The Romantic Elliptical: Part 10, Cliffs, Pitfalls and Objects from the Sky

How could he possibly know about my dream? I did not tell a soul. Did she come to him too? Impossible. What are the chances that my father and I would have the same dream. You cannot "share" a dream. I was too scared to ask him, too afraid of the truth.

Ever since I was a little girl, I was the apple of my father's eye. When he came home after work with treats, he only gave them to me. If my brother and sister were around, he would give me the lion's share of whatever he had on him. When he worked on a project around the house, he would always ask me to sit with him. When he went out to run errands, he would only ask me. This would infuriate my siblings but it was the fact of life in our family. My faults, my flaws, my bad-ass attitude and my wit, my charm and ability to make him smile made me his undeniable favorite. I was his eldest. I was his sidekick. I laughed at his cheesy jokes. I worked through his problems. I made him laugh. Yet I also made him cry.

Our fights were intense. Our arguments were challenging. I never took NO for an answer and acquired the ability to change it into a YES. Many times when our verbal arguments went nowhere, I would go to my room, slam the door and take out my pen and notepad. And then I would write for hours. The next morning, he would find an envelope outside his bedroom door - the day's reading for the office. In these letters, I would lay out my argument, finely tuned with more articulate points in my defense than I could ever express in a shouting match. That was not my forte--confrontation. Hence, I relied on my writing to express my thoughts, my point of view, my angle. In the end, he backed down and relented.

However this time, the air was different. An argument, a letter or any type of communication would not change his thinking. It was something I sensed right from the beginning even before I made my attempts to sway his thinking. But I was determined to have it my way, like in my childhood.

I did not communicate about my father's attitude to my fiancee. He was oblivious to my frustration. On the phone to him, I hid my emotions and continued our planning. It was October and we wanted to engagement to take place in December when his entire family would be here. My father would then interject and propose the following year. I did not know why he kept pushing it out. I would be taking my exams in January, the most busiest time of the school year yet my father would not go for a December engagement. I sat him down one day to argue this point. But it didn't take long for him to back down. I moved another player on the board. After a long pause and staring at me intently, he spoke.

"When you marry, where are you going to complete your education?" he inquired. Without so much of an expression, I could see the vein bulging on his forehead.

I smiled and shook my head. I had not given much thought to the idea. Dang it!

"Dad, I have everything under control. I am not even sure where I am going to live at the moment."

He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. "I thought you were going to live with their family. That is what his father told me. Do you think on his income he can afford another place?" He moved his player.

We had not talked about living arrangements but he never mentioned staying with this family. I exhaled deeply. "Well that is the charm of it all. We improvise as we go," I shrugged and practically ran out of the room. When I turned the corner, I saw my father smiling to himself. Why would his father already make the decision where we were going to live? We never discussed our living arrangements. Apparently the parents were. Who was running this show? This was not my idea of an arranged marriage where they 'arrange' every detail, including my post-marital life!

When my father left the house, I picked up the phone. Just as I was dialing, I realized the mistake I was about to make. I put the phone back down. Oh, he was good. My father. Master manipulator. I couldn't call my fiancee or I would lash out over a detail I wasn't even sure of myself. Where were we going to live? Where was I going to school? Would we even be able to afford school?

I walked over to my brother who was heavily involved in a computer game. He looked at the expression on my face and asked what was wrong. "Do you have anything to say about what is going on? I am going to be married soon. Your opinion would be nice," I blurted out. My brother was the youngest in our family but to his credit, my twin in common sense. He looked me square in the eye without blinking. "How do you feel about all this? Are you comfortable about this decision?" He turned back to his computer game while I stood there dumbfounded.

I think I was in defense mode too long that I didn't take time to even appraise my own feelings. As I watched his Super Mario Brothers game, I likened myself to Mario. Falling over cliffs, avoiding pitfalls and dodging falling objects from the sky.

Cliffs, pitfalls and objects from the sky.
Falling, avoiding and dodging.

I stared at the screen and realized... this was actually my life. But who was controlling the game?

The Romantic Elliptical - Part 2, "Kismet"

I write this next post with trepidation. I'm about to embark on the story of how I met my husband, much to his dismay. But there is a point I want to make here and its about "kismet".

Squeeze me?

I am a firm believer of fate and I can honestly say that I was fated to meet him and it took many twists and turns towards the end result --an arranged marriage.

SQUEEZE ME?

Yes. Whenever you mention the two words, arranged marriage, side by side, the Western world recoils at the notion. Let me clarify this idea as I get jaw-dropping, eyeball popping reactions when I tell people about my own marriage. For most that know me well, they would not fathom me agreeing to it in the first place.

According to Wikipedia, arranged marriage is: a marriage arranged by someone other than the couple getting wedded, curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world, including Europe. Today, arranged marriage is largely practiced in South Asia, and the Middle East and East Asia. The match could be selected by parents, a matchmaking agent, matrimonial site, or a trusted third party. In many communities, priests or religious leaders as well as relatives or family friends play a major role in matchmaking.

Let's look at my own checklist:

*match was selected by parents
*match was referred to by a third party
*match avoided courtship
*match was arranged by family friends and conducted by a religious priest
*match was predestined (I added that one because I saw the sign even before everything was mapped out)

The one thing I must point out - in Islam, if you do not consent to the marriage, the woman has the right to refuse the proposal. If you hear anything different (forced marriage, childhood engagements, really old men marrying teenage girls), this is culturally imposed. It has nothing to do with religion.

