Carried Me Through Desperation

To the one that was waiting for me.

The past week and a half has been a whirlwind of sorts.  The combination of studying for finals, prepping for my cousin’s wedding and a two week trip to the East Coast, which includes trips to Philly, NYC, Jersey, and the DMV area, has left me in a state of exhaustion.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m stoked to be out here instead of being stuck in boring California.  But, especially during the Saturday of the wedding, the exhaustion caught up to me.

I had come to Philly Thursday morning running on 1.5 hours of sleep, and until Saturday night (technically Sunday morning), I had gotten less than three hours of sleep each night. The day of the wedding consisted of one hour of sleep, and an endless barrage of to-do’s prior to the ceremony.  Accompanied with the lack of sleep the whole week due to finals, all I wanted to do was die on Saturday.  I was pulled one way to help with the center pieces, the other way to help with a playlist that never got to play, another way to choreograph a dance, and another way to run countless errands.

In the end, I ended up missing the Gaye Holud at an ungodly 6AM, and the Baraat, which I made a playlist for that never saw the light.  I also missed the bride and groom’s entrance into the reception and didn’t eat dinner at the wedding.

The disorganization for the wedding was astounding; I never thought a wedding being run by a planner could be done so poorly, but I can’t even blame the planner.  My family has never been organized.  In fact, we are pretty much the definition of disorganization.  But you would think that if there was a planner, some type of organization would be followed. But somehow, my family managed to override the careful planning of a wonderful wedding planner and bring about a disastrously disorganized mess of a wedding that can really only be done through my relatives.

I have never really been the person to sit down, plan, sort, and think logically, despite my science background.  That is simply not the way I function.  It’s not necessarily the best way to go about life, but it’s worked thus far, and you know what they say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

However, when I arrived Thursday at the ass-crack of dawn, instead of heading to sleep to catch up on some much needed Z’s from a not-so-hot finals week, I was immediately sent to run errands that should have been done weeks prior to the week of the wedding.

Now, this isn’t to say that I didn’t want to help with the festivities.  The cousin getting married wasn’t just my cousin, but she was the older sister I never had.  So, I put my feelings to the side because the most important day of her life, not mine, was coming.  And I was ready to do anything to help make this the best for her and her future husband.

I take that back, she is like my second older sister, right after my brother. 😉

But, despite my best efforts, my dysfunctional family always manages to disorganize everything and create huge messes of everything that don’t need to be messed with in the first place.  And they manage to start drama or rekindle the flames of old drama during the MOST inconvenient times.  As my generation of people try to put any and all beef to the back and try to bring about happiness for my cousin who has done so much for us, the older generation cannot stop their bullshit arguments for the sake of their daughter’s/niece’s wedding.  It got so annoying that I tried to avoid and ignore all the adults, including my parents, who I haven’t seen in months, at all costs.  And as always, all the drama that never should have been talked about in the first place caused an incredible amount of disorganization that all ended up falling on my cousin, despite how much we other cousins tried to keep it off of her.  She already has the tendency to take things personally and get emotionally attached to everything, which is why we purposely kept everything going on behind the scenes from her.  She cares too much about familial issues, trivial or not, something I don’t do enough of. My family is cuckoo, I don’t have the energy to care about the trivial shit.

But, despite the shit-show of stuff that happened prior to the wedding, the end result was a success.  The bride and groom enjoyed their time celebrating their love and matrimony, and we as the spectators watched lovingly as their happiness spread contagiously around the room and seeped into the hearts of even the emotionally unavailable like myself.  The alcohol was flowing, the music was popping, and two beers, three vodka cranberries, a green tea martini, and countless ratchets dances later, I was propelled through the wedding of two people who I care deeply about.

Because not even fucked up family dynamics can stop a love like theirs.

#curryfriedchicken

 

So Here I Am, With Open Arms

Hoping you’ll see what your love means to me.

July 19, 1965.

One of the two dates in my life that hold the most meaning to me. A date where we celebrate the birth of a person so special to me that if they didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be here writing today.

