Chasing our tails !

Family Support – a strange concept seldom fully understood by all of us. What is it, why is it needed, is it needed at all, who needs it, who doesn’t, should one need it, when is it needed or more interestingly does it really exist?

The agony aunts, the gurujis, the tarot reader lady – all will tell you how important the family support is for living a mentally healthy life. I frankly wouldn’t want to be dishing out the same advice but unfortunately I am going to echo their sentiments howmuchever I loathe to be in their company.

I did my schooling at Baroda living with my parents, but my under-graduation was in Vallabh Vidyanagar, a small town about 55 Km  away. Once I started living there in a rented place, I was physically away from my family for the first time. Most people remember the time when they smell the first wisps of the ‘free air’ and true to the typical teenage behavior, I too started to ‘live my life’. The physical distance soon started creeping into the space between the ears as well and soon family was forgotten for 5 days of the week, till the time weekend came and it was time to go home for the Sunday.  No, I always used to go home but then I stopped talking to mom even though I was in possession of a mobile phone for the first time in my life. I used to speak to her only when I was home on Sunday. She used to find it difficult but I guess she saw her son becoming a different person and she was happy that he was eating spinach, brinjal, wasn’t complaining about her rotis, washed his underwear himself, didn’t fight with his sister, didn’t slip into his mom’s bosom for every rhyme and reason etc etc etc.  Hence she reconciled to the tangible gains and was trading off the closeness with her son.

College even in my MBA days was mostly a breeze and hence I never felt the need to talk to my parents everyday although whenever I used to fight with my girlfriend, I used to feel the need to talk to my mom – of course not about my gf as she didn’t know back then, but about general stuff like Dad’s snoring, my sister’s hatred for milk, the neighbour’s scandalous marriage, my friend’s elopement from baroda etc. 

It was only really during my time in Bangalore that I started speaking to her daily. When I started to work, I didn’t really feel the ‘breeze’ but rather the stillness of gravity. I was on the ground, being sucked into the shape of an amoeba – or the lack of it !  so when Life happened, I felt the need for my family. Talking to mom, dad, sister, cousins, aunts – all started happening. I realized how good these people were to me and how they would love to hear my voice as much as I would love to hear theirs. It  became a daily routine to call mom at any time of the day I felt like talking – during my travel, during my waits for customer meetings, during my tea sessions on the road side, or in office after a lot of work.

It gave immense peace of mind when I used to cut the call and then look at the world around me. I knew the world inside me was fine.

My young recently-out-of-college friends are out there fighting the same battle with work-life after college and they too struggle. I have this friend who has 14 hr work hours and gets so worked up about her work-life that she seldom finds the time or the mood to talk to her parents. I have this another friend who works hard and spend his time looking at his failed love-life – never getting enough time to think about his parents who hardly get the encouragement from their son to talk to them.

All of these kids have a problem- work, love, bad boss, bad friends, bad bf or gf etc etc but again what stands out is their unwillingness to give their support system a chance to kick in to their lives. Why not speak to your parents – not about your troubles, but maybe about life in general? Talk about what they ate, what they did, tell them what you ate and what you did. Gossip !!!! Make it a habit and soon you will be so full of oxygen that your brain will function better.  Unless of course you are fighting with your parents ;-) 

Some people do like to keep to themselves when they are going through a rough time, they don’t feel like talking or even being with friends – maybe I am also one of them, but still I feel one should make an exception for ones parents or family.  I am sounding pedantic but guess what – it works for me ! And I somehow deeply believe that it will work for others as well !