A Brooding, Working and Traveling Homemaker

Before you say something let me tell you the above four make a lethal combination.
Also, let me tell you why I have been absent for such a long time, mostly because the humble homemaker in me who went to work but barely worked for almost 4 months got a new job. And the job involves both traveling and working (lots of both) leaving me no time to blog.
From a life where travel meant the 45 mins spent in traffic and work checking out interesting blogs, I sure have come a long way.
I hate working when I am off work and yet I find myself answering calls, sending frantic mails and messages to my team at all hours and as far as traveling is concerned well I board around 3 flights a week, take a few road trips and travel a bit in the city also. So where is the time for brooding you ask and pray why do I brood?
Well only a non brooder can ask a question as silly as that, for brooders don’t need a reason or free time to brood. A true blue brooder can brood about things as profound as Keynesian economics and its debilitating effects on monthly grocery purchases to inanities like how the toe nail growth affects the delicate balance of my sanity. Or vacillating between brooding about the inappropriate debauchery of the younger generation to how did life become so boring as to not include even an iota of debauchery in the daily, weekly or even monthly routine.
So what do I brood about? Well to summarize just about everything. On whether this was the right decision, or whether my traveling effects people I love adversely. And to my utter surprise I have also caught myself brooding about whether I am a good homemaker. First of all a big BOO HOO to all folks who think that only an individual whose primary responsibility is to take care of the home is a home maker. To my mind anybody who attempts to make his/her abode a little less of a pigsty and a tad bit more homely is a “homemaker”.
Having failed miserably at doing both as a hosteller, when I shifted into my new house I pledged to be a successful “home-maker”; making my new place a little more like “home”. And that began my tryst with doing up the house (which I love), cleaning, cooking (once in a while), setting up systems and processes, dealing with the helps and being generally in charge of things. All was well on the “home making” front till the new job happened and between getting overworked and traveling things started to slip a little. I was no longer efficiently in control of things. And that made me feel depressed, guilty and most of all broody. Mostly because I saw things slipping into the same old pattern of coming back to a dirty home, finding food the help just cooked with whatever was available and struggling for 5 mins before finding a clean place to plop on. And guilty because I felt that I was once again taking my roommate for granted. Now it does help that my roommate is also my husband and he takes his vows of “in sickness and health” etc etc very seriously, but I felt guilty nonetheless. Guilty that I am away a night a week, guilty that I don’t keep up to my side of the bargain by making tea every morning, guilty that we run out of daal at times, guilty because it felt like I was taking more than giving, well to put it simply guilty that I am not around 7 days a week. And before all of you jump off your office desk I don’t think that my feelings are archaic. Admittedly a bit juvenile, selfish and premature but archaic no. And I also know that what I really suffer is from is the “I want it All” syndrome. So when I had a job that was pretty much the worst I could have asked for but my personal life was a fairy tale I was still brooding and cribbing. And today when I have a job I like (it has given me more than I had hoped for), a personal life that after a bit of managing is well as good as perfect, I am still brooding. Not cribbing because I have decided not to. But brooding nonetheless. Brooding because I want it ALL. I want the perfect job and the perfect life. The problem is that I don’t really know what “perfect” means. Is it what my brain has been pre programmed to believe or is it what I think “perfect” is or better still is “perfect” the life I am living now? I think the answer is none of the above. The answer lies probably in what two wise men once told me (experience does count) the first one said “decisions are what you make of them and you have to make your decision work for you”. The other one said “judge yourself by the standards you set for yourself and not by what others do”. And finally though I hate what Vodafone has done to the pug I am going to “MAKE THE MOST OF NOW” because maybe that is what is “perfect”.

P.S: I am happy to inform you that things on the “home making” front have not slipped into the familiar mess but are as organized as I want them to be. What with my “superior” management skills (ahem ahem), dollops of help and support from the roommate and mostly because things are never as bad as they seem at first!!!!