Road map...or the lack of it :)

For the first time in my life, the future seems so blurry. You might laugh. You might say, she’s always so uncertain about her life, how can this be the first time. Wrong idea. Let us take up examples.
School. I never had any doubt about what I want. To excel in studies and to please my parents were the primary objectives. May be a love interest or two, as I grew up, but that again was because of my insecurities. The inevitable Sagittarian fantasy world, where everything is perfect.
College. Once again, very focused. I need to make good results and become an engineer. Why? Because I have always dreamt so. Why have I dreamt so? Because my father’s an engineer, and all my life I have wanted to become like him. Stupid, but crystal clear road map. Love interest continues, I have failures, but they simply add to the usual drama of life, the fact that I have a kind of pleasure thinking I’m such an ill-fated person. Nothing more than that.
University. First time I realize I need to study, because it’s not in my nature to sit idle at home. I can’t ever be a housewife like my mom. Surprisingly, till that time, I never discovered this. I was pretty ok not to work. To get married after I complete my degree. After I got my first job, everything changed. I was still in the university. Got selected for a research project. First day of work, I got up early, ironed my clothes, and in my mind I knew, I have changed.
After that, frankly speaking, I never felt a lack of motivation - about why to live life, till 2010. I had plenty on my plate. Mostly, primarily my family. I never had time to breathe, till I had saved enough money to build the house properly, and then to save some more money for emergency situations. We were paupers u see, when I started to work. Marriage, was out of question. I remember, I used to tell Anand, we’d go to Calcutta, we’ll settle down there. I rarely thought anything above and beyond my family. “Earn money, look after your parents” was the motto of life. If marriage could walk along with that, well and good. Else, who cares.
On the personal front, by this time, failure had become kind of a routine. Nothing worked. But I was quite a child in my mind. I didn’t understand the basic necessities of life. All I wanted was a loving husband, whom I could look up to. Problem was, till 2010 I didn’t know a void in life. And I was busy. Busy with work, busy dealing with everyday problems – never had any time or inclination to think deeply. As my MBA finals got over, as I resigned from my previous job, as I suffered from minor setbacks when I tried a quick way out to settle down in life, I gradually discovered, I am quite on the brink. I don’t have anything to do, any life to look forward to. It was pretty shocking.
I looked around and discovered, all my friends are married. They don’t have time for me. I’m too proud to beg and plead. I saw, my parents are quite happy and contented with their retired life. They sit together, talk, watch TV, go out once in a while, and have get together-s with friends, they don’t have any void like me. I discovered, I am sitting on a pile of money, but I don’t have the urge to spend it on myself. I discovered, I have given up on life. I hate the very things I loved. I hate the sight of my storybooks, I hate to work. I want a family. I want to cook for them, travel with them, give all my care and support. And apparently, for the simple reason that I cannot compromise on my basic ideas in life, there is no hope left for me, to give myself any light in this direction.
So you see, all of a sudden, after 32 years, things have changed. I don’t need to care anymore for my parents, they are pretty well cared for. I don’t need more provision for emergency, what is there would suffice. For the first time in life, I am worrying about the entity “ME”. In the true physical sense. Not in the dreamworld sense of getting a lover, who’s a great man. I need a husband with whom I can start my family. He can have blemishes in him, but I still must be able to look up to him. And we still need to share that love, which becomes so doubtful in an arranged marriage. So…it still needs to be a love marriage :)
Today, on Rahul Dravid’s 39th birthday, I can see, it’s all a blur. Rahul has been with me since school probably. I have always wanted to marry him. I’d get down from the bus, midway, and go to a cyber café, just because I felt like seeing his pictures on the net (there was no computer at home then). First time I stepped in Bangalore, first thing I felt was, I am nearer to him. Well, everyone has crushes on celebrities, but mine was stupidly real. So, I chose this day to write about my self-introspection. I don’t know what the future holds for me. As on today, I don’t have a driving force. Nothing to keep me alive, move me forward. I don’t have a plan, a vision or a mission :) If ever I craved for supernatural interference, it is now…