Routine, Chaos, and the Core That Remains

The journey continues

At the start, you think you know exactly what you want from marriage. The young boy and the girl are bustling with energy, enamored in the goodness of each other and together, you are ready to face life’s challenges. We did the usual things - watch movies, hang out with friends, celebrate festivals with the community, binge watch shows on Netflix over the entire weekend with just mini-breaks for instant noodles, stay up late till 3 AM, wake up groggy at whatever time you wanted the next day, get to a nearby restaurant for lunch, come back and continue with the show. Of course, add in a few travel trips every year and you have figured out some sort of a routine. But what exactly is a routine? Career happens. Life happens. There is always some sort of dynamic at play. Add in kids to the mix, and the routine changes rapidly. The way kids pull your attention in the early years is something you just cannot account for at all. Whatever you hear from family and friends, you just cannot be prepared for kids. In the early years, you are just tending to their every need. As they grow up, you realize you are tending to their every need and also chauffeuring them to classes. Add in two kids, the workload is not linear but feels as though it’s exponential. Having said all this, I would have loved to have two more kids, but hey, it’s not just my decision. I’ve always felt that growing up in a large family is a whole lot of fun. And expensive too. 

However beautiful the relationship is, there is chaos. My wife and I have a packed personal calendar that is way more complicated than the work calendar. Negotiation happens at the start of the school year. Responsibilities are divided. Reminds me of one of the viral videos doing the rounds - After marriage, the first thing that goes out of the window is romance and it’s all about responsibilities. 

After more than a decade and a half of marriage, we have evolved considerably, both individually as well as collectively. For all the dreamy things about two bodies and one soul, over a period of time, we have accepted that two souls make more sense. Yes, we did a lot of things together for the first few years. But in spite of that, we have our own individual identities. We read different kinds of books, watch different kinds of dramas and movies, and basically, have different sets of interests. I just love to watch and read about Advaita Vedanta, Sanatana Dharma, Indian history, Sanskrit tutorials, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and in general, the spiritual aspect of life. It’s not just spirituality though. Even if I want to watch some mindless stuff, I pick courtroom dramas or something out of the blue on one of the streaming platforms. But mostly, I spend my free time with the former. My wife has reading interests centered on fantasy fiction and she watches movies and series that’s mostly not aligned with my interests. There are occasions where both of us will decide to watch the same thing. If it’s a terrible choice, both of us will curse at the hour or two that we wasted together. Now, it’s all about quality. We are super picky about how we spend time. I’m not talking about big chunks of time each day; it’s just one or two hours after the kids go to bed, and whatever’s left after late evening work calls. 

I think what matters in a relationship is that commonality you found in each other and that which attracted you to each other in the first place. For us, that reason has always been strong. There are a lot of commonalities we share that would have made life difficult for us if we didn’t have them. That, to me, is the biggest relationship win. There are great moments, not so great moments, good and bad moments, dull and boring moments, and moments filled with anger but at the core, we know we are bound to each other by some core principles that help us get past the strains in marriage to find meaning and happiness in our relationship. 

People evolve. Marriage evolves. Relationships evolve. The core principle always remains. 

Through it all, I’m grateful for Hema, my partner through the routine, the chaos, and the joy. 

Sixteen years on, I wouldn’t trade this evolving, chaotic, beautiful partnership for anything. Happy anniversary!