This blog is where I have complained without restraint for the last six years. Here's some more.
I am in Hyderabad, have been for the last three days. The days have been a dazed blur. I must have met about 20 people, which is an 'only', and have come back meaning to fall asleep immediately, but keeping awake again till 2am. My job has become a wasteland. Why am I doing this professional harakiri? Why am I catering to the whims of my clueless boss? This is that juncture again. And I spoke to my ex, and result, it feels like I am back in that old place again. That desperate hurt that refuses to go, that bafflement at someone being able to do this with impunity. It's like I have to start it all over again, with a trip to McLeodgunj, ending in a long conversation in darkness, down sharp bends on a mountain road: conversations had again and again, with different people, examining the situation from varied angles, the need to talk, talk, talk it all away. At the end of which had come blessed relief, a scab that no longer hurt, and then there was Ladakh, and X and sex to wash it all away, and blossoming again into life, taking control and standing up, and being proud, so proud. And O and C and A. A being kind, and holding and listening, pulling me into her loving vortex and giving me relief I didn't even know I needed, C listening, listening, on those blistering afternoons when I stood on the balcony, and tried to find a method to the maze that I felt I had been pulled into, O repeating again and again and again, of love and strength and happiness, and hugging me, and bringing me along with her across Delhi: oh that lovely, scorching Delhi 2012 summer, winding through CR Park, Lajpat, old Delhi, kakima, Kutty and ma. And then I went away to Ladakh, and I went away again, and slowly things fell in place.
That was what it took to stand up again. You can't re-run that gamut. I haven't the wish, I don't want to repeat. I want to be able to shed him, shed all the mens who do this. This summer will be hard enough without. There can't be this added masala to the madness.

I was going to begin this with 'Dear Sir', since I write official emails all day. Life seems to be closing in, having caught me in its grasp. The flat requires too too much work, which I don't think I can manage while holding down the responsibilities this job entails. Is suicide an option? Just saying.
Aar parchhi na. An infantile parent, an undisciplined dog, the flat, the job, not enough money, the need for a lot more money, the fear of whether I can do this alone, the longing for someone to share this. What have I done? What am I doing? When will this ever finish? When will I ever be free? I really really really want to be free. I had hoped to leave my job and go away to Ladakh this year. But I can't. I have to stay in Delhi all of this year.
My leave, if I get two weeks' leave, will have to be spent in Kolkata, getting the flat, the myriad payments and investments in order. That travel will have to be timed with court appearances, so that we are in Delhi when we have to be in court. After the initial court work is over (or so the lawyer blithely said), I can take my family back to Kolkata and leave them there.
Yes, people die, people go mad. I still have sanity, I have food, a roof over my head, parent and dog are very well within the bounds of manageability. Kintu, kintu: one will admit this is a lot for one person. A person who does not enjoy responsibility, who does not get her kicks out of solving twenty problems at once, who would rather have mental peace than a fat paycheck.

Summer will pass with Ladakh turning all sunshiny and ethereal again, and I will be here. Maybe winter 2013 for the long trip.