisdom and realized just what she meant.
