My husband and I, we have been married two years. You’d think as a young couple we would be carefree, focused on having fun and making memories. But no, a lot of our weekends in the last 25 months or so have been expended on house hunting and moving. We have moved a total of 5 times! We have made memories – yes sir – loads of bike rides in exacting sun of Bangalore, bunch of instant noodle meals, long & passionate discussions over merits of de-cluttering and hosting friends and family in a new house every time!
This is what a conversation looks like with friends and family these days:
Mom: “So, I have this package that I want to send over to you. Can you share your latest address *nervous laugh*”
Me: *Literally speaking through a facepalm* “Mom, can you hold on to that package for a little while. Our current rented flat got sold, and we are on a month’s notice and we don’t know where we’ll find the next house”
Mom: *Sighing heavily* “Why don’t you guys buy a house in that area and just settle down?”
Me: “Mom, we have had this conversation. Bangalore is big and traffic is even bigger. We want to be mobile and as close to both of our offices as possible. We can’t buy a house in every area of Bangalore”
Mom: “Kids these days”
I am sure she must be rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone but also worried.
On the other hand, friends –
Me: “Come over for dinner”
Friend: “How about lunch? Have you guys moved since the last time we saw you? What is the apartment name and your flat number again?”
Me: *Sigh*
Currently, Saurav and I are in a 2 bedroom flat in a beautiful apartment. Now this flat is on the ground floor which has its pros and cons. Both Saurav and I agree that it saves us precious 2 minutes of rushing down from the stairs/waiting for elevator when our cabs are “arriving shortly” at the gate in the morning. On the downside, we have had to content ourselves with lesser natural light and ventilation than what we got used to in our previous flats.
Living on the ground floor also means being privy to some conversations and all kinds of footsteps (heavy, preppy, exhausted, rushing, pondering and thundering). You see, one of our bedrooms looks out to the garden while the other has a window that snuggles close to the common area and entrance to the our block of flats.
Today, as I was getting ready for work in the morning, I picked up on a few sentences of a conversation between a mother and her young child as they must have been exiting the elevator and heading towards the main exit.
The baby girl said in an exasperated voice “But, how could you get a pasta wrong? Pasta?!”
The mom promptly launched into an explanation. They were walking away and Mom was talking in Tamil, a language I am not fluent in. I picked up a few words like “consistency”, “sauce” Etc.
I am someone who enjoys food and I am just learning to cook. So I get the struggle. But this expectation of a girl who is probably not older than 10 years from her Mom to be able to whip up perfect pasta dishes got me thinking. How about that for an expectation? Of a child from her mother?
Not everyone is made for everything. Do we have such expectations of ourselves and our spouses, parents, siblings, and friends? From our managers and employees?
What are we teaching and how are we conditioning our kids, our future generations to understand about setting & managing expectations – fair, unfair, unreasonable and feasible.
For all I know, her Mom maybe a super cook and that’s why the kid was surprised when the pasta dish was a fail. But that overheard conversation definitely got me thinking about managing my own expectation from myself and people around me. This got in line to my already burgeoning list of personal development items to work on:
- Learn to say no
- Your thought become things
- Patience
Trying to make this new house, our Home
A Squeeze of Bliss 