17 May Pastry, Pineapple, Pizza and Love

15 months down the pebble path, so many things dawn upon me.
What makes a relationship special? What makes you and I..Us? If I sit here in my solace to chalk out the answers, I will probably be here a long time. In my time apart from us, when the cloud of unreasonable mush and love has cleared, I can see a bit more further than the next day. It doesn’t look so bad. It looks okay, a little eclipsed but mostly sunshine and flowers. The love is there and will probably be there even when I am sulking and angry. I was accustomed to your letters in my inbox every month, you breaking into impromptu songs while we take a stroll in the park and your putting up with my eating habits.

Nobody told me that one day the letters will stop arriving, or the singing will stop or you will not be able to look at me snatch food from your plate. I did not read that in any book, none of my friends told me that it will happen (and trust me they tell me everything), none of the BuzzFeed quizzes predicted this. I did not know how to be in love with you and not love you at the same time. Conflicted isn’t it? There is nobody I would choose over you, I would not “Netflix Watch Party” with anybody else or share my food with anybody else but I do not how to love you. I spent most of the days in the past month questioning everything..us, you, me, my list on Netflix, my result of “What does it say about your personality based on your choice of pizza toppings?”, my playlist, the AC temperature, the weather, the birds, bees and global warming.

Then on a particularly hot day while trying to figure out how to keep the butter cold in my Danish Pastry, something else dawned on me. Relationships are hard. Love is simple. Relationships are really hard. All this while I had been trying to knead butter in my dough and let it sit outside in this horribly hot weather instead of popping it in the chiller to keep it cold. That is how relationships should be handled. You work the dough till it stays intact..when it starts to crumble on a hot day, pause and pop it in the chiller with love. While it’s cooling down, get started on your flavourings and seasonings. Once your dough is cool enough, work your flavourings into it. And there you have it. Your Perfect Relationship baked at the perfect temperature. Did I say relationship? I meant Danish Pastry.

All this while, I was worried about us, when I should have been worried about me. I have been trying to embrace the pineapples on my pizza while I should have picked those pieces out and grilled them some more and ate them separately. Because sometimes people fail, relationships crumble against the test of time, but what remains is love and yourself. Having said that, it will never be fair or right to just stick around for the sake of it. If you are not staying for love, don’t stay at all. Make sure those letters arrive again even if you are the one writing those letters, the singing resumes even if you’re the one humming to yourself and don’t even get me started on the food and plates.

Dance if you have to but don’t fall apart..at least not for somebody who won’t get you Pastry, Pineapples, Pizza and Love.