Tag: Relationship goals

What marriage means to me?

On By Sweta KachhapIn Blogchatter Projects, Relationships24 Comments
Marriage to me is a conscious choice of choosing us over and over again!

With BlogchatterA2Z Challenge Theme Reveal you have already come to know that I’ll be rededicating my marriage by renewing my wedding vows. But this time around instead of 7 there are going to be 26 vows with 26 alphabets spread across 26 posts. So with this post, let me give you an opening, a sneak peek of what you’ll be getting to read and know about what you may expect from my posts through the entire month.

What do you say when someone asks you what marriage means to you?

Well, when someone asked me the same question I was so stupefied with the question that I stood there tongue-tied gaping at the questioner like a fool. Yeah, that’s what I did. But why didn’t I have anything to say for such a simple question? I was extremely embarrassed at my own lack of expression.

But this really made me ponder and reflect on what marriage truly means to me. And when I truly understood what marriage means to me, I was flabbergasted by the profoundness of its meaning and its significance in my life, rather our life because Mr. Husband and I share more or less the same ideologies. We are similar that way!

So, coming back to the question of what marriage means to me?

Having grown up in a family where my mom and dad followed and practiced a healthy and growing relationship I couldn’t have had a more positive and inconvertible feeling towards this sacred institution.

I wonder if I’d have the same irrefutable feeling had I been raised in a broken marriage. But regardless of that, I still feel marriage to me is much more than just paperwork and legal binding or social affirmation of two couples staying together.

Marriage to me is the “gift for life” as well as the “gift of life”. To me, marriage is a celebration not just for the day that we get married, but for the whole life – celebrating each other as we build a life together.

Marriage to me is a journey of a lifelong commitment to each other through everything – the good parts, the bad parts and everything in between, but out of love and not out of obligation.

Marriage to me is sticking together, no matter what, on days when we’re head over heels in love with each other, but mostly on days where we’d rather leave each other alone and not see each others’ faces. It means sticking together even when things get inevitably difficult and we’d rather find it easy to walk away desperately wanting to start over and start afresh.

Marriage to me is to share not just the last name or the same bed or the same closet. Marriage is sharing a family, sharing the joys and sorrows – sharing a life.

Marriage to me is choosing to say “I love you” every day building a life together not just over countless conversations – some serious, some nonsensical, myriad of fights and disagreements – some logical some, illogical, not just over annoyance and mundanity, but also over pure happiness and sheer joy, the kind that makes your heart flutter and makes the journey worth it.

So, here’s a small poem I wrote about what marriage means to me:

Marriage to me is a beautiful song

Of forgiveness when one is wrong

To be singing when one gets hurt

Giving them reasons to stay strong!

Marriage to me is treasure and wealth

A lifelong commitment until comes death

To find them the light when one gets lost

And to stick together in sickness and in health!

Marriage to me is a remarkable way

To celebrate life, make merry, and to play

But also when it gets rough and one gets sad

To be present for them to save the day!

Marriage to me is a gift for life

Where you either be one or get a wife

You strive to grow and build a life together

And have a family to cherish as a gift of life!

No wonder I was dumbfounded by the question. Sometimes when it means so much it’s hard to express it in just a few words. Sometimes when it means so much it’s easy to write volumes of books on it. But hold your thought right there, I’d rather suffice with this small blog post for what it means to me. And when marriage means so much to me, it’s only coherent that I renew my vows and rededicate my marriage with this person to whom I’m bound to for now and forever. Join us as we redefine our marriage this April.

And I would definitely love to hear your views and opinions to this question – “What marriage means to you?” in the comments below.

Love,

Mrs. Sunshine

Views: 1025

Celebrating sibling love through the festival of Rakshabandhan

On By Sweta KachhapIn Relationships4 Comments
Plantable Eco-friendly Rakhi!

We went eco-friendly this Rakshabandhan celebrating the festival with a 100% biodegradable Rakhi. This plantable Rakhi is made from hand-made paper, natural colours and, seeds which can be planted in the soil after the festival is over to grow plants of Tulsi and marigold. This is just a small gesture towards the Mother Nature, which also gives me a reason to share a beautiful little story of the festival which is very close to my heart.

We are four sisters and a brother. My youngest sibling (my baby brother) is twelve years younger to me. For very long I didn’t have a brother. Twelve years is really a long time, don’t you think? The sister immediately younger to me is just two years younger. So for a few years not having a brother didn’t make much of a difference. It didn’t really matter if I had a brother or not until I was seven years old. In our craft class at the school, we were being taught how to make Rakhi using silk threads and a brush and were being told the story and the significance of the Rakshabandhan festival. I, as a kid, was so intrigued and fascinated by it that I terribly wanted to have a brother of my own. Moreover, looking at other girls with brothers and listening to their plans for the festival was making me long for a brother even more.

That day, when I returned home, I was particularly sad and my mother sensed it immediately. When asked, I narrated her the entire incident that happened at the school. She laughed it away and helped me with my art & craft homework, which was to prepare Rakhis for display at the exhibition. The Rakhis that we prepared turned out really beautiful and I was very proud of that.

But Rakshabandhan being just 2 days away, I was still whining for a brother, and more so when my prepared Rakhis won the best Rakhi in the whole class. But, on the day of Rakshabandhan what my mother did for me was super duper extraordinary and will definitely blow away your mind (Well, it did mine!). My mother dressed my baby sister, who was 1.5 years at the time, as a boy and asked us to tie her the same Rakhis that we had prepared for the exhibition (My mother had converted Bably to Bablu for the day just for me). And the cherry on top of the cake was I even got a present for the Rakhi as a custom. And my happiness knew no bounds. Life is so simple when we are kids, isn’t it? And little happiness means so much. I wish life could be so much simpler now.

