The day a bird followed me home part 9

All that had been more than a decade ago, and last month it was the anniversary of the 15 years of my coming overseas, the day, when I had landed at the airport in UK, as a new bride, when I had been a simple and naïve, a hilly billy, young and ignorant girl from a very small town in India.  

Now, I was in Australia, working in a publishing company, had a good income, owned my money, and my own house, and every bedroom in my house was mine. I could do whatever I wanted to do. I didn't share anything with anyone else. Not even my thoughts, actually more so, my thoughts! 

And it was a lonely existence. Loneliness, I didn't mind. Or I hadn't so far, but since a few weeks ago,  actually, from the day, a bird had followed me home, I was restless. 

There were unsaid things, unprocessed thoughts, and incidents, which needed to be processed, so I could be free of those. 

I had finally, decided to write it all down. 

I did not drink wine, or any other alcohol, but that week, I decided to experiment with that too. After all that I had done, and experienced in my life, I thought, then why not this! 

I bought a case of red wine, had discreetly asked someone at work for suggestions, and went home. 

Frank had been pestering me for a while, he needed an answer, that I couldn't give him. I myself didn't know what I had wanted.

I liked him, and he did bring those emotions in me that I had never known, nice feelings, as if everything was ok with the world. But it were the shadows in my own mind, which stopped me from any commitment! And moreover, I didn't want anyone so close that I felt, I had to share everything with them, everything, including Aaree, my precious darling. 

Any way, he had given me an ultimatum, either I had to go out with him, or he was going to barge in, one day, as he wouldn't give up. So finally I had said ok, lets talk this Monday! yes, Frank, give me the weekend to sort a few things, and to clear a few issues!   

I poured a glass of wine, sipped it, then gulped it down, with some chips. Wine made me sleepy, and lethargic. But I couldn't sleep either. 

So I had got up at night, and started to write it all. To write about a thing means understanding it, or sometimes, writing something makes us understand it. Whatever the case, my fingers were quickly moving, and I was just getting it all out. 

So what was happening, when I was there in England, going through the strange experience of living with a man who was in love with another woman, who couldn't be his, what had started happening to me? I started to think, and write. 

What had I done?

I had finally started to grow up. 

The very first week of my arrival, I had realised my reality, and that of my husband. Which had shown me that life is not made of the stuff that dreams are made of. And also that one could still live, even if there was no hope. Just keep going, following a routine of living. My husband loved someone, who he couldn't marry. She was his first cousin, a divorcee, and had a high fly job, lived independently, but they both couldn't openly live together. Sometimes he went away for a few days, and I knew he was with her, visiting her house, or on a holiday, but most weekends, she would come here. 

Other nights I still slept in the master bedroom, on the same bed, and sometimes, we did sleep together, but very often, he would get up and sit in the balcony smoking late into night. I felt sorry for him. But I couldn't say anything to him, moreover, I always fell asleep, before he came back to bed.

In my job, now, 15 years later, I get to choose what gets published, and have dead lines, working at night is a routine, but at that stage, I had no control over anything, I couldn't decide, or do anything that I wanted, though my life was taking its own turns.