Every single night at this very hour I sit with my laptop yearning to churn out a post before I call it a day. This has been going on for the past twenty days or so and everyday, after typing a few lines I doze off on the keyboard. On many occasions Pari wakes me up because she is often wide awake even at this hour having slept in the afternoon when I am usually busy chasing deadlines.

The much awaited wedding of my cousin is right here, a few hours away. The past many days have been spent planning, shopping and preparing for it because this is a wedding in the family, after a gap of almost 7 years.

I am one of those boring women who don’t enjoy shopping. It’s not that I don’t fancy buying beautiful clothes, bags or shoes, its just that I get tired oft he way I usually shop. I can get pretty hyper when I shop, paying great attention to detail, trying every item I like, try to get the best deal in the best quality, that often translates into paying insane amounts of money.

In short, when I look at the way I shop, I often consider myself crazy. In the past couple of weeks while shopping for the dresses to wear at the wedding I clocked in almost 4 hours in the trial room. This is despite the fact that unlike the popular trend, I never click any photographs in the trial room nor do I enjoy posing in the mirror wearing designer clothes.

All said and done and after shopping endlessly, by God’s grace the dresses for our family were finalised. But in the final trial, something happened that sucked out the false sense of closure I have been floating in. I was trying a designer Anarkali when a woman and her sister (almost the age of my mom) complimented me. Nothing unusual or extraordinary about it. But, my mind picked that brief interaction as a cue to bombard me with memories I had conveniently buried.

Reality stands, that in the past few years, ever since my life went haywire, I have never bothered about what I wear, how I look and whether what I wear makes me look good or not. I had grown so distant to even the very basic things in life that shopping to me means shopping for others in the family or for Pari. What I wear is often bought without much interest or by my parents. Anyway, I digress.

The compliments given by the kind souls brought to me flashes of the time when my ex-husband and I used to garner bagful of compliments everywhere we went, because many people considered us as an attractive pair.  As the ghosts of my past started looming on my mind, a sudden bout of emptiness struck me. I realized I no longer had a reason to browse through, let alone shop at the menswear section. The rare times I shop there is when I shop for my father. I call them rare because my mom usually does that for him and on other occasions my father likes to have his shirts & trousers tailored.

It was a sudden wave of streaming memories that refused to loosen its clutches long after I was back home after shopping. Not that I have ever been fond of dressing up or makeup, but still I couldn’t help but feel sad about the way my life has changed course in the past few years.

Memories of the times I have left far behind, still have the power to disturb me. But, the good news is the disturbance didn’t last for long. Though it made me wonder how cruel life can sometimes get. After many years when I have been trying to muster courage to return to my old, good self, hurtful memories are in action, working to steal my moments of happiness.

Nevertheless, I am determined to have lots of fun in the wedding no-matter who thinks what or who says whatever.

P.S. – I had dozed off while writing this post last night, hence publishing it in the morning.