Sliding doors

As I was driving home from my boyfriend's place tonight, I got to thinking how much my life feels a bit like the movie "Sliding Doors" the last two months....except instead of seeing two alternate realities of life based on choices made or not made, my alternate realities exist because of life circumstances that happened within close proximity to another. One amazing door opened shortly before another heartbreaking, tragic door closed.

I met my future boyfriend on October 23, 2012 and the best most loving friend I've ever had in my 35 years on this planet died November 19, 2012. As you may imagine, this turned my world completely upside down. I thought, "What the hell, universe? How could you open such an exciting door of possibility at the same time you took away the one person who often knew me and loved me better than I knew and loved myself?" This made absolutely no sense and totally fucked with my head, more so my heart. I felt angry. I felt confused. I felt guilty for focusing so much on this new man in my life and more so for being happy in his presence when I *should* have been in mourning 24/7 after Rajiv's death (or so that critical side of me told myself).

Two months later and it still feels weird, though I'm not going through extreme emotions anymore. Now I just find myself thinking of my life experiences and memories in terms of two significant time periods: "Before Dragos" and "After Rajiv." In order to understand the significance of these time periods, I must explain why I see my life via these 'sliding doors.'

Door #1, "Before Dragos" (there was Rajiv)

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have relationship issues (or lack thereof would be more apropos). One would think that most 35 year old women have had a plethora of significant other relationships, including even being married by that age. Not me.There have been men I briefly dated, exciting crushes that fizzled out/went nowhere, and developing feelings for male friends. All of them had two things in common: emotional unavailability and no prospect for long term potential.

Though I met my best friend Rajiv a year or two prior to approaching my 30's, he knew my terrible romantic history all too well. Not only did he know my history well, he had this almost magical power of predicting my romantic future (for good or bad) when I'd give him a snapshot of my experiences with a particular guy I was feeling unsure about at the time during our six and a half years of friendship. He was almost always right, my magic 8 ball best friend. "Outlook not so good." "Most likely." "Don't count on it."

While I usually felt clueless when it came to men romantically, Rajiv grounded me and brought me back to reality. His perspective always helped me in some way, even when he said something I didn't want to hear. In some strange way too, I feel like I got 'practice' to completely be myself with a man....open, honest, and intimately knowing one other (minus the romance/sex aspect). He didn't know it, but he was "preparing" me for an emotional intimacy I would soon also share with Dragos.

Here's where the sliding doors emerge.

Door #2 "After Rajiv" (Taking risks without my magic 8 ball)

It's now been 3 months since Dragos and I started dating, 3 weeks now into the 'in a relationship' stage. Rajiv died before I even had a chance to tell him about Dragos. The first man with whom I'm truly embarking on a new and exciting relationship (and chapter in my life) and the man whom loved me so completely unconditionally for the good, bad, ugly and everything in between....these two will never meet, will never know each other, will never know me through the eyes of the other. I will never get to share with Rajiv all the exciting "firsts" I have experienced or will experience with Dragos....or the various thoughts and feelings I have as the relationship progresses. I'll never have my magic 8 ball to give me the thumbs up or thumbs down on this man, though sometimes in my mind (when I'm spending time with Dragos) I picture Rajiv smiling at me or laughing with me.

Dragos will never know what a gift Rajiv gave me....that of feeling worthy of a caring, intimate relationship and capable of going beyond my comfort zone despite how scary it feels because the rewards far outweigh the perceived costs. Dragos will also never know how little things he says or does at times remind me of Rajiv in a funny or comforting way.

These sliding doors that initially gave me an existential crisis now give me an abundance of opportunities....that of love, meaning, growth, and most especially the confidence to become my own magic 8 ball.

Love you always and forever, Rajiv. "It is decidedly so."

Melting ice in Annawadi

Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo eloquently and brilliantly captures what is truly a heartbreaking level of abject poverty in a slum of Mumbai (Annawadi), India in "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity." Boo weaves intimately detailed narratives of a handful of the residents, respectfully revealing the gritty nuances of their day to day existence. Tragic tales juxtaposed against tremendous resiliency and ability to adapt to destructive forces (particularly in regard to inescapable political corruption).

