I’m gaining weight. Well, I’m not actually gaining anything since every time I’ve weighed myself I seem to be maintaining the same weight give or take half a pound. I notice it when I see myself in the mirror. When I first got here my hip bones would slightly peek out, my wrists were a little more delicate, my fingers were slimmer, my jawline and cheekbones more prominent and now it’s harder to see. I’ve gotten some padding.

It’s weird feeling this way because when I weighed 175 I was oblivious to my weight and thought I looked good. But now I see myself and I don’t like that I don’t look the way I did when I left New York. I still have an overall good feeling about myself, but I am much more conscious of what my body can look like and I don’t want to lose it.

It’s hard for someone like me to maintain how my figure looks because naturally I’m very lazy and my body is very receptive to inaction. In New York I had to walk no matter what, but this city demands that you sit on your ass at all times and that is not healthy at all. I am keeping track of what I eat and try to took for myself when time permits, which is why I’m at least staying the same weight, but the life I’m leading here is extremely sedentary. I am losing muscle mass instead of fat.

I can’t wait to move into our new apartment. We got approved to move into this shiny new building in Midtown! It’s a little more in rent than what we were paying in NY but the amenities available to us as well as the location make it worth it. Not to mention that we will be the first people ever in the unit! I am actually looking forward to making use of the gym and pool because I have absolutely no excuse to not work out since the facilities are in my building.

Technically, X will be the only one moving in. I will visit every other day  until we finally tie the knot. We still haven’t set a date yet, but it’s looking like end of May or some time in June. Why am I not moving in right away even though we lived together in New York? Because over here it will be harder to escape the ever judging/gossiping presence of the desi community. I personally don’t give a fuck, but I do care about my parents, and they care about keeping up appearances or what have you so we are keeping it halal. We’ll be married soon enough anyway. Plus, the time spent apart makes our hang out time even better.

Oh yes, let’s not forget some important news. X met my parents and my brother. They all seem to like him and he likes them. I honestly had no idea what to expect when I walked with him through the door of my parents’ house but I was very pleasantly surprised. My hands were shaking because I was so nervous, but once I saw that everything was going well I calmed down immediately. My dad had a lot of questions, but X was on a roll and made a great impression on everyone.

I’m also starting to look for full-time work as a designer. I have the best resume I’ve ever had in my life (yes, I paid for someone to write it) and am currently reworking my portfolio to show more of my newer work. Over here we can’t be late or strike a deal with the landlord so a steady check is absolutely necessary.

One of my current clients keeps mentioning that they are thinking of putting me on a retainer, which would be amazing as I’d never have to go to work, but I cannot wait around hoping that they will actually go through with it. Maybe if I tell them I’m on the hunt for a job they will get their asses into action! They keep telling me after every completed project how good I am. So good in fact that one of the ad networks they’re on had to tell them to tell me to not make their materials look so good (“best we’ve ever seen” good!) because the ads are making the other people on the network look terrible. HAHA! No kidding. After that I was actually instructed to make things look shitty. Which was, quite surprisingly, really hard.

Whether or not I get the retainer, I will still continue to work with them because they are the people that have kept me afloat when times were rough and the work given is very easy to take care of since the project manager and I seem to have some kind of mind-meld where I design exactly what she wants in the first try with very minor revisions.

Anyhow. I’ve got to get back to work. I am so close with this portfolio!!! My eyes aren’t focusing properly and I have to stay up all night. Again. Luckily I passed out on the couch for a few hours by mistake this afternoon so tonight’s long haul wont be as excruciating as last night (I hope!)

Long overdue life update!

It’s been a while so I’m just going to go ahead and say what’s been going on in my life. These events are so huge to me that there’s really no time to dilly dally with introductions and what have you. So…

1. My grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. It was inevitable and sudden all at the same time. She was 91, healthy and lucid and then she wasn’t. Someone that I always thought would be there just wasn’t any more. I cried for her but I cried more for my mother who is so heart broken that she couldn’t be there or do more to help during this time. They were best friends. I never, ever want to hear my mother cry like that again.

2. X and I are moving back to my home town. We were already talking about it very seriously but with my grandmother’s death, our plans got pushed way up. He told me to go be with my mom because she needs me and that he would take care of everything in New York. I bought a one way ticket and have been house hunting and working from my parents’ place ever since. X will join me at the end of April.

