I spent the last one hour reading March posts from the last eight years. In 2008, for instance, I was talking about exams. In 2009, I was talking about my then-boyfriend. In 2010, I was talking about being dumped by him. In 2011, I was talking about another boy. In the subsequent years, I was talking about work and being unable to manage my life with it.

In 2016, I can only seem to talk about weddings. It’s fashionable to talk about adulting and failing at it, but who’s actually winning at it? I don’t know anyone who keeps it together all the time. How are we, then, supposed to make this monumental decision of choosing someone to spend all our life with at this time? I’m not saying this can’t be done, because I know many happily married couples. But perhaps that is because they weren’t pressured into it? No one was telling them they’d have a heart attack if they didn’t choose someone to marry in the next few months.

I was home 10 days ago to attend a friend’s wedding. On the day of her pheras, just as I was leaving for the venue, another childhood friend came over to tell me he’s getting married. Arranged, whatever, that doesn’t even matter anymore. I was stunned into silence. Maybe it’s time I stop getting so shocked every time someone announces their wedding. I was very emotional that day, all these people I grew up with making such grown-up decisions and getting on with their lives. I am supposed to go back to Jaipur next month for a wedding, then again in May for another. I might skip one of them.

I could have gone home again this week for Holi, but because I was getting a four-day weekend off for the first (and probably the last) time in my life, I decided to take a trip to the hills with a friend. Someone asked me the other day, “what’s the plan?” For life, I asked. I don’t know. How do you answer such a question? My friends and exes are getting married all around me, while I am trying to avoid crises at work every week and ordering as many fruits as I can from Big Basket. That’s it. That’s my life.

Today, while watching my oldest friend, my first best friend, dance with her fiancé on her sangeet, I started crying. All those times when we sat in TC, drinking cosmopolitans and chocolate floats, wondering if she will ever get married to this boy, flashed before my eyes. I thought of all the times I hadn’t called her back, or texted her first, or been there because I was too busy or too distracted, and I worried about what will happen to our friendship now that we’re going to be living in different countries. I wondered if I will get a chance to say bye to her after her pheras tomorrow, because while she’ll stay here for a couple of weeks, as always, I’ll be gone. We met when we were 12, and now we’re 26. Fourteen years is an insanely long time to know someone, so I think we’ll be fine. 

On my way back from the sangeet, I let another friend I was seeing after years scroll through her ex's Facebook profile on my phone. She's married, she has a baby, so she was just looking for gossip.

***

I just spoke to someone who would have been my ideal husband. If only we’d looked beyond our unlikely friendship, if only our families weren’t so complicatedly connected, if only we’d been in the same city, if only we’d given this some serious thought, if only I wasn’t such a chicken, he wouldn’t be married to someone else today and I wouldn’t be rejecting prospective husbands based on ridiculous random attributes.

Maybe the internet isn’t doing us a favour by keeping us connected to everyone we knew.

February updates

I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without blogging since I started nine years ago. But I guess a new job will do that to you. My responsibilities are increasing, and yesterday I felt like I was in an episode of Suits, because I didn’t expect this workplace to be so cut-throat or stressful. Turns out, every single workplace is stressful, so we’re all doomed. I have to do something before the 15th, failing which, I’m in deep shit at work. But let’s not think about that right now.

The reason I could find the time, and inclination, to blog today is because I came home this morning. This is the first time I’ve come back to Jaipur after moving out again, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t hit by any overwhelming emotions while coming home from the airport. Sitting at this desk, where I spent almost all my time on this laptop planning my escape, I only feel a dull sense of something, not loss exactly, but that could be because I haven’t slept well all week. After I reached home, I was in bed and out for four hours. I guess that says something about home, even if I try to dismiss that concept these days.

The updates are far too many, so subheads it shall be.

Work

Is fine. Like I said, I don’t know why I expected it to be easier this time around. It’s definitely easier than my previous job in some ways, but it still drains me. And this deadline till the 15th is pissing me off, more than anything else, because it’s not very fair. Other than that, I think I’m doing okay, the people are nice, the place is nice, but it’s still work, and I’ve come to understand that it’s very rarely fulfilling. Some friends tell me it’s a dream job when I write on something particular, but I think I’ve established that that term is an illusion.

House

Continues to challenge me. I’d be going around thinking everything is fine and then suddenly something will stop working. Living alone is great, but sometimes I really want a flatmate around just to get shit fixed. I bought a few things for the house, hung up some fairy lights and made a Tumblr collage on a wall to make it feel like home. It does, on some days. But on some days, it’s still just a house.

