Zoom-ing into love

Rhea: 1

'We know this isn't how you dreamt you all would start your first job...' 

'You got that right!' I thought to myself as my new Manager prattled on about how we have to come together as a team, and pull each other up, and we should feel free to reach out in case we ever faced in any problems. What I wanted to do was to reach out and strangle her. Woah woah! What did she ever do to me to arouse my murderous instincts? Nothing at all. It isn't her I want to strangle. I'm just projecting my self loathing onto her. I've been at this job for less than a day and I already hate everything about it. I'm 23 but I feel like a teenager who has been told they can't go to the most happening party in high school because their mom grounded them for not doing the dishes. Of course, if I were still a teenager, I would just sneak out of the house and do whatever the hell I wanted to do anyway. Unfortunately, the world considers you an adult the moment you graduate from college. And so here I was, staring at my screen for eight hours a day as a responsible adult instead of staring at my screen eight hours a day as a carefree kid. I put my face in my palms and wondered, 'Where had it all gone wrong?' 

Oh wait. I knew exactly where it went wrong. Two words. My parents. Yeah, it's all their fault. No, I am not being a petulant teenager who blames all of life's woes on the ones who gave birth to us. I'm a petulant adult. There's a difference. You see, right after High School, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a chef. Home Science was my favourite subject at school, and unlike most of the people in my class, I actually made an effort to make fresh, tasty food. I graduated top of my class. My parents enjoyed my food at home too. I was always bustling away in the kitchen. I managed with the mediocre equipment we had even though I knew I could do miracles with an automatic whisk. But I managed with my own bare hands, which probably explains why my arms are my best feature. Well they used to be, until my parents crushed my dreams. You see, after encouraging me to apply for the best culinary schools, they informed me that I really shouldn't be thinking of going abroad at the age of eighteen. Why, what if society corrupted me? Or in their definition, what if something bad happened to me. When they told me that, I had stared at them in stunned disbelief for a full minute before saying, 'You're joking, right?' They weren't. And you know the most painful part? The acceptances started rolling in a couple of months later. I thought maybe once they saw that other people saw that I had what it took to make it, they would change their mind. I mean, surely if the people at 'Le Cordon Bleu' saw that I had the chops required,  they would let me go? Well, turns out Indian parents don't give a rat's ass about what a French chef had to say. I kept asking them what made them change their mind. I begged them. I cried copious tears. I maintained stony silences. I pleaded with them. I tried acting like the perfect daughter. But nothing swayed them. 

Every day I spoke to my brother who had gone off to pursue an MBA in Australia. 'What happened? Why did they change their minds? Le Cordon Bleu Saket! Le Cordon Bleu! You know what I could accomplish if I went there?' All our conversations were carried on in this fashion. I would mumble hopelessly and he would comfort me. He would say, 'Maybe the universe just didn't want you to leave right now. Maybe there's something out there for you. Something that you can get living in Bangalore.'  When he said shit like that I screamed into my pillow but I tried not to snap at him that it was all well and good for him to say, but he had gone to Australia. He was out. I was still here. He had left me behind and gone on the great Australian adventure. I on the other hand was supposed to mingle with the best chefs that the world had to offer. But all my hopes were dashed because my parents suddenly decided that it wouldn't do for their young daughter to gallivant around in Paris. 

Have you ever come so close to everything you wanted in life, knowing you are capable, knowing that you could thrive in that environment, knowing that your future holds incredible things for you, only to have it taken away from you in the last moment? I have. It breaks you. not physically. No. From the outside you're fine. But on the inside, it's like you have been crushed by an avalanche, or you're drowning with rocks tied to your feet, or there's a plastic bag over your head and there's no way to take it off and you slowly suffocate and die. Except, I'm still alive. And I'm dying. A state halfway to death. I'm not the glass half full sort of person as you can see, otherwise I would have said a state halfway to being alive. So, they made me give up on my dream for no discernible reason, and from then, I have only been a hollow shell of myself. I applied for whatever subject that they wanted me to and I half assed my way through college and University, studying English. There were moments when I really resonated with a text, like with Charlotte in Pride and Prejudice. My Mr Collins was my English degree. Except unlike Charlotte, I did have a Darcy lurking in the corner. But my parents decided Darcy wouldn't suit me, he would corrupt me, so they rejected Darcy and thrust me into the arms of an unwitting Mr Collins. Never quite thought of Pride and Prejudice this way, have you? 

And so, here  I am, taking up the first job thrust at me because you can't be unemployed after graduating. There are worse evils to befall on one than working at a corporate job. I'm talking about marriage. Yep. Right after I graduated, they gave me an ultimatum. Get married, or get a job. Obviously I chose the latter. I have postponed the inevitable decline of my soul for now. But in a year or two, I know that the marriage question will come up, and this time my ultimatum would not have two choices. I had hoped that with this job, I would finally be able to move out of may parent's house and save my own money and finally apply to Le Cordon Bleu again. I would figure out a way to finance myself and to hell with their thinking. I had confided to no one about this plan, not even Saket. I had a feeling he would tell on me because he didn't exactly try to dissuade my parents when they crushed my dreams. Well, that was my plan anyway. But life NEVER works out the way you want it to, you know? I mean it doesn't work out at all. Because the company that recruited me said that they were not going to ask people to come to office in the pandemic so I could work from home. Yay.