Rewind 20 years ago when I was eighteen --I was adamant against arranged marriages. Who were they kidding? I was going to meet my own mate and make that decision myself. But my trajectory in life was not heading in that direction. When my mother passed away that year, everything spun out of control. I lost my bearings and had could not grasp onto the unfolding events. That is why its "kismet" -- a fated force that pulled me towards my husband, no matter how hard I tried to avoid the inevitable.

And if I were asked if I could go back in the past and have the control to change those events, I would not. Ask my non-Muslim friends who attended my wedding, begging my father to find them a husband like mine ;)

Stay tuned for Part 3, "Father Proposal"...

Naturally Me

Sleep has eluded me.

It happened around the time I turned 40.

Squeeze me?

I have been laying awake almost every night, confused by my inability to sleep. It was as if my biological clock woke up and alerted every hour to prevent me from enjoying blissful slumber.

Now I live as a nocturnal being--and my mind wanders at night pondering my existence as I lay staring at the ceiling. Hubby snoring, leaves rustling outside in the wind, and my own heart thumping in my brain.

I think its too early to label it insomnia as I drift off at various times of the night--not quite REM sleep but a strange light, 'pretend' sleep where my mind tricks my body that its sleeping when in fact I am aware of all my surroundings. I have the strangest dreams, or 'pretend' sleep episodes that range from work, family and friends, all in the weirdest situations. I won't go into detail in fear of either exciting or alienating some of the people that read this blog. Let's just say these seem to be caffeine-induced dreams.

I must have a stimulant (namely caffeine in the form of coffee or my fav drink, RED BULL) to stay awake--however this chemical reaction propels me throughout the day and there is no slowing down by the evening. Soft music, warm milk, hot baths, reading laborious manuals, watching scientific documentaries, intense needlepoint...nothing brings me to sleep. I drink an ample amount of water to flush it out of my system but to no avail. You may wonder if I take drugs to keep awake, why don't I experiment with them to fall asleep?

Ironically, somehow I cannot bring myself to do the opposite. Call me crazy (and at many times of the day, I do have the wild-eyed look about me) but I need to fall asleep naturally.

But what is truly natural these days?

Sweet Dream or Beautiful Nightmare

Time and time again, I have the weirdest sensations. I honestly believe I have a sixth sense. Premonition, gut feeling, odd dream, call it whatever you want.

They don't come often, but when they do, the results are inevitably correct.

Last night I had the strangest dream--or was it a beautiful nightmare?

Squeeze me?

It was about work. I have many dreams of work. When you have two lives, home and work, it is inevitable you will dream of both. But my dream showed many things. Upheaval. Change. Death. I know...sounds sadistic. Sometimes I choose to tell people, sometimes I refrain. Old cultural folklore demands one not to reveal premonitions before or after they happen.

Today when I came to work, I heard about upheaval, change and death. All in that order.

I want to brush off the sixth sense.

I'm learning not to be rattled.

But it lives within me, as a warning and sometimes a guide. It follows me during the day and haunts me at night.

Release me...sometimes knowing is too much.

Emotions are the latest fashion

I wear my emotions on my sleeve.

I cannot hide the fact that I am:

-happy
-sad
-depressed
-amused
-angry
-flustered
-aggravated
-puzzled
-moved

Ok, so the list goes on and trust me, may face resembles a cartoon character. Some people are politically correct and very diplomatic by not showing others how they REALLY feel. There are times I admire this quality but then I think to myself, "Aren't you cheating?!?"

Squeeze me?

Are we whipped and trained to control our emotions so much so that we are untrue to ourselves and the people we interact with? Of course, we all know (or do we) that it depends on the situation. Yeah, yeah, I was angry because Sheila's gift to me this year was the exact same gift I gave her last year. Bloody cheapskate! Ok Dad, I will bite my tongue.

Maybe its a woman thing. Women just let other women have it! We don't hold back. Meow! But then again, we manipulate, lie, deceive and just plain hide the truth to sometimes...oh yeah, get what we want ;)

Men say what they mean and mean what they say. And they get into less trouble then women. So is it contingent on gender?

Or maybe its just me? I wash that sleeve every night and those old emotions keep coming right back.

Me Mufassa

Do you find that you only ponder the meaning of life when staring death in the face?

It is not uncommon to hear this and its probably a cliche. The whole episode that when faced with danger, a person's whole life flashes before their eyes.

We have heard it all before. We talk about it, experience it and then we are stopped in our tracks.

I haven't been able to move on for a week now while I ponder the meaning of life. The circle of life...Lion King.

Squeeze me?

I remember the first time I watched the Lion King. Everyone loved it when it first came out. They adored Simba, admired Mufassa and ahborred Scar. Despite everyone's affinity with the characters and storyline, as I watched the movie, I silently and morbidly thought about death. Like Mufassa, Simba would grow up, procreate and die like his father. The circle of life.

My mother died when I was eighteen and herself was very young. My feelings at the time were about the unjustness of it all. But as time wore on, and the shock wore off, I realized she would always be with me. I know she was there as I stood over her grave grieving. I know she was there when I got married and looked over my shoulder at the empty space next to my father. I know she was there in the delivery room when I placed my daughters on my chest. The circle of life.

She tells me in my dreams, "Just move forward"...and I open my eyes to catch my breath.

When Life Gives you Lemons, make...

Ever heard of the 90/10 rule?

Someone sent me an interesting email the other day and I pondered this rule for the rest of the day.

When encountering events in your life, 10% is beyond your control while 90% is your REACTION. This is SO true.

How you react to negative situations formulates the rest of your day, the rest of your week. Negativity increases the size of those lemons.

When life gives you lemons, smile, breathe, don't sweat the petty stuff and make a sweet lemon, meringue pie...