We wanted to be close to family and friends already and live our lives instead of working to survive. Why keep telling ourselves that we have to make New York dollars to then make a life when we were barely paying our bills? When would our plans realistically come to fruition? With the work we do, we can make it anywhere. We’ve got clients that give us work on a consistent enough basis that we can actually have lives if we lived somewhere else.

I will personally miss New York a lot, but I know I will actually have enough money to fly up there and enjoy myself as a visitor instead of a resident.

3. We are going to get married. Soon. If you asked me how long we’ve been engaged for, well, I couldn’t tell you. We decided that this is what we want. Does that qualify as engagement?

We’re not going to have a huge wedding, just a court marriage. Why spend all that money on sitting on a stage in front of relatives you don’t know for three days when you could go on an awesome vacation/honeymoon? We will have a nice dinner and maybe an after party for close relatives and friends, though.

I am so happy this is happening. I feel so lucky to have X in my life when I used to think that I’ll never find anyone that will love me or accept me. To know that he is understanding, artistic, thoughtful, handsome, funny, faithful and not jealous. He is everything I could ever want. How amazing is he for just telling me to go to my mom when she needs me most?

4. Yes, I told my parents and they took it very well. My mom was in shock but with everything going at this point in her life, who would blame her. My brother thought I was lying at first but I told him how serious I was and he said he’s fine with it as long as I am happy. I waited forever to tell my dad but when I finally did, he sat in silence for a couple of minutes and then said he was happy for me. That was huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge. Yes, it merits that many “U”s.

5. I got Netflix again! Yeah, instant viewing!!!

Huh. I’m surprised I kept it this condensed. I guess my brain just wanted me to get it all out there so I can get back to work. So here we are and here I go. I am still ALL BUSINESS ALL THE TIME, but now I know that I can afford to take a break here and there and it won’t cost me food for a week. YES!!!

I’m not editing this so… Sorry for typos and all that.

Future Perfect

I feel ill like I’m going to throw up. Maybe it’s the emotions or the fact that I haven’t been eating properly lately. Definitely not PMS because it’s not time for that yet.

I am starting to get nervous. I don’t like having only a few dollars to my name. We need to pay rent, latest by the 8th, and cover bills and I have to start paying my student loan again in April and it’s getting to me.

The past year has been good to us. We’ve had steady work from a few good clients that had paid on time but now it’s dwindled down. We’ve been trying to find full-time jobs and more clients in the mean time so it wouldn’t come down to this, but it looks like it has anyway. 

I still have paying work coming in, but it’s not enough to cover everything and it’s not looking like the  money will get to us in time. The first thing to go is the ability to eat well and keep our cupboards and fridge stocked. We have to pay rent first, then utilities and then our miscellaneous bills. Then food. Even when we had lots of work it still wasn’t enough to pay for everything and be able to enjoy ourselves. We had no money to go out or hang out with friends. There are countless friends that have come through and have asked to hang out but I just couldn’t. There are countless people living here that I can’t go and see because I have to save money on my metro card in case a client needs to meet with me. (Which is exactly what happened for my friend that’s going through a break-up. She wanted to talk and eat dinner and I had to decline. I felt like a jerk.)

I’ve been trying to sell prints but nobody is interested or buying. Some people tell me the stuff looks nice and “I might just buy it!” but nothing ever comes of it. Last night someone said my V-day stuff was unoriginal and I feel that that comment was the most honest thing anyone other than X has said to me (he’s not a fan either, which is fine because I know he’s supportive of my effort.) Really, I don’t give a shit about Valentine’s day so I am uninspired by it and that means what I made wasn’t the best, but I’m getting desperate here and I can’t wait for inspiration. So far I’ve sold ONE print (not a Valentine’s poster) and out of that I get $2.12 if the person doesn’t return it within a month. The service I use prints and ships art for the artist so most of the money goes to them. I could set my royalty price higher, but that would make the prints more expensive and then people really wouldn’t buy anything.

I’ve tried multiple avenues to advertise my work. I have a facebook fan page with 117 fans but most of them are friends and family that honestly don’t even look at what I post and will most definitely never spend any money on my art or my services as a designer. My other tumblr has 497 followers but I’m sure most of them are spammy teenage girls with the same haircut and photos. There are a handful of people that like my posts or make an effort to reblog and it means so much to me when they do.

