"Luke loves J, Briana loves J, Tommy loves J, Taylor loves J, Megan loves J...why does everyone keep loving me ?" asks a frustrated sounding J as she reads the cards in her Valentines Day goodie bag. I burst out laughing.
Me: "Is it a problem if everyone keeps loving you ?"
J : "Yes"
Me: "Why ?"
J:" Because I want only two people to love me"
Me: "So what about the other people ?"
J: "Too bad for the other people. I don't want them to love me. Why does everyone want be my friend ?"
Me: "What's wrong with that ?"
J: "Because its too much friends"
I imagine she feels overwhelmed by the surfeit of love because she does not know how she can possibly reciprocate. She likely feels maxed out with having two special friends. Maybe we should get our children inoculated against excessive levels of romance in the air
An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t
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