Today we are forty-two years old.

The L&M is now the person with whom I have spent the maximum number of years on Planet Earth. Well, it is so for him too. Of course he officially became that person for me when we crossed our twenty third anniversary, because that’s how long I had stayed with my parents before setting up my own home.

It’s really mind-boggling when you think about it. Forty two years. Omg. A pretty looooong time though it doesn’t seem so. Four long decades, plus two more years. Hmm… And only eight years to go to hit half a century.

Out of the forty two years, the initial fifteen or so (and a few more years afterwards) had been mostly a single-mom kind of existence for me. Army life, especially the infantry kind, does that to you. The L&M would be away most of the time on official duty and I would be the sole one in charge of home and children.

For far too many years we have stayed in different states altogether. It naturally fell on me to hold the fort on a day to day basis. But the L&M somehow always managed to be around for all the moves from one place to another, the settling down in a new place, the school admissions and other official matters that needed to be done.

When it came to parent teacher meets, the taking care of the children when sick, their day-to-day disciplining (and sometimes yelling!) and setting of limits, the story-telling, having fun, doing silly things, the long discussions on matters we found interesting, spending what they now call ‘quality time’…all of those things fell entirely on me.

Frankly, I didn’t mind it one bit. Not even when my days were too full and I just fell into bed exhausted at the end of a long day. In fact, I welcomed it as I had a free hand in running things. As far as I was concerned, we just had taken on two different sets of duties and it worked for us. Keeping the nature of the L&M’s job in mind, at times it did seem overwhelming, but I managed.

Differences in nature, opinions always existed between us, and still does, as it does among any two people I guess. Our interests vary vastly but have some meeting points too. Obviously no two people can want the same things, have the same interests and/or agree on everything all the time. At the end of the day how those differences were/are handled is what matters. In all this, mutual respect is a must and a non-negotiable.

Over the years we have learned which buttons not to push, which issues to skirt around and which to leave absolutely alone. Life now is more about relaxing and enjoying the slower pace of things while turning a blind eye to the little things that annoy the heck out of you. Like how he never remembers to switch off the fan/lights (and I quietly switch them off), but is quick to point it out the rare time that I do.

Not letting anything disturb the equilibrium takes priority now. Hmm… I wonder if it will disturb the equilibrium if I now switch channels?! 🤔

©️ Shail Mohan 2024