Anyway, if I do miraculously start to sell like proverbial hot-cakes it wouldn’t help me immediately. I get paid a month later. That’s painful to realize, but still, every little bit helps.

Most of the time I stay positive. I have changed so much in these past four years. I used to be all doom and gloom. Complaining about how my life is so terrible and how I was sad and it was hard to change my outlook, but I did. I really am happy and don’t complain about anything other than how my god damn lazy fuck of a landlord won’t turn up the heat or fix anything in our apartment unless we constantly nag him about it. His wife won’t do anything either and always makes herself unavailable. What’s hilarious though is that if he wants something from us he expects us to reply right away. Fuck him.

I realize that if I was making this kind of money and living back in my home town that I could be living in midtown and have a great life. We could afford to get married and buy a house and have a child…in a few years. Up here, this money barely gets me anywhere. It is an accomplishment though. The fact that we have been able to make it nearly two years, buy a couch and a bed, a full set of pots and pans, pay everything on time, it’s nothing to dismiss. We came here with nothing. Just some clothes and our computers. That’s all. We used to cook full meals in ONE pan after our first roommate moved out. My estimates for cook times became pretty good that way, so there’s the bright side for that. We slept on the floor on layered up blankets and didn’t have winter gear. We’ve come a long way since our first months here so we’ve accomplished a lot.

I’m just very frustrated. I know it will take some time to make true fans of my work but I don’t know how or when I will accomplish that. It seems like I am invisible sometimes, but I have to be patient.

There are so many other things that I could get into. My money problems are only the beginning. My family is doing terribly back home. My father’s business is nearly non-existant and he’s getting no customers. I don’t know how he is paying for rent on that house they’re living in.

My 90 year old grandmother and my uncle in India have literally nothing in the bank and cannot afford medical bills. He doesn’t have a job because he constantly has to be at home for her so she doesn’t fall in their tiny apartment again and my aunt that lives there in a huge house of her own absolutely refuses to let them move in with her and made my poor grandmother cry. This upsets my mother who can’t really do anything to help them other than send some money that she saves from her social security checks every other month. I hear it in her voice when I talk to her and it pains me.

I try not to dwell on that stuff otherwise I would be crying all the time. I don’t know how to help even though I desperately want to. I want to pay for all my parents’ expenses so my dad doesn’t have to work any more. I want to send money to my family in India so my grandmother’s last years can be comfortable. I want to be comfortable and make a name for myself. I have to do it all up here in New York because this is where I can make the most money to help everyone. But before everyone, I have to help myself. I’m trying so hard, but it’s so draining.

I’m so glad to have X in my life. He means everything to me. I am so happy to have the friends that I do. The true friends I do have are so supportive and I wish I could be with them all the time instead of constantly working.

This is all so trying but I know it will be so worth it in the end. We will make it happen. We will be successful, get married and have exactly two children and a cat. We will take care of our families and not have to worry about affording anything. It might not be now, but it will happen. I just have to be strong.

Put yourself before others

Well, it’s been quite some time since I’ve written in here. My life is pretty busy as it is so I don’t really have time to reminisce…or whatever it is I’m doing here.

Anyway, I wanted to share this letter I wrote to my father (modified for privacy’s sake). It’s in response to his out of line reaction a few months ago to a Facebook status that listed I was in a relationship with my boyfriend. You know, when it announces it to everyone in the feed when both sides confirm…

He wrote to me after that telling me to delete it to save him from further embarrassment like what he had been dealing with for the past hour. (Our whole extended family is on there and very connected with each other.)

I deleted it, but then realized, what the fuck, why am I doing this? Who the fuck is even giving him grief about this? Who the fuck is giving him grief and not telling me anything to my (virtual) face? I moved out specifically to avoid situations like these. Things have not changed at all if I still succumb to these kinds of demands. So, I wrote back.

I deleted the posting but I am regretting doing that. Why should I hide the relationship that I’ve been in for 3 years? Why should I hide that I’m the happiest I’ve been in my life, right now, and am realizing my goals and dreams with someone that I love very much?