Friends

Are assholes. I’m not even kidding. I guess this is payback for being a horrible friend during my last couple of years in my previous job, but my friends have disappointed me so much in the last few weeks. That makes it sound like I need to get off my high horse, and maybe I do, but I swear I’m not overreacting. I know everybody has problems, I know you can’t always talk about them even with your closest friends, but please be an adult and BE THERE. You’re not the only one who’s feeling lost. A friend told me the other day that I need to give up on such friends, understand that someone might be my oldest friend and still ditch me. That made me so sad. Adult friendship is a bitch.

Social life

Is thriving. I’ve taken my oath to not let this job take over my social life very seriously, which might explain why I go out so much and spend an insane amount of money on cabs and extra-sweet mocktails. But at least friends have fewer complaints that way and I am not completely cut off from everyone, just going to work and coming back the next day. But I need to go to more events, like festivals and stuff. I feel like I need to somehow see more of Delhi.

Parents

Are aggressively looking for a groom for me. I don’t even know how to explain this. I’ve had so many conversations with so many people about why and how I am okay with arranged marriage. I am not, but I don’t hate the idea either. Or so I thought. Plus I needed them to stop worrying, so I said 'fine, start looking'. I don’t think I’ve been part of a more dehumanizing process before. It’s a market, and you really, truly understand it when it starts happening to you. An older cousin, who’s been going through the same thing for years, has been telling me to not react to everything, to pick my battles. But it’s so difficult to do that when all I want to do is scream every time my father calls.

I didn’t even want to come home today, because I was worried shaadi is all we would talk about. My mother mentioned a rishta within 30 minutes of me walking into the house. I think my face stopped her from mentioning more. But I was so homesick in Delhi, and it’s one of my best friends’ wedding, so I couldn’t not come to Jaipur.

That’s the other thing. I know everyone thinks that all of their friends are getting married right now, but mine literally are. I’ve attended two weddings in the last three months, I’m here for this one, and then I’m invited to two more in the next two months. And these are all close friends. So perhaps that freaks out my parents even more? Twenty-six is not the end. Fifty-six is not the end either. I know we keep talking about how to teach our children about feminism, but sometimes I feel like we need to give a few lessons to our parents as well.

Adulting

Is a myth. Or is it? I wouldn't know because I have been failing at it for almost a month now. The first couple of months were okay, but in February, I really let myself go. I stopped cooking, I started eating out a lot, which then affected my weight and skin and everything I had worked very hard for during my sabbatical. I haven’t slept for more than four hours every night in two weeks, and that’s because I can’t seem to go to sleep before 3 or 4, and then I’m running late in the morning and I can’t concentrate at work and it’s all just downhill from there. The other day I had to get a massage for two thousand bucks because my body was killing me. I really, really need to step it up. I just don’t know how.

TV

Keeps me sane. The discovery of the year so far has been Veep. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ face after every disaster in Veep gives me life. Now I kinda understand why she kept beating Amy Poehler at the Emmy awards every year, but I still wanted Leslie Knope to win at least once. Also, I’ve come to understand that I love shows where people screw up repeatedly at work, or even in general. It gives me hope about my life.

Another revelation was Friday Night Lights. I think I watched four seasons in a week (which accounts for why I stayed up till 4am on some days), and there are just so many emotions in that show. If you like soapy shows, like Parenthood or Grey’s, you should watch it.

I’ve also started watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on TV. I think I’m in love with Rachel Bloom.

Books

Are the major reason I can live alone and be okay with it. But – and I feel like I’ve been saying this a lot – I NEED a book that will change my life. Like One Day did, or The Sky is Everywhere, or We Need to Talk About Kevin. You by Caroline Kepnes did that for a while last month (you should read it and get freaked out, too), and I was haunted by it for weeks afterwards. Its sequel is out so that should carry me through this month. But I still need more. I’m reading The Palace of Illusions right now, and it’s not as engaging as everyone told me it would be.

Life

Is okay. It could have been much worse, and I’m definitely not depressed like I was towards the end of my previous job. But sometimes I really regret taking up this job so soon. I think my sabbatical ended too quickly and I could have still been chilling at home. Or maybe that’s just my laziness talking? Because if I were still at home, this shaadi stuff would have been that much more irritating. So, I guess it all worked out? 

But I really feel like I need to do something crazy. Not hooking up with the wrong person crazy or yelling at the boss crazy. Something that gives me a rush. Like bungee jumping. Um, I don't know where that came from.

I don’t want to stop blogging, because the other day I read a year’s worth of my old posts at 2am and then messaged some questionable things to someone. You need that kind of wake-up call sometimes. You need to see how far you’ve come, and how far you still have to go.