For 3 more years, I continued to tie Rakhi to our Bablu and later to Dably turned to Dablu. It was 1.5 years later that I got my actual brother. And the first Rakhi I celebrated with him was when he was just 5 months old and could barely sit. He just kept staring and drooling all the time unaware of what was happening with him. But that one Rakhi is still the second most memorable of all Rakhi I’ve ever had so far, the first will always be the one with my Bablu! Nothing can ever beat that one!

Rakshabandhan celebrations with my brother.

Traditionally started as a way of brothers swearing to protect the sisters as they tied the Rakhis on their bothers’ wrists, I am so glad that modern day Rakshabandhan has evolved so much. It doesn’t need to be just a brother and sister festival anymore according to its modern version. And why do we need a brother to protect a sister when a sister can do the job equally well, and sometimes even better. It is only sensible that way don’t you think?

Love,

Mrs. Sunshine

Views: 217

Are you ready for a new perspective in relationship goals?

On By Sweta KachhapIn Motherhood, Parenting, Relationships5 Comments
“Us” together

When we talk of parenthood, the role of a mother has always been given an edge over the role of a father. None of us can really deny the fact that mothers are the ones to devote more amounts of time and energy in raising a baby than the fathers too.

Over the years there has been much written about how contrastingly a mother’s life changes after coming of the baby as compared to how it was before the baby. But, not many of us talk about how a father’s life changes after a baby come into the picture. So here’s a Husband and New Dad’s perspective on relationships.

How a Husband and New Dad looks into this new role:

When we first planned on starting a family, we had a pretty clear picture that the baby was going to change the present dynamics of our marriage. But just when the romantic flirty messages changed into the grocery list, the intellectual chat changed into pee & poop talk and the birthday & anniversary reminders changed into vaccination reminders, I am still clueless.

Nobody warned us about the plummeting our relationship had taken and the chaos the rest of our lives had fallen into.

During the initial months everything seemed so exciting and gala, but soon after I found myself lamenting how our love for the baby had usurped our very own love story. Despite the fact that our happiness knew no bounds – she was happy and I was happy, but together our happy “we” times went missing from the picture.

We now have more pictures of us with the baby than we have of just the two of us!

And as determined as I was not to save our “us” for some day in the future, or pause our romance for tomorrow or even wait for the weekly off to hold a kiss for that matter, I also didn’t want to rush her into it either. I understood she needed time to recover & heal. But I also couldn’t shy away from the fact that her drive kept on taking a reverse gear whenever I tried to reconnect. I had been trying very badly to be the people who once met, married, fell in love and had a miraculous baby. But, our love story seemed to be lost somewhere underneath those soiled diapers and laundry piles.

How Sex and Intimacy went down the drain:

Who wouldn’t agree when I say that intimacy is like the glue in a marriage? So exactly how was I supposed to react if she chose sleep over sex? And even when, after a long, challenging day she tried to pry her tired and sleepy eyes open to tend to “us” because that might be our only chance during the entire day, I felt it was selfish of me to make her go through this. I did understand that “us” time would be the last thing on her mind with all the tiredness & exhaustion and over-touching from those tiny hands and feet climbing and clinging to her all day. And as much as I would hate to admit – it did feel like I was not wanted, I was not cared for, when all I had wanted was a sense of belongingness, even if the thought crossed my mind just for the millionth of a second.

How reality struck hard:

Did they tell you before having the baby that life will be more beautiful and lovely with the baby?

Reality check!

They sure forgot to tell you how different that love and life you probably imagined before having the baby could be when you are sleep-deprived parents to a highly active toddler. I knew beforehand, life couldn’t be the same and I was definitely geared up for this, but I so wanted more of her, I so wanted more of “us”. Reality struck me hard when one day, on hearing my wife calling, “Hey handsome” I jumped in all excited only to find that it was for the baby and not me (sigh)! He sure is my baby too and he’s handsome. But ouch! That hurt, and so much.

How I started looking at our relationship in a new light:

But amidst all that chaos we still tried to laugh while cooking or cleaning, appreciate each other, exchanged gifts, even when they didn’t seem to be enough.

And just when I was beginning to think our relationship had lost its lustre, our marriage was far from being over, not even close. In all the drama going on in my life, I somehow missed seeing the bigger picture. This time around, she was the one to reach out. I’m glad I had the patience to wait and I didn’t rush her into it.

It was then I was able to witness how with each one of these challenging days passing by, we had been inching closer to each other gaining in trust, establishing mutual respect and building on faith. I had missed seeing how we kept fuelling on hope, enkindling belongingness and growing even deeper a love, all along the way, silently.

It just took me a little while to see how our relationship had metamorphosed and transformed into a more beautiful form, just as a butterfly does from a caterpillar, giving more meaning and depth to the relationship that we already had. Only my eyes were long clouded to realize how a whole new dimension of my psyche was born, as we lovers had morphed into something more.

We were morphed into parents.

Our “us” today is definitely different than what it used to be, and not always a “good different,” but I love this life we’ve created and how we’ve grown as a family. And I have never been this sure how this phase of my life has shaped my personality and given me a deeper perspective on love and sacrifice.

The morphed parents enjoying some “us” time.

Our relationship is definitely the most cherished aspects of my life, but the look of unconditional love that I see in those tiny eyes of my one-year-old who calls me “Papa“, and how my heart fills up with gratitude, love, and pride is beyond any word can describe and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

Love,

Mrs. Sunshine

Views: 264