X is not a fling. X is not temporary. Just because we’re not married doesn’t mean that we don’t have any future together or that our relationship means any less. Marriage is just a label. Yes, I DO want to marry him, and he wants to marry me, but in our own time when we are sure of everything. We want to finish school, pay off our debts and not have to worry about the future and if we can support the children that we might have. If you and “the community” can’t handle it, then I can do nothing about it. I can’t hide and lie anymore because it puts a strain on us and is very unfair to X and all that he’s done for me.

X is a big part of my life and the sole reason that I am where I am today. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be repeating the same cycles over and over again back home. I’d be seriously depressed, still on medication, overweight, probably STILL going to community college, not have a real job or plans for the future because when I lived there, I didn’t see myself doing anything of importance. I didn’t have plans for a career or goals that I wanted to meet because I would be held back. You and Mom, although I know in your minds you were doing this to protect me, never let me go out, never let me go for jobs that I wanted, had a problem with me even driving to WB for work, and any boy I talked to was automatically someone that I was in a relationship with or had some sort of inappropriate interaction with. If I wanted to go out with some friend you didn’t hear much of I had to tell you their whole life story. If I wanted to go to some new place, it would be a huge mission to convince you that I wouldn’t do anything wrong. If I wanted to go to a concert I had to convince my brother to take me when he obviously had no interest in the things I liked. Yes, I did do stupid things, but to me it would get to the point of where I would think “if I’m already doing something wrong in their minds, I might as well do it anyway.” I had no interest in partying all the time or having 20 boyfriends, or whatever it is you were worried about… I just wanted a social life and friends to be with and a job I could go to without having to worry about my parents saying something about it.

I was on a leash and it was suffocating. There’s no way I ever imagined I would realistically live anywhere outside of where I was born even though I hoped and dreamed of it because I knew someone would be there to say “no” or “when you’re married”. Why should I have to wait to live out what I want until I get attached to someone else I have to take care of? To me, for you to say “when you’re married” meant “never”. Look at my mom. She wanted to travel and go to places that were probably a lot cheaper to go to back then, but it never happened. She never got the opportunity to work when coming to America and now, when her having a job could help you out tremendously, she can’t. Who will hire a woman her age with no work experience? You say all she does is stay at home or work out or get her hair done, but who made it that way? She wanted to work, you said you’ll take care of her, which is a great gesture, but it doesn’t work that way in America. Even my aunt and all these other people ended up getting jobs at one point. She works out and does her hair to look nice for you, but you complain that she spends too much money. She wants to go see movies in the theater but you rarely want to go. I definitely understand that you’re the one that’s working every day to support us, but you also have to take care of her and the little things she asks for. When I see that happen my whole life, why would I want to be in the same helpless situation? If something happens to you, what will she do? I don’t want to be like that when I’m her age. I want to know that I did what I wanted, when I wanted, and have no sadness or regrets.

The first good thing X did for me was talk to me, when he came to visit, about how I don’t need medication to be happy. I stopped taking my Effexor that weekend and never touched it again. He listened to me, and about what I wanted in life, and said it was all possible. He offered his help, not because he wanted something from me, but because he wanted me to get something out of life. He saw my sadness and offered a way out and I took it. I wish it didn’t have to be something so drastic, but in reality I don’t think it could have been any other way.

He helped me get my first real job doing design work. He made sure I had a place to stay and was comfortable. Someone that wasn’t genuine or was looking for a fling or to do harm to me would never go out of his way to do that for me. He understood that it was very hard for me to leave home, but he helped me anyway. If I cried, he would be there for me and if I threw a tantrum he still stuck by me.

He is the first person that genuinely understands me. If he doesn’t get something, he makes the effort to learn more. He is ready to try new things and add new experiences to our lives together. He loves art and design even more than I do, and I think that’s amazing. He’s someone I can go to for an honest opinion for my work and he understands why I have to be on the computer all day long. He is supportive and caring and tells me he loves me all the time. He appreciates me, he loves the friends of mine that he has met so far and is always energetic and enthusiastic about what we will do together next. Most of the time it’s him that brings up getting married, or moving to a quieter place when we’re ready to settle and building a house of our own and how we’ll introduce our future children to all kinds of things so they will want to grow and explore more when they become adults. He sees how much I love and miss you and my family and tells me I should visit whenever possible. He knows that you don’t like that we’re together yet he still wants me to help you with your business. He’s the one that did the logo and he’s the one that pushed me to make a better design than what I was coming up with originally. He sees that you’re still helping to support me whenever I ask and he respects you a lot.

