Shree's Scribbles

I should have taken a break much earlier or maybe just after I moved to Chennai after I got married. I really don't know how many of you careerists out there would think it was a wise decision, or would consider it suicidal to my 14 year career. On the job front things were not going the way I had wanted it to and the unhappiness with the current organization and responsibility added to my totally stressed out live, made me quit without sparing a thought to what it could do to my career. No good advice or logic would have made any difference then. I still don't regret it .

This break, I hope will rejuvenate my overwrought nerves, emotions and body and give me time to do some real soul searching about what it is that I really want from my life and how I plan to achieve it. I just felt that I could not go on any longer. I really wish I had not waited to reach such a state of absolute frustration. In the last one year and more, I have had all the impediments to a stress free life as one would see mentioned in various stress buster books.

I had started a new life so to say, a new man (got married), ended a previous over six year relationship, a new city(totally different cultures), two new jobs -- the last handling various different responsibilities and products and much need for multi-tasking, added to that a new life style including the total adjustment to my sleeping, eating and every other habit. As if all that were not enough there was the added responsibility of turning my husbands bachelor pad into a home and keeping it too. I am still struggling with the new language and my maid and driver seem to have picked up more English than I have mastered Tamil in spite of my very diligent attempts at learning the same .

I quit a good five days before my anniversary on the 20th of April so I could get some time to wrap up household responsibilities before we headed for Munnar which was the nearest getaway from Chennai and absolutely beautiful. We stayed at the High Range Club there and how I wished I could just settle down there somewhere among the mountains and never have to come back. I recall having mentioned to my husband a couple of times to just leave me there for some time by myself but the impracticality of the situation brought me back to Chennai and the heat once more. On the way to and from Munnar we also stopped over at Fort Cochin and Alwaye which were beautiful too. Overall it was a wonderful trip.

Two days after we returned, my in laws came over for a fifteen day visit which was the first in our one year marriage. The mention of this situation to anyone newly married might conjure up very stressful thoughts and for me it is no different. Though they tried their best not to act like guests but pitched in to help me every way they could I was the one who was responsible to ensure that there was food on the table, all meals as well as clear up after my mother-in- laws insistence to cook( obviously it was some time since she had fed her son). Then there was the perpetual cynicism to my house-keeping and culinary skills. But overall I must pat myself on the back, for a totally calm and composed demeanor as I now had no job to get stressed out over so I remained cool in spite of all incitement and thereby the visit went off pretty peacefully except for the few instances of arguments between my mother in law and husband where he tried to ward off her cynicism.

The break cannot obviously be a break without a trip back home to Kolkata and my mom where I can be royally pampered for a while and I do not need to worry about the day to day responsibilities of running a household. I am going to miss my husband but I keep telling myself that I have actually more than earned this "absolute break" at my mom's and of course I miss Kolkata which if hubby had come along would be home even now in spite of being a year in Chennai. However the trip to Kolkata is only a 10 day visit so I will be back to decide what to do next.