It was a marriage, nevertheless
I’d just sent my first ever resignation letter, for my first ever job.
Having drafted the email almost two weeks ago, I’d let it sit in the drafts, to gently marinate and soak up on reality. The email (Read: I) wasn’t ready to meet the Send button, just yet, I was convinced.
After setting multiple pseudo-deadlines for band-aid comfort (“Once my boss leaves town for the long weekend, I’ll send it.” “Let me just finish telling everyone in the team before sending it.” “Oh! How about sending it after I get my Adidas Originals?”) and realising that procrastinating would only delay the infliction of pain and not dampen the intensity of it, I decided that the following Monday was it.
With my mom on the phone, N on Slack, A on FreshConnect, and a generous bout of Anxiety on my throbbing heart and fingers, all by my side, I hit Send.
After promptly announcing my accomplishment to my inner-circle-support-system groups on WhatsApp, and giving myself tight invisible hugs, I finally managed to breathe at around the seventeenth minute. And feel. And think about what I felt. And write about what I thought I felt.
What I felt, was new. It was bittersweet. An amalgamation of a plethora of familiar emotions that I’d managed to label and catalogue so far - sadness, relief, grief, hope, happiness, and heartbreak. Emotions, that generally preferred not to show up to the same party at the same time.
To make sense of this rather peculiar and unfamiliar gathering, I picked my most favourite dissection tool - Analogies. And it didn’t take me long to find the perfect one - what I felt was similar to how you'd feel if you’d just filed for a divorce.
The feeling that creeps up and inside you, when you formally go on record to put an end to your four-year marriage.
When you feel relieved that you’re turning over a page that has already started to come apart at the seams after all the wear and tear, to open a fresher, newer, healthier one. But at the same time, you’re also grieving, deeply, for letting go of a relationship that has had the biggest impact on your life for the four and something years.
While all your loved ones are celebrating and congratulating you, while you can very well see where they’re coming from, somehow, you’re not sure if you should even accept their wishes. You don’t know if it warrants a celebration, or if you even deserve it, at that point in time. You want to be sad, take deep intentional breaths, mourn, let down a tear or two, and just, be.
Because, you remember everything.
The nervous first date when you’d both decided to join hands, help each other grow, and make memories with each other.
The passionate nights (and sometimes, even the rare mornings) when you'd create charming content babies together.
The heated arguments and passive-aggressive battles when you’d storm out the door thinking you’d never want to come back, only to walk in the next day, determined to make it work, one last time.
The intimate (filter) coffee breaks when you'd share your deepest fears and vastest dreams.
The promises, the compromises, the alternating junctures of disappointment and gratitude… All coming back to you all at once, in one long reel.
Because, you realise, that with all the good times and bad ones, with all the growth spurts and unproductive slumps, with all the brickbats and bear hugs, it was a soulful, committed marriage, nevertheless.
And, my first one, at that.
