What more could I want?

To anybody who sees my life on Instagram, it must look like a dream. In the last couple of years, I went from having the best job to marrying the best boy, and both phases include generous servings of travel and gluttonous servings of food. Fortunately, that’s not far from the truth. If you tried to do an Instagram v/s reality post on my life, you’d be disappointed at how similar the two are. It has indeed been a blessed couple of years, and I couldn’t have asked for better.

Our family is in Mumbai, but my husband and I have been living in Colombo since the wedding. We both love being at home with our grandmother and parents, finding most daily chores magically done, being pampered, spending time with the people who matter most. However, every situation has its pros and cons, and living away is good in its own way as well.

We, just the two of us, get to spend a lot more time together than work schedules and social commitments would allow in Mumbai. Living away from grownups has made me more responsible. I have finally graduated from making a gourmet dish once in a blue moon to preparing the full meals that only mature adults can prepare — the usual dal-chawal-roti-sabzi. (Of course I also sleep till 9AM here, but don’t tell anyone that.) The house we live in is gorgeous, we are well taken care of, we meet other travellers from all over the world, and have the most adorable pet dog here. We watch movies, play Scrabble, I read, write, go for long walks; we spent last Sunday hanging with friends at an awesome outhouse, jet-skiing, swimming, eating and drinking, and this one at a cafe with live jazz music. C’est la beau, right?

And yet, I often feel sad.

I can almost hear you, the reader, gasp as you see someone admit to the fact that they feel a less than socially desirable emotion, but perhaps that’s exactly why it’s important for me to admit it — to put it out there that people who have lives that look perfect to you may still be going through things you don’t know anything about, and to establish that sadness is a normal part of the human experience that there is no shame in accepting.

I’ve read that listing the things you’re grateful for is a great exercise and it will make you happy. If you asked me to do that, I’d wonder where to begin. What have I not to be grateful for? I am absolutely aware that I have everything a person could hope for, I am full of gratitude for the life I have, and yet, somehow, sadness just takes over from time to time.

My decision to marry came as a surprise to those who knew me socially and a shock to those who knew me for real. A friend sent me the following message after reading an article I wrote about the wedding.

Many people get married for reasons other than having found the right person and wanting to. Fortunately for me, that wasn’t the case. I willingly and eagerly chose this, and if I could go back in time, I’d still choose it — this time with twice the eagerness.

It’s a big milestone that I’m happy to have crossed, but what I’m not sure I like is the change in direction. Somehow, since the time I decided to get married, work took a backseat. Having lived in Mumbai for over 5 years, I moved back to Kolkata to spend a few months with my family before the wedding. I’d quit my job, and thought it would be good to devote a few months just to being around family and preparing for the wedding. And then there was the wedding itself, and a week later we moved to Colombo. I don’t work here, and the week or ten days that we do go back to Mumbai for from time to time are spent at home.

Anyone who knows one thing about me besides my name probably knows that I’m a feminist. My husband doesn’t expect me to cook or anything, and yet I choose to take charge of most meals. My family, never having seen this side of me, is obviously amazed. They never would’ve thought that this crazy girl who zips around the world by herself, wearing ripped jeans and confidence, arguing for gender equality at every opportunity, would ever be “tamed” enough to find her place in the kitchen. Little do they know that I’m still the wild thing I always was, and a bigger believer in feminism with every passing day, but that doesn’t interfere with the fact that I feel responsible for the food we eat. Given that I do not have a job at the moment and my husband does, it would be unfair for him to also have to arrange meals or eat less than good food, while I have absolutely nothing on my to-do list and breeze through life doing nothing. It’s a good time to revise that feminism is about equality of genders and that’s all.

My satisfaction with the fact that I look after the household at the moment makes it harder to imagine what makes me sad. But, it’s probably this acceptance itself that is not working for me. There’s a solid half of my personality which is absolutely happy just taking care of her husband, but there’s another half which is struggling to exist, which keeps throwing existential questions at me like raindrops in a downpour.

Is this all you are? Is this the best you’re capable of? Do you even remember what your ambitions were before you lost focus? Do you remember who you were? Where’s that spunk? Where are those ideas? Where is that motivation? Where is that will to change the world and the guts to get up and go out and do it? Where is the identity that was just yours, not associated with your father’s or your husband’s or any other person’s name? Where is that career you were so passionately and devotedly building for yourself? What happened to the girl everyone knew to be fearless and funny and sassy and self made? The girl they all laid their bets would make it big — where is she?

I try to say all that doesn’t matter anymore. I already have everything anyone could wish for.

But are you happy?

I try to say I am. I count my blessings — I have an amazing family, a wonderful husband, such a beautiful life full of love. And love is all you need, right?

Apparently not. My answers ring hollow, and it’s impossible to ignore the truth echoing back at me. Somehow, it’s not enough to have a life that looks good to others. It’s not satisfying to have a life that is somebody else’s idea of perfect.

The questions my conscience asks me silently, my husband verbalizes. He recognizes the problem in this situation, perhaps better than I do. It really helps that he does, because otherwise I’d find myself alone with this barrage of doubts about where my life is heading, and I’d think I’m going crazy for feeling so overcome with uncertainty and sadness at a point when I actually have rock solid stability and such a great life.

It’s also a good thing because I can tell my conscience to shut up and see how perfect everything is, but not my husband, because he’s more persistent, and also because he knows better. Because he knows me better.

I’m just about at that point in which I recognize that losing my sense of purpose as an individual is what is causing this internal turmoil. I had been insisting on labelling “planning the menu for dinner and grocery shopping and cooking” as my purpose — after all, I’m still picking up some new skills, I get appreciation for this, and it is important to me that my husband eats a good meal after a whole day at work. It sure is worthwhile — but it is not remotely close to my intrinsic personality or inherent purpose, and to force myself to believe that it is will only lead to a greater disparity between how I think I should feel about myself and how I truly do feel.

“What more could I want?” The answer to this question I’ve asked myself over and over again, wondering why I feel sad, turns out, is fairly simple. I want to have my own personality, and my own sense of purpose.

Having recently Googled “how to make myself happy” and having read through a couple of lists, only to conclude that I do all of that and still feel sad, I think the big magic trick is to be true to yourself — not who the world tells you you should be, and work towards what you want — not what the world tells you you should want.