I sit once again for my bridal makeup, for that day that has the old adage ‘best day of a girl’s life’ attached to it.
Ironically, I am not too fond of weddings myself. No, I’m not a killjoy (except on bad hair days maybe) and yes, I do enjoy them as much as the next person when it’s a friend’s wedding or when a close relative marries. But it becomes a little hard to look past the at times needless expenditure and the chagrin of those family members and friends who are missing in action all year round, yet all too keen to express anger at not receiving an invitation.
I am lucky I am getting ready for a wedding that is only make-believe. Also, very glad the make-up artist cannot hear my thoughts as she fiddles enthusiastically with my hair. Don’t want her to think I am some kind of a weirdo.
So as she does my hair, I think about this. The hair, the makeup, the day, the institution, the life. Aside from our own selves that change through and in time, so does society and the value it places on certain things.
Marriage has changed or rather evolved greatly over the past few decades, where it once belonged only to members of the opposite gender, in some countries it has now extended its arms to anyone to wishes to be married, irrespective of gender. Yet, while some covet inclusion in this institution, there are others who have written it off altogether as redundant or dead. A failed institution.
Technology gave us the illusion of being connected to so many people all at once. But you might find the person next to you doesn’t really know you at all, doesn’t find your imperfections endearing, doesn’t notice the way your eyes look when you smile or remember that you hate olives in your sandwiches.
So cut to some thirty or forty years ago. Our parents, that is, the generation before us, is getting ready to tie the knot. Because that is what you do when you are of a certain age in the 1960s-70s in Pakistan – you don’t go backpacking across Europe, you don’t take a summer off to stay at home and learn a language, you don’t live up the single life… you get married. That is what you do.
Soon after, you learn your partner isn’t well suited to you at all. That he/she doesn’t understand you, is abusive, is unkind or simply just doesn’t cut it. So what do you do? Do you walk away? Nope. Maybe that’s not who are you, maybe you’re afraid of the societal stigma attached to divorce or maybe you want to but you just can’t for various reasons. So you think well, this is it. This is my life, I have made my bed, might as well lie in it. And you decide to have kids and they experience your story.
Cut back to present time. The kids grew up, they realized that life is too short to be unhappy. So they go searching for happiness. And searching… and searching. Technology gave us the illusion of being connected to so many people all at once. Surely, there are many fish in the sea! It became too easy, finding someone to spend Saturday night with, to huddle up close to on the dance floor, to message and call over one of those days when you are lonely.
With apps like Tinder and many others, finding someone single within a certain distance was easy, overlooking all too soon the fact that physical closeness will never satisfy the emotional emptiness that you feel when you realize the person next to you doesn’t really know you at all, doesn’t find your imperfections endearing, doesn’t notice the way your eyes look when you smile or remember that you hate olives in your sandwiches.
In fact they might not even be here if you showed them the real you. That they too are just looking to fill a lonely moment and attempting to pass off what you both know is a Chinese copy, as the real thing.
The truth is we are afraid. We are afraid that we aren’t living enough, the entire world around us is burning and if that doesn’t get you, cancer or some other deadly disease surely will.
Value what you have, and water your own grass. Remind yourself of all the great things they bring into your life and what drew you to them in the first place.
The truth is we just want to be happy. We just don’t know how. And we constantly think that there may be someone better out there, someone more exciting, someone more interesting, someone who understands us better or makes us feel a certain way we really need to feel.
We just want to be happy but we don’t know how. The truth of the matter is, if our parents didn’t do it right, we aren’t doing it right either.
So what is the solution then? There has to come a time when you stop. When you realize that the grass on the other side isn’t greener, it’s just grass, different from yours perhaps but not necessarily any better.
So as long as your partner is not physically or emotionally abusive or unkind or a cheat or any of the things that should definitely lead to the dissolution of your relationship with them, realize that no one is perfect.
Value what you have, and water your own grass. Remind yourself of all the great things they bring into your life and what drew you to them in the first place. They won’t be there for you all the time but remember no one will. There will always be times when the only one there for you is you. And that’s okay.
As I arrive on my set, the spot, the wardrobe boy and many other crew members compliment me. A reminder of good things perhaps? I certainly hope so.
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