Last Tuesday my mother tested positive for Covid-19. And like many families our isolation normal started. It sucks! Not being able to comfort someone who is going to something like this is the most discomforting situation any normal human being can be. But we have a bedridden super senior citizen so we couldn’t afford to get all infected and be together. Hence isolation was important. And hence just like million families around the world, we were separated while being in the same house. But the home was intact!
The thing about this new normal is that we actually get to know how much women of the house works. And this is when I am used to doing household work for few days. But doing something regularly gives you a real outlook about it. When I say I am used to doing household work, I mean max for 8 days. So 15 days were like eye opener to so many things.
And, I want to start by stating this, “I know why women are paranoid about having certain things in certain ways!” And I find this to be the psychological breakthrough! So imagine, for a project you have done all the research, analysis and found a perfect way to present it. And you have been doing it successfully for many years. But suddenly a colleague comes in and says, it would be better if we present it in different way. Now there you are, knowing that it would not make sense to client if you change the way of presentation and it would ruin all your efforts what would you do?!? So all the work women do is like your project research and analysis and basically you are being that stupid colleague. You are smart enough to figure out the rest.
Men of the house are usually sweet and do want to help in every way they can, but mostly they are like that colleague I mentioned above. So to avoid the rework we do things ourselves. Now, many may say that we can tell the men how to do the work. But the colleague is smart and wants to do his own research and that is again rework for us. And not to mention the patience you will need while training is enormous and patience is in short supply in crises mode. So the best help is, to do exactly like you are told to and it if you want, just pray that it will be over soon.
Now since patience is being mentioned, I cannot thank my mom enough for having very high level of patience while dealing with me. I mean if I was my mom and my child was doing exactly the opposite EVERY FUCKING TIME, I would have lost it every single day. And by the time the child is of my age I would have been in some mental institute. I am too much to handle. But that is okay because the good thing is my I get that from my parents. It’s just that now, I somehow know, how difficult it is to handle people who don’t fully appreciate your efforts but you have to keep doing things for them on DAILY BASIS!
And lastly it broke a certain image I had of myself. I have always thought that I am too good at taking care of people. And I have somehow always considered that I’ll be a good partner or mother because of that. But last 15 days shattered that self image. Because I realised, I can only take care of others, if I take care of myself, do the work that I love and have enough time to process what is happening around me. In last 15 days I did manage to moderately take care of myself. But I barely had time for other two things. I couldn’t do the things that I love (probably still way to go for learning time management) and neither could I process what is happening around me. And after a while, when I was able to process all the things, it was clear to me: Whatever I want to be in future I have to start by being happy. Not be good for someone or for something but just be me. Do what I love regularly. Even if it means waking up early or staying up late. Because it will give me mental peace, which can help me to take care of myself and henceforth of others.
There is difference between knowing something and understanding something. I knew that you can care for other people only if you care for yourself. But Now I understand that notion on whole different level. Now I know that self care is something you do to keep your mind peace. It could be different things for different people. But unless and until we do self care we cannot care for the world. You are the epicenter of your world. If the peace cannot be found within you, you cannot let others live in peace. So find your own peace. And God! That is going to take time!
A Heart-felt world 