Things like that

When you are growing up there are certain stories you hear over and over again about your parents courtship. As a little girl I used to ask for tales of their life before me and my brothers as my bedtime story. My dad was my mom’s baseball coach, she hated him because he changed her from catcher to third base, their first date was a concert which my father asked my mom to two months in advance. Another story I heard less but as I grew older seemed meatier was  that initially when my father proposed my mother said no or rather not yet since she was still just 19. Am not sure how the rest of the conversation or likely conversations went but i know there was some talk about my grandfathers ailing health and family pressures, the end result was my father told my mom that either they get married or he was going to Australia. Ultimately  my mom ended up proposing to him awhile later and she was married at the age of 20.  While the exact retelling of the story varies depending on the parent one thing they agree on, is that she should have told him to go. Maybe he would have left and return weeks later after wandering Sydney love sick and lonely. Things like that happen all the time. Or maybe he would have gone and they would have kept in touch for awhile before drifting apart and meeting other people. Things like that happen all the time.
 

My own story involves leaving instead of staying. When I was 26 I quit my job and left my apartment, friends and family to move to Bombay to be with Mehernosh. It sounds like a great sacrifice but if i am truthful my job was a mindless administrative position and I lived in a basement suite.  Besides I was sort of crazy about the guy and figured if I didn’t go I would always have that doubt in the back of my head, the constant “what if”.

It was basically a disaster from the time I arrive. We couldn’t get a place because we weren’t married, the one we did find flooded. We ended up living in a run down hotel, with a shared bathroom down the hall. The job I lined up before leaving ended up being horrible and I worked a series of bizarre jobs to make ends meet and to keep busy (those jobs are another post altogether). I got very sick. Mehernosh had unexpected surgery and had to move home while I stayed alone. There were bombings within days of my arrival and every conversation with my parents ended with my mother begging me to come home.  While the city was in turmoil, so were we. We loved each other but  . . . . suddenly my boring job and basement suite seemed very appealing.  There were financial and family pressures not to mention visa restrictions and long conversations about what we should do that lasted for days. Finally months later I decided to go home and Mehernosh decided to let me. When we said goodbye at the airport I don’t think I have ever felt so exhausted.   

It takes about a day to travel from Bombay to Vancouver and I don’t think there was a minute that I didn’t think about it. The moment I arrived in Vancouver I knew I could never leave him again and in Bombay he was thinking the same thing. We were married five months later in Costa Rica and will be married for four years this Saturday. The time that i spent in Bombay was probably some of the hardest of our relationship but I think it was also the best thing that could have ever happen to us, we know now what it feels like to let go of each other and we never want to do that again.  Things like “this” don’t happen all the time.