Life has come a full circle..

Somehow, I thought I was waiting for this.. but it doesn't feel good. I feel miserable and unhappy and this is not how i expected to feel at all..

My 13 year old marriage started with a whirlwind romance, a dream courtship, and living together before we finally married and in my perception spent 5 full very happy married years (with the usual ups and downs) of course. Then things started to go wrong. I was moving up the corporate ladder very fast (being due to my position in a very fast growing MNC starting operations in India)!! I was enjoying the challenges at work, had a great set of friends and colleagues, had a great home and family (in my mind). I think I completely missed the first signs of what was the beginning of alcoholism, resentment, distrust, that was brewing up at home. Each one of those incidents that left scars on my soul, so to say, took me completely by surprise and left me an emotional cripple. The day I was told not to teach the children to chant mantras (they had just learnt the Gayatri Mantra), the day I was lighting the ritual evening lamp and was told that there was no room in this house for 'your GODS!, and that they would be thrown out into the street', the day I was accused of infidelity and that I should leave and go back to 'my mothers place' and no the kids would remain here, the day I was struck first (making me keep my mobile all the time by my bedside), I saved police station numbers, women's helpline numbers, even called them a couple of times to see if they would really respond if there was trouble, trips on work within and outside India that I cancelled at the last minute, as I could not see how I could walk out of the house leaving two little kids in the care of someone who could barely stand steadily on his two feet....

Life was one living hell. Rehab did not work.. The pendulum swing from hope and belief that all will be well after this detox was over and the despair and dejection when things went back to being the same soon again was the most difficult to handle. I didn't speak to anyone, not even my own family, stopped inviting people home, didn't go out much (except for an occasional movie with my sister)!! Work was still good and I worked with a renewed frenzy as if my life depended on it!!

The divorce was even worse a nightmare, and I was willing to beg plead and fall at any ones feet to be free again. It is what I wanted, to be free. And now I am; I paid a price for it, but I am free. I have custody of the kids, I have a good job, I have the full support of my side of the family, I have great set of friends and am close with my family again too .. I appreciate that the kids like to be close to their father and try to give them this as much as I possibly can.

But looking at how things have turned out for my once other half.. drinking is worse than before, no job, no money, rapidly declining health, emptiness. The animal inside that I have had more than a glimpse of is may be not tamed, but subdued, grudging, but quiet. But it makes me sad. P my daughter once said to me after speaking to her father on the phone..'he doesn't sound good amma, I think he is very ill and will die'. I had no words to console her, just gave her a hug and said 'pray, its all you can do.'

Is this what I wanted.. NO. I wanted to be free again, to be able to laugh without feeling guilty, to meet friends and have fun, to have a great time with the kids, watch them grow, watch them learn new things and to laugh with them.. and never fear another human, never feel like life and happiness was slowly draining and I couldn't do anything about it..

Life seems have come a full circle..