Fairy Tale aka What I Want List

Performance anxiety and the Fairy Tale

“Just watch that it doesn’t thus happen that you are left without anything.”
“So what is it that you want? Do you know exactly what you want?”
“What the fuck is your Fairy Tale?”
“The one I am looking for, she’s not here in this city. Yahan nahi milegi.”
“I think you are looking for Mr Perfect. Why don’t you stop thinking for once and just go and have a good time?”

So, what do we want? What do I want? What is the fucking Fairy Tale, and let’s not call it a ‘fairy tale’ because then, it becomes fiction. Funny, that subconsciously, a fairy tale it is that I have called Him/ It/ Us/ Whatever. It cannot also be a fairy tale because I am 28. You are a clinically delusional idiot if you believe in fairy tales at 28. And since am neither clinical nor an idiot, this is not a fairy tale. By now, my mom had a four-year-old and would conceive another in six months… And me? Hah-ha, let’s not even go there. I used to have a recurring dream – not too sure whether it was a bona fide ‘dream’ or a vision of wishful-thinking – this picture of me and my, well, daughter, driving down the curves of Kalimpong in an open car. Dangris, cap, music, laugher, talking and the two of us going for a drive, little freezer with chocolates, laptop, books, stopping and clicking pictures and I will take her through all the places I really enjoyed. Big eyes, long hair, killer smile. Now I look at that ‘dream’ and think that it was very clichéd. I am also smoking a doobie in the dream, but I am not too sure if that’s advisable around a kid of four. And she’d have her own small camera and can join every fucking hobby class she wants to and we shall see about the marks. But anyway. It’s June 21st, five days away from June 26th. A year. A simple thing as a decision can be the difference between dreams and reality and cowardice and having the balls to carry your own dream through. Now, the dream’s barren. Now I can’t handle children, particularly babies. I can’t breathe around infants and there’s an intense sense of being choked.

So, the fairy tale. Ah, the What I Want list… I want to laugh a lot, clap my hands, wink, throw my head back and let out laughter from deep within me. Since childhood my laughter has well, sort of been heard above all. I am small in size, but you don’t know the laugh that can come out of me. So whenever I had to accompany my parents to official parties, I was warned at home: “You will control your laughter.” I don’t blame my parents. An Army major’s daughter laughing “like a rickshaw wala” as my dad said it, was indeed improper behavior. I have never been able to laugh ‘like a girl’. It’s definitely not a laughter anyone will write poetry to. And then my laughter has been called the Pirate Laugh by a love interest in adult life, which was quite damaging to the self esteem etc. He also called it ugly. To be honest, on clicking myself laughing I have realized that perhaps my smile doesn’t even look perfect, can’t help it though, it’s 100 per cent natural! And I didn’t start thinking about HOW my smile looked till that comment. I had learnt how to moderate the volume since childhood though.

If I start explaining each “want” -- like above -- it’s going to get very boring writing it. I really want to travel, within my country, outside. I want to stop looking for motives each time someone is being nice to me. I want someone(s) to be nice to me without any motive. I want to create and grow and build and collaborate and develop… I want to make friends. I want to have friends! And no, given the platform where I am writing, that does not mean friend requests. I don’t want my parents to take any more loans…because I am there. I want to be sure of my health. I want to understand taxation, shares, bonds, whatever, etc so that I can save money and make it ‘grow’. I want to stop feeling hollow. I want to care for someone, look after someone, cook for someone, have people depend on me, want me around, worry about me being around… I want my family. It’s not about independence, feminism, etc. I want my family, even if it has a dysfunctional before it. A family to do things with, share things with, talk to… Yes, it does mean a man, but I don’t want to talk about that yet. And sorry to disappoint those who were expecting to read “I want to attain nirvana.” I don’t know it, my nirvana won’t help my parents or anyone else. I am sorry I am not very spiritually bright or intellectually inclined etc, but that’s the way it is. I want to do good work, different work, be able to LIVE my ideas, because what’s the point of having ideas if you cannot do something with them. I want people to stop coming in my way (wishful). I want to utilize my time better. I want to eat better. I sincerely don’t want anything to happen to anyone I love. I don’t want to be fired

I want to be held close my a pair of strong arms that engulf me, and he stands straight and has beautiful eyes (I always respond to men to have a confident body language, alpha to alpha), has to be able to handle attention, both that comes to him and to me, we should be able to talk without boring either, or keep silent without either wondering, be possessive yet not the clinger type, should be able to keep me on my toes, should not be embarrassed by the fact that I can be confrontational, should have the spine and the balls to stand by me, should not be a bitch, should love his body, educated abuse is fine… more than anything else, someone who can prevent me getting bored..

And once he wraps his arms around me, he kisses me and when I get a little, erm, squirmy, he leaves me gently, smiles and goes to the loo, he knows he cant give in to my whims each time or I will wrap him around my li’l finger. But then, when hurt, I follow him into the room and try and kiss him, he does kiss me back…else he knows I would brood over why-didn’t-he-want-to-kiss-me for hours. Then he would demand coffee and shove me out and while I make the coffee would come into the kitchen to make the sandwiches. We’d chill together for a while, perhaps make out. Then he’d go watch the F1 followed by an X-box night with the guys… where some of the guys will get some girls – someone’s girlfriend and friends – and he would flirt with one of them or all. And I would go out to a party where I am meeting my friends… who’d have some interesting guy friends, and I’d flirt with one of them or all. And we’d come back home, sloshed, make out, sleep. In our respective rooms if we want to. Go to work, crack respective projects, plan the vacation…together, separately, who knows. Etc. I want to KNOW what love is and not doubt it. I want to believe that perhaps, some men don't cheat on their women. And I want to trust.

Hmmmm. Too many things. Hmm. All the above things are there in me, but then, I am thinking from ‘my’ point of view. Maybe men don’t hold those things dear?
PS: 'He' is not nice, but he is not nasty with me. I dont like good boys. I am not a good girl either, but am I bad to you?