July 19, 1965 is the day my mother was born.  And this year, my mom is not here; instead, she is in the Motherland spending time with someone who is the driving force behind my existence.

My grandmother.

On July 19, 1965, my beloved, strong, outspoken, kind, and loving grandmother gave birth to her first child, who would lovingly be referred to as Rinku by family and close friends for the rest of her life.

And on July 19, 2016, 51 years after the birth of her first daughter, my grandmom not only didn’t remember her daughter’s birthday; she didn’t know who her daughter was.

In 2011, my granddad called my mom, and told her that her mother, his wife, was beginning to forget things.  It is normal in old age for the brain to function a little slower, but frequent forgetfulness, even of small things, is not normal.  Living in the US, it was hard for my mom, or any of us, to really do anything.  My granddad pleaded with his other two kids, my aunt and uncle, to take my grandmom to the doctor to get checked out, but he spoke upon deaf ears.  They though he was just old and overreacting, despite the fact that my granddad was the most active person in the household he lived in, which included my grandmom, uncle, wife, and their child, and he was still incredibly sharp in his old age.  He still pushed for checkups throughout the next year to no avail.

In May 2012, my granddad had a massive stroke and ended up in a coma for about a week. He was watching a major cricket game, and his team had just won when he had his stroke. He was taken off life support a couple days after my mom had arrived to his bedside.

When I think of the way I want to die, I always think of my granddad.  He literally died because his team had won a major cricket match.  Is that not the coolest thing ever?!  If I died after the Eagles won the Superbowl, I’d die happy.

But I digress, that’s not the point I’m trying to make.

My grandparents were married for 60+ years.  In a family full of unhappy arranged and love marriages, my grandparents were ones to stand out, to show love and affection all throughout the 18 years I was exposed to their marriage.  I crave a love as deep as theirs.

However, because of this deep love, my grandmom broke.  And coupled with the memory problems she was experiencing, she did not, and has not, fully recovered from my granddad’s death.  She constantly asked where he was, and cried hysterically after being informed each time of his demise.

During this busy trip to the Motherland, my mom took initiative and took my grandmom to the doctor, because she was physically in the presence of my grandmom and was able to see what my granddad was talking about.

My grandmother has Alzheimer’s.

Her progression has been a little faster than normal, most likely attributed to the fact no one would regularly give her the pills she needed to take.  My granddad’s death was also such a traumatic event that also sped up the progression of the disease.

Talking on the phone with her for the months and years following his death was like talking to a broken record: she repeated everything, and would eventually start crying because of her frustration over her mental health.  She was aware of her forgetfulness and memory loss.  And this greatly upset her. And my uncle and his wife would get mad at her forgetting, as if she had control over what was happening to her.

Her disease was progressing, and for years, I pushed to go visit her.  I needed to see my grandmom before she forgot who I was.

Finally, in December 2014, I got to go to the Motherland to see her.  And upon seeing her, I was relieved that she knew who I was.  She had trouble remembering my name, but I couldn’t give less of a fuck: my grandmother still knew I was her eldest granddaughter.  In the three weeks I was there, she said my name once, and by the end of my trip, she had forgot my name completely.

In fact, the day after my mother and I left, she had forgotten we even came to visit her.

I cried hard and hugged her close on the day we left, because I knew the next time I saw her, she wouldn’t know who I was.

Sure enough, one year later, when my dad and sister when to go visit her, and my sister FaceTimed me with her, she had no recognized me at all.

And now, 7 months after this FaceTime call, my grandmom doesn’t know who her eldest daughter is.

Physically speaking, my grandmom is in tip top shape, but while she has physical health on her side, she lacks severely mentally.  Hearing that she didn’t recognize my mom, her daughter, at all deeply saddened me.  My grandmom is the most amazing person on the planet, an idea I’m sure we all share in our respective lives with the people especially special to us.

And amazing people, especially my grandmom, in my case, shouldn’t have to go through this pain.  The pain of dying confused and alone, despite having the support of all of your loved ones.  The pain of dying with no memory of your life, of not knowing who the fuck you are.  I see and hear what my incredible grandmom is going through, and don’t wish this upon even the most disgusting and despicable human being on the planet.