I wish you could accept X for who and what he is. I don’t think it should matter at all whether he is Muslim or not. It shouldn’t matter to you either. If I married a Muslim man but he still gets drunk and has a corporate job and doesn’t take my wants and needs into consideration, does that make him better than a non-Muslim with good morals that works hard for what he wants, hardly drinks at all and takes good care of me? I don’t think so. Being Muslim doesn’t mean someone is better.

I want to be with X, whether you approve of him or not. It still hurts that my last night at home the last time I visited you gave me an ultimatum to marry him or never talk to you again. Obviously, you didn’t follow through with it, but it still hurts that you would even threaten me with something like that. X makes me happy and I love and appreciate him more than I can put into words. Writing what I did earlier, it actually made me cry, because sometimes I forget how much he really means to me and how much I truly appreciate everything he has ever done and WILL do for me. I don’t want to have to choose between my family and my boyfriend and don’t think I should have to. I will always be your daughter and I will always love you but you need to take into consideration that I am an adult, I’m closer to being 30 than 20, and you can’t make my decisions for me or give me ridiculous ultimatums. I don’t want you to think about accepting X only when we get married, I want you to make a move now. We’ve already sailed through three years together and I don’t see an end any time soon. If you refuse to help me, that’s fine. I’ll even pay you back everything you’ve given me with each check I get. I will work to improve the bad credit I didn’t even make for myself on my own. I will finish your site and let you do what you want with it.

I am not going to give up X because “the community” looks down on me for being with him. I don’t need them if they are going to be that way. I’ve said it a million times before, but I’ll say it again. The “community” will talk trash no matter what and I am not going to twist and turn to make sure that they have nothing to talk about. If you’re embarrassed, then I’m sorry, but everyone will have to deal with it. Don’t they have lives of their own? Isn’t Z off drinking and partying all around the world and twice divorced? Isn’t S bringing his BOYFRIEND to family gatherings? If they can get past that, they can definitely get past me being in a stable and happy relationship with someone I love. A facebook status is trivial. I still regret deleting it because of your request. I can’t hide myself any more.

I am an adult, I have a life of my own, I make my own decisions and will deal with the consequences whether they’re good or bad. If you have people emailing you or calling you about what I’m doing, please direct them to me so I may educate them. I won’t live my life for others and neither should you. Worry about your business and supporting your family. That’s your job. If people are going to look down on you for what I’ve decided to do as an adult then maybe you should think twice about your relationship with them. People need to worry about themselves more instead of gossip and making other people’s lives miserable for what their children do. If you’re so worried about what other people think, you would have stopped drinking or not get drunk in public, like you obviously were at my cousin’s wedding. THAT was terrible.

I love you, but I’m staying with X and will get married in my own sweet time. I will claim him as my boyfriend in person and on facebook and everywhere else because he doesn’t deserve to be hidden away like a bad secret. He is a truly amazing and wonderful person and I can’t wait for everyone to know him and understand why I care about him so much. I think it is very unfair to be forced to make a decision between people that I love so much for so many different things. I think it’s even more unfair that it’s my father that’s forcing me to do it. It breaks my heart that even though I’m stable, in a good relationship and with a good job that you still find the need to tell me what to do because of “embarrassment”. Maybe the reason I never see myself moving back home is because I’ll be put in this kind of situation all the time when it doesn’t even need to happen. I am a good person with good morals and goals. So is X. You raised me very well. We are living our lives as we think we should and will do what makes us happy, not others.

The reason for this long email is because I don’t want to talk on the phone with you about this since it will end as it usually does when it comes to things like this. I want to tell you everything I have built up inside and everything that I feel. On the phone you’ll just say what you have to and I will end up not telling you everything that I wanted. This is the only way I will continue our conversations on these matters because this is the only way I can get a word in edgewise. I hope you understand.

I never got a reply after that. In fact, we had not talked for months since until quite recently, and that was a very awkward sort-of conversation.

I’m actually quite apprehensive that things will get awkward again when I visit next month. I will be back home for a short amount of time for a wedding, but with our history, he always pulls some stunt the night before I leave that pretty much puts a damper on the good time I had my whole visit. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again. Or, if we end up talking about my personal life, hopefully he will actually take the time to listen and consider my side of things instead of pushing his views onto me.