Pandemic Miscellaneous

It is my parents' 39th wedding anniversary today. Wow! Such a long time to be with someone not related by blood. They have spent much longer time being with each other than not knowing each other. Both of them are retired from work now.

                                                        

This got me thinking about my retirement plan. Anuj and I had been thinking about it sometime back. We would keep no help then. We will cook and clean on our own. This will make us spend time together and also "spend" the time.
Well this Pandemic has kind of already showed us a trailer of our retired lives. No help was coming over. So we were managing the work FROM home and work OF home all by our self. The idea of being together 24x7 sounds just like work retirement era. But does it?
Initially we struggled. Waking up on time when we know we do not have to go to office, was a challenge. It still is. We realized cooking sounds simple, but eats up a lot of time. While Anuj turned out to be a great cook, I proved to be disastrous with cooking. And my sister never stopped showing off her culinary skills. 🙄
When I was sticking to weekly ritual of sweeping and moping the floor. It made me wonder if we could make do with 1 room. We are probably underpaying our help.
To avoid distractions, we were locked up in different rooms while working. I could still hear Anuj loud and clear in the other room, since on calls, he talks at the top of his voice. Initially it was annoying but now I have learnt to ignore.
Slowly, we are getting to terms with this new lifestyle. Surprisingly, even though we are together all the time, and dealing with office and tedious household work, we had absolutely no fight. Well there was one instance of exchanging blows and kicks, but it was resolved rather quickly. That's a milestone. There were some fights though. The Air Conditioner was installed but not connected to power. Dealing with mosquitoes during power cut and this heat. Refrigerator broke down.
There were certain new experiences too. My ma bragged about giving papa a haircut. That's when Anuj became insistent but I was reluctant. The results were surprising. Good surprising. We have a new found interest. Midnight ludo. Yes, we actually got up at 1 in the night to play ludo for almost an hour.
We have a new found love these days. Home-made lemon iced tea. Jaggery does taste good in it.
There were certain changes too. Both of us put on weight. While I managed to lose it quickly, Anuj is still struggling with his cravings. Driving for about 6-7 km was also a pleasure after more than a month. Gardening for me was meditative. The hobby that I have picked up from papa. I managed to plant quite a few kitchen needs. Lets see if they survive. The living room got a make-over twice. Don't know how long will this one last.
I think retired life wouldn't be much different. And if we can survive this pandemic, I hope we could meet the milestone of 39 years and counting.

                                            

Two is company Three is a crowd

According to Anuj - 6th Annual Progress Report.

P.S. - Its controversial! I thought "Aaj kuch toofani karte hai".😉

After a couple of years of our marriage the idea of being just a couple was not very much acceptable. Our families and friends started asking the usual question. When are we becoming a family? Anuj and I had discussed this sometime after our marriage and were of the same view. So they were shocked when we gave them the NOT so "Good News".

As much as everyone tried to make us look at all the things we will be missing in our life, we, shamelessly and unapologetically kept looking at the positives. At least in our mind (obviously), still there are more positives than negatives. We do not have to share our time and attention with anyone. We do not have to wait for someone to go to sleep to watch all the 18+ series and movies. We do not have to leave bed if we dont want to. We do not have to save an extra huge chunk of money. We do not have to be extra-responsible. We do not have to give a different consideration before planning a vacation. And the best part, we do not have to be the grown-up.

Socially conformed term for a family of two is "Couple". But we are a family. Maybe not by the dictionary definition because it still says - Family is a group consisting of one or two parents and their children. Well, does that mean that having both the parents is optional but having children is an absolute necessity to be called a family? I disagree.

People with socially conformed size and constituents of family would tell us that we are missing the most beautiful part of our life. In our mind, however, we are living it already. We are each other's family. We can't wait to get back home to see each other. We are elated and refreshed to see each other smile after a long and hard day. We are responsible for each other. We have a purpose in life- To live and love each other. We do not feel anything amiss in our lives. We are fulfilled, content, complete and happy. We stick together without anyone else binding us together.

Our only hope is time. With time people have opened up to the idea of nuclear family, love marriage, dating, live-in, happily unmarried and also same sex partner. Hoping, being childless (Oops! I mean) childfree by choice, will be fine too.

I guess someone must have had us in mind when he said "Two is company, Three is a crowd".
Dink, dink 😉😉.