I finished reading this book several hours ago and I'm still struggling with articulating the words to describe my thoughts and feelings about it, nearly speechless. Ever heard human emotions can be narrowed down to seven basic emotions? This is a rare book that will likely trigger all seven for you as it did me: fear, sadness, anger, joy, surprise, disgust, and contempt.

I give this book five stars (and in my estimation, hands down the best work of narrative non-fiction of 2012 thus far!) based on the following factors: 1. Well-written, both in content and with an excellent balance of objectivity as well as articulating the complexities with a humanistic touch. 2. It's a human interest piece that educates without exploitation or self-righteousness. 3.Truthful accounts validated by reliable sources via the documented experiences of residents with notes, video recordings, audiotapes, and photographs. 4.It challenges one's notions on diverse subjects of morality, politics (corruption at its worst), freedom, and loyalty to community vs. individualism/being true to oneself. 5. Despite the tragic subject matter of the book, Katherine Boo subtly reflects the luminous power of the human spirit to live in survival mode and yet experience beauty, hope, and love amidst the worst imaginable living conditions.

"Behind the Beautiful Forevers" reads so much like a work of fiction, I kept having to remind myself "These are REAL people and these disturbing things REALLY did happen...are still happening." I had immense empathy for the "characters" Katherine Boo chronicles. I wanted to reach through the pages and pull them out, take a stand on their behalf...or at the very least, take a stand against injustice with them....to a more safe and peaceful, joyful place.

If you think you have it bad in life, read this book for a brutal awakening that life could be much, much worse. One such example: It's common in the slums to have "jobs" as garbage scavengers, which comes with dangers you can hardly imagine. The most disturbing sentence in the novel: ‎"Where skin broke, maggots got in. Lice colonized hair, gangrene inched up fingers, calves swelled into tree trunks, and Abdul and his younger brothers kept a running wager about which of the scavengers would be the next to die."

A few other powerful quotes which particularly stood out to me:

"Becoming a success in the great, rigged market of the overcity required less effort and intelligence than getting by, day to day, in the slums. The crucial things were luck and the ability to sustain two convictions: that what you were doing wasn't all that wrong, in the scheme of things, and that you weren't all that likely to get caught."

"What was unfolding in Mumbai was unfolding elsewhere, too. In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicament. Poor people didn't unite; they competed ferociously amongst themselves for gains as slender as they were provisional. And this undercity strife created only the faintest ripple in the fabric of the society at large. The gates of the rich, occasionally rattled, remained unbreached. The politicians held forth on the middle class. The poor took down one another, and the world's great, unequal cities soldiered on in relative peace." 

Open your mind. Open your heart. Open this book.

Paradox of personal freedoms

When I Google the word "freedom," this is what I come across:

1. personal liberty, as from slavery, bondage, serfdom, etc.

2. liberation or deliverance, as from confinement or bondage

3. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) the quality or state of being free, esp to enjoy political and civil liberties

4. the state of being without something unpleasant or bad; exemption or immunity freedom from taxation

5. the right or privilege of unrestricted use or access the freedom of a city

6. autonomy, self-government, or independence

7. the power or liberty to order one's own actions

8. the quality, esp of the will or the individual, of not being totally constrained; able to choose between alternative actions in identical circumstances

9. ease or frankness of manner

10. excessive familiarity of manner; boldness

11. ease and grace, as of movement; lack of effort

Too bad applying one of these straightforward definitions to an individual's life and what it means to have 'freedom' isn't quite so simplistic. Especially when one freedom chosen is at the expense of another freedom that must be sacrificed or given up.

When juxtaposed one against the other, when it's impossible to have both at the same time....how does one choose which kind of freedom is the most meaningful, the one that will reap the most happiness and reward? Would you rather give up your personal independence (#6 and #7 above) so that you have liberation from an extremist oppressive culture? (#2-5)? Or would you rather be completely honest, yet confined to a place where you likely will not grow to your full potential? Would you rather follow your instincts or would you rather be obedient?

What if you had to lie to the government for the cost of your freedom? Would it matter if it was a decision that would only affect your life for a few years versus the rest of your life? Imagine that your quality of life in most aspects would be better in country A than country B.

If absolute freedom doesn't exist, what kind of freedom would you ultimately choose and why? Have you ever had to make such a choice? And furthermore, is lying sometimes necessary and justified in order to fight for one of these freedoms?