Thoughts and Quotes

Just be my Valentine

Just be my Valentine

When Pavan and I started dating 15 years ago in a small conservative town, we were seriously constrained on time and means to express our love for each other. Blame the society, or the office, or just the values that we had been brought up with. It was impossible to state openly that we were in love and we meant the world to each other. The more we were put into constraints, the more our love grew for each other. In those days, one more boundary just meant one more thrill, mystery or adventure. We were seriously in love.

Fast forward to 6 years later; we were blessed to have a decent home, a 3 year old daughter, rewarding jobs but a marriage which was on extremely tight tenterhooks. Each day started and ended with a long list of unfulfilled personal requirements. We were lost trying to meet the responsibilities of parenting, work, home and health. We were lost trying to find ourselves, leave alone trying to find each other. I guess, we were too seriously married.

Fast forward to today; we continue to be blessed to have the love of an extended family including parents, sisters, nieces, nephews and two adorable children. We have discovered ourselves. We have discovered each other and where we want to be TOGETHER. We have very little time that we spend together, so we have learnt to count and celebrate each moment that we share. We consciously go out of the way to make each other feel special. A number of times, we stop all other priorities, no matter how burning they are, just to connect with each other. I guess, we are seriously in love again.

I consider myself no expert in relationships. After all, till date, I have had only one boyfriend and one husband. This is hardly enough experience to be able to draw inferences. However, there is one thing that I have learnt in my relationship with Pavan that I wanted to share today. It is far more rewarding to remain a Girlfriend/Boyfriend, than it is to get married. Marriage somehow dulls the romance. In order to fit into the image of a responsible parent or a spouse, we start taking relationships too seriously. We burden the relationship with expectations, rules, and compromises.

The surprising part is that none of this happens when you are in a relationship with the same person before getting married. As a girlfriend/boyfriend, we are constantly looking for ways to make the other person feel special. We love them for their eccentricities and we consciously try working on improving our eccentricities. The bottom line – we never ever take each other for granted.

Imagine if we could combine the romance of dating to the fulfillment of marriage. Imagine if we could continue to remain as best friends, even though we were married. Imagine that no matter what the date, whenever we are together, it is Valentines Day!

This is the story of my  marriage, the story of my Valentine. For us Valentines Day comes about 50 times a year. Life is too short, not to celebrate love, each single day that you are together.

I am an ex-Management Consultant and a successful entrepreneur having close to twenty years of corporate experience. I am currently focusing full time on being a homeschooling parent while researching on the future of education and alternate methods of education. I am also a Vedic Math Trainer, an Operations Manager at a business run by her children and a philanthropist working with tens of other under privileged children. I bring all my past and current experiences together in the form of writing blogs. Using these blogs I wish to create awareness in parents, caregivers and educators about parenting, education and holistic living.