My grandmom is nowhere near the same person I knew and loved growing up.  But she is my grandmom, and I love her despite her unknowingness of me, and love her because she is still the most amazing person in the universe, with or without her memory.

I love you, Dida.

 

Everyone is Special

This, I know is true when I look at you.

Society glorifies a certain type of beauty.  Slender bodies of smooth, fair skin with pin straight hair the color of straw without a lick of frizz.

And I possess none of these things.

Growing up, my extended family always made fun of my looks.  They poked at my chubby build, my frizzy “Maa Kali” hair, my thick unibrow that sat over my eyes, and my dark skin.

Coupled with the fact I didn’t look like what society considered beautiful, it’s not surprise that I had shitty self-confidence.  It sure didn’t help the volcanoes that started to erupt on my face when puberty decided to join the game of life.

I was ugly, point, blank, period.  And no one failed to remind me.

I was bullied throughout middle school and high school for being the chubby, pizza face girl with the huge ball of frizz on her head and ugly teeth.  And I believed every word they said.

So, I would spend hours and hours a day, researching tips and products to buy to make my face clear and fair, my hair less frizzy and straighter.  I started to do pilates at home to get a flat stomach.  I started to get the caterpillar above my eyes threaded.  But, I had to live with my ugly teeth until 10th grade.

On a family vacation to the Motherland in 8th grade, a new “lightening” skin cream called Fair and Lovely came on to the market.  I already knew the Motherland praised fair skin too, but it hurt; no where in the world was I considered pretty.  Desperate to silence the condescending and humiliating jokes from my lighter complected family members, I bought the cream.  I was basically the female version of Sammy Sosa.

A hair product also came out that promised to tame frizz and straighten hair with no heat.  Since my mom refused to let me straighten my hair, this product was added to my arsenal of harsh products that I slathered on my hair everyday.

When I came back to the States, I added both products to my everyday regime.  I continued to slather on that chemical filled cream on my face on top of all the harsh chemical laden products that I already put on my face.  I put products mean for straight hair on my curly ball of frizz in the hopes that they would straighten my hair out.  At this point, I was in 10th grade, and my confidence was at an all time low.  I was miserable; I felt uglier than ever and I was exhausted from putting all this shit on my face and hair.  So, one day I decided to say, “Fuck it.”

Everything happened in steps.  First, I stopped putting the bleaching cream on my skin.  It took about a year to get my skin back to its normal color in a safe way, but my skin hasn’t been the same since I started using that stuff; my skin is incredibly sensitive now because of that crap.  So, I started the trial and error game of finding sensitive skin products for my skin.

Next, I decided to stop trying to get my hair to be straight, and just let it be its curly self.  It has taken me years to find the correct hair care regime.  Since 2011, when I started this curly hair journey, my hair has gone through multiple texture changes.  In the beginning, I still used super harsh products, but that changed over the years.

As far as my weight, I grew 5 inches taller and leaned out a little, but realized that I was never going to be stick skinny.  This was extremely hard for me to accept, and until about a year ago, I still hadn’t come to terms with this fact.  And on a trip back to the Motherland in 2015, I heard it again: “You’re fat Jess.  Lose weight.”  But this time, I decided to shut their voices out.  I love my family, but fuck that, I’m going to start to love myself.

I decided to stop being beautiful by society’s standards and start being my own type of beautiful.  It’s still a process; after constant tear down for more than a decade, it’s hard to build confidence.  But, I’m progressing slowly, and in the time being, I try to focus the shine on my intelligence, knowledge, and personality.

Today, I got good control over my skin, which is back to its older color since moving back to the sun.  My hair is big and curly, and I fucking love it.  My teeth are fucking perfect; white and straight after two and a half years with braces.  And, I learned to love the big booty and thick thighs that captivate others, and I try to make them shine.

I may still have confidence issues, but young Jess would have never expected to be where I am right now, and I’m sure she’d be pretty happy that I’ve gotten where I am.