Don't worry ... I won't know if you actually READ this post ... and I don't expect you to get much past the first bullet point. This is strictly venting, kids ...
- Having staff does NOT make the job of being a mother easier. In my opinion, it adds the equivalent of how ever many staff members you have to the total number of children you have. In my case, I now have 10 children. Makes your head hurt.
- Sometimes, even though you are grateful for new friends, you do NOT want a bar like Cheers where everybody knows your name. Even though we're not on the Embassy compound, it still feels very much like we're in a bubble and it's - at times - exhausting.
- My kids were NEVER this sick back in the United States.We have seen the insides of all of the major hospitals and I call my doctor's personal mobile on average of once a week.
- Here lately, on a daily basis, I want to ask Kushal to stop the car in the middle of the road so that I can get out of the car and yell and scream at the moronic horn honkers. It is INFURIATING.
- If it is possible to believe, the Husb really does travel/work more than he did in the United States.
- It is harder to raise a teenager than even the most rambunctious of toddlers. It's harder to raise a teenager in an expat community, in an international school setting, than it is to raise a teenager in the snowglobe back in Ohio.
- Even though we employ someone to come in and cook daily, I am exhausted trying to figure out new and exciting things for our family to eat. You see, if I DON'T come up with the ideas, we end up with chicken, stir fry vegetables and chipati. Everyday.
- I am really sick and tired of being taken advantage of. Husb and I are ridiculously generous and caring people. We want the best for most everyone (most) and wouldn't do our staff wrong intentionally. Yet, I am being played as a sucker. I'm tired of it.
- I'm really quite disgusted about the really cool chick that I just recently got to know better ... I'm disgusted because she's leaving this summer. That's not fair. It's not fair to bond and gel with people who can make your life here more tolerable, only to have to say goodbye.
- I've got a 24/7 headache over this lacrosse stuff. It is soooo possible to bring the sport to Delhi, yet seems insurmountable. I don't take the word "No" very well (and I don't say it very well, myself, either) ... and it's difficult to get this ball rolling.
- We play this game in our house. It goes like this ... "If I were a ____ [insert the item name of something we can't currently locate] where would I be?" It is beyond frustrating to have Sushila relocate things to mysterious places ... only to find them some days or weeks later in the most awkward of places. Today's items happens to be my corkscrew. Seriously problematic.
- I'm not a fan of hearing miscellaneous Hindi ... with the term "madam" being thrown in (in English) with the Hindi on a regular basis. I know I'm being talked about ... and while it doesn't bother me if ya don't like me or can't stand me, it's quite another thing to have the people that you employ doing it ... right in front of you.
- I'm thankful for the school that the kids go to, but am increasingly more and more irritated by the cliques, the posses and the popular girls. It is really all quite immature and I had the weird presumption that expat women would be more worldly, mature and grown up.
- I desperately miss Target, Wal-Mart or any other similar store whereby the only reason you couldn't obtain something on your shopping list was because the chick in front of you took the last one and you're too impatient to ask the store clerk to get some from the storeroom.
- It's the end of March. The END of March ... and it hit 107 this week. Yuck. There aren't going to be enough cold showers, babywipes or bottles of baby powder to get me through the next six months.
- I would LOVE to find good ice cream that doesn't cost $12.00 per tub of Ben n Jerrys.
- Every time my doorbell rings, I let out an audible sigh. There is nowhere to just get away from everyone. Even my mobile phone rings with random calls, the source of them I've yet to figure out.
- Speaking of my mobile, I've taken to turning it off at night because it never fails, at about 4:00 am, some stupid restaurant that I've visited (and then filled out their comment card) sends an SMS about some special they're having. At 4:00 AM, really?
- Back to raising teenagers. I'm worn out from the independence and self-centered attitude that they have. Teenagers from back home have this too, I know ... but there is a weird phenomenon that happens when you move to a place like this ... the issues you have to deal with seem so magnified and blown up. Luckily, we have a driver who I trust implicitly to ALWAYS check with me before Terran tells him he's "going to so-and-so's house."
- I'm tired of everyone knowing our business ... tired of the guard asking why I tipped the bakery delivery guy so much. Tired of one driver telling the other driver what happened in the car the day before. Tired of never having a quiet place to just BE.
- Back to the heat. It's "stompin'" time. Otherwise known as the time of the year when you involuntarily stomp your feet like a herd of cows because the flies have taken to landing on your legs and staying put.
- The burning of trash is even worse than the mounds of trash in the first place. The street sweepers SWEEP it up, then light it on fire. Awesome. No wonder my kids are on breathing treatments.
- Annoyed that when I walk out of our house, I am immediately hit with a contact high from the pot that the guards are smoking. The next time it happens, I'm having a 'come to Jesus' meeting. They've been warned before and I've had enough.
Yes ... I am fully aware that there are greater problems in the world. I happen to see a large majority of those problems on a daily basis.
The deal is ... I'd hate for you to ever think that becoming Delhi Bound is all glitz and glam. It's not all red saris and not having to cook dinner, photography classes and weekly tours.
Having a staff is NOT what it's cracked up to be. If I EVER thought raising kids was hard before, I've been schooled since moving to Delhi. I spend way more time in the car with my driver than I do my husband.
This is hard, folks. I try to make sure and post about the great things we're doing, the amazing places we're seeing and the funky culture and daily life that is Delhi. The reality though is that I'm struggling to make this work. Struggling to find a small corner of constant contentment, whereby I can start to truly enjoy this experience we've been given.
Do me ONE favor and don't write a comment about how there are worse places to live, or that my complaints are not just central to Delhi, etc. Let me brood and throw myself a pity party and just be crabby for a bit.
Signing off for now, I'll be back before you know it with happier words and fun photos! Maybe I'll counter this with an equal number of bullet points of all of the things that make me smile here?
