What Really Matters?

I would like to start this note with a disclaimer that I am not an expert on relationships. In fact, I am just the opposite. I am a loner who loves reading, exploring new places and watching Sci-Fi movies. I can count my friends on fingers- of one hand, without using all of them. I have one best friend of the opposite gender and I couldn’t even keep that friend as just a friend and ended up marrying him. Let me tell you, that’s the end of friendship, or maybe a start of something more beautiful.

What I want to emphasize here is you can choose to stay single or get married to your best friend, or get an arranged marriage. The next step is always going to be arguments or fights or to put it lightly for the "pro-claimed classy" you both will disagree on certain issues. And this lesson that I share now is the one I learnt from my husband. I am a reactive person, in the sense that I shout, a lot. And then I go silent. It took me two years of marital bliss to come to the conclusion which ironically for a person who is die-hard Linkin Park fan should have been crystal clear. In the end it doesn’t even matter!

Even as I write this, I am sitting amidst casually thrown T shirt and shorts in the room, not the bedroom mind you, the living room! Because somehow that’s the place my husband chooses to throw all his important things. And I used to shout! Remember the movie Chalte Chalte? Rani Mukherjee always threw a fit when SRK threw his shoes on the floor. It’s the exact same situation, So if I have to describe my living room right now, It has his clothes lying on the sofa. His wet towel on the 3K fabric swing I purchased so lovingly for my home and his socks , 4 pairs of them stuffed in the Shoe rack. This isn’t public shaming, this is living with a man! And now it comes to the reaction part, for first six months I shouted, which resulted in him placing his things on the right place reluctantly, then came his reaction.

Obviously, we are two different people, so I have some habits that disturb him. He started pointing out the charger with the switch on, the glass I casually place on the fabric sofa, instead of the table without a coaster! In my defense, I will pick it up when I get up, but you see there’s always a movie going on and I might not get up for the next three hours, time sufficient to leave a mark on the sofa! I am no saint either.

So after this reactive phase, where we both pointed at each other's irritating habits. we started to live with it! And yup, that’s the most peaceful existence. we often get scolded by elders of the family that we live like Students in a hostel! But we don’t care! Because after the initial disagreements what prevails in my house is peace. I know what some of you might be thinking, as the woman of the house, it’s my job! To clean up, look after the house, make sure its super-clean for guests. But I ask you this, what matters more? I work the same hours as my husband, have a one year old to look after and yup I can pick up all these things in the time I wasted writing this! But try doing it for 7 days a week then multiply it by 30 and then 12... it sure will get to you! The wet towel will always be on the swing!

And so I let it be there, Coz that’s where it belongs!
A happy me in a messy house is better than an irritated me in a clean house.
A smiling, cracking jokes couple in an untidy house is better than a bickering couple in a house that has no clutter!
A clutter free relationship is better than a clutter free house!
In my messy home, all guests are welcome, I sure will find place for you on the sofa where the laundry is lying from Sunday! And the guests, do they matter more than my husband? Surely no!

That’s the master Key! Let things be as they are. Homeostasis (As Sheldon would say)

Also, one thing my husband is great at is transforming the house into a super-clean place 10 mins before the guests arrive. Other times, we let the room name define itself, it’s a living room, we live there, so we leave signs  of human existence there!
Lesson learnt is- Always ask yourself what matters more?

So this evening after a hard day at work for both of us, we intend on opening a bottle of Red, watching a movie amidst the wet towel, laundry  socks and yes toys, lots of toys!