The Journey

Everything was about to change. Overnight. For better or for worse she wondered. For better, she hoped.

All her life she had lived a certain way. A way that was about to be altered. She wondered how she would adjust to the new life. She worried if she would be accepted for who she was, how she was. She hoped that it wouldn’t be much different from the home she had grown up in. She didn’t have even a flicker of doubt that he would help her settle in. She knew he would be her rock if need be, such was the understanding between them already. Yet there were those apprehensions, those questions which would remain a mystery, the answers she would get only with time.

She was born and brought up in a nuclear set-up. Space, independence and solitude were her dear friends. She didn’t know if she would meet them again anytime soon. So she packed up the thirty years of her existence in two suitcases and prepared for what was be her new home. Leaving behind the only life she had known, the people she had grown up with, the safety net of her home.. Parent’s home as how it would be called from now.

Before she knew it, she was there. Married to the man who loved her. With him. With his family. In her new home ready to begin the new chapter of her life. Surrounded by people she didn’t even know up until a year back and who were now her family. They say, when you get married, you don’t marry the man or the woman, you marry his or her family. And it was no different for her. As time flew by, she became one of them. She molded herself to their ways. She accepted them as her own. They reciprocated.

It was not easy for her. From a nuclear set-up to a joint family. To leave parents who had given her birth, who had held her hand while she learned to walk, who had loved her despite the tantrums and the tears, siblings she had run around the house with, had played pranks with, had screamed and sung with, all this had taken a completely different meaning.  She wasn’t scared of the responsibilities her new role brought in. She had handled much more in her life.

It was something else. She missed the sanctity of the room she was used to escaping to after a long day at work. She missed not having to smile when she didn’t feel like. She missed the peace and quiet her previous abode had allowed her for so long. She missed being her true self. She missed things she had not even noticed in the past. This paradigm shift in her life left her feeling unsettled at times. Almost dysphonic. Her “mom’s home” was no longer truly hers. Oh, she would always and forever be welcomed with open arms and without invitation. But it wasn’t the same. Her new home didn’t quite feel hers yet.

Smile – she told herself. For no one like to see a sulking face.

Such was the overnight transition of the princess to a queen.

You are a pampered Princess only in your parent’s castle. Becoming the quintessential Queen comes with responsibilities.

Over time she learned to look at what she had gained. The man who loved her and stood by her. Patiently. Holding her when she broke down missing her mom, encouraging her when she wanted to add her touch to her new home, introducing her to his clan, making sure she was a part of conversations she had no clues about.

She was fortunate to have been blessed with another father who not only treated her like his own daughter but also pampered her as one. She found a mother in law who was so unlike the typical saas that the Indian television portrays. She found another brother. One who was always there, who would always check in on her to see if she was ok, settling well into her new home. She found a sister, who made the world of a difference in making her transition easier. She had found herself a Joint Family

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