Could it be?

My wife seems to get on my nerves exactly the same way my mom used to get on my dad's nerves.

If your thought process is drifting towards "Sundar, don't be stupid. San and your mom are both women. You and your dad are men. This is standard operating procedure!",now, hold that thought.

There are a million variations of annoying a guy. My MIL pisses off my FIL, but her modus operandi is completely different. The irritation factor is there, but the things that irritate FIL are way different than things that irriate my dad! I also get to observe similar phenomena with my brother, BIL, friends, other relatives.

Okay, now if you are thinking "Sundar, But you and your dad are genetically similar. Maybe the same things piss you off!".

Granted that I grew up swearing to myself, not to be like my dad when growing up, but invariably the genetics catch up and Sundar at 35 is not very different from his dad at 35. Sundar at 12 was a lot different from his dad at 42, but who knew!

Still, it takes two to tango, or foxtrot, or waltz, or quick step or viennese waltz for that matter. That said, San is not genetically related to my mom! Then how come she manages to tick me off, the same way my mom irritates my dad? This got me thinking last night...

Is San becoming who she is because she has to constantly deal with me? Is that because I am increasingly approaching my dad as I grow older? Or am I becoming who I am because of constantly dealing with her? Are we essentially reliving what my parents lived through? How come we are not reliving what her parents went through when she was young? Or was it very similar? Does this mean that my kids are going to suffer a lot? Why do I sound like Deepak Chopra? etc. etc.

A million (okay, okay, a few dozen!) questions race through my mind now. At this point, cannot even think of a scientific experiment to prove or disprove any of these thoughts! Well, we watched Deepak Chopra on PBS, so at least the last question has an answer.

Should we even bother with the "will try to be different than our parents" bit? Is it pure naivete that drives us to think we will be any better than our parents when we are kids and once we have kids of our own, we grow up and realize why they were always pressed for time, tense, unable to focus a lot of times, make the decisions they made, etc. etc.

As I am about to hit the bed, can only think of one thing an ex-boss told me when his second kid was born (this was during my bachelor days).

"The world has two types of people. People who go through parenting and people who don't!"

Seems to sum up my thoughts for the day!

ps. Apparently this post makes it look like I am "Buddha" personified and that fact alone is getting on her nerves!

pps. We don't always irritate each other. Only when we bark orders to the other person when screaming kids are involved.

ppps. I get on her nerves as much as she gets on mine, but this is MY blog!! ha ha ha..

pppps. The ppps. should have read "I get on her nerves much much more than she gets on mine".. (Thanks to a reader for pointing that out..)

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Overnight Wings

Once upon a time, in a land far away,
lived a happy couple, who entered family way!
Before you knew it, they had a kid or two,
Lost sleep, track of time, but were happy to
In time their little ones grew up
Left home for far away lands
To study, work, and even hold hands!
And it was their turn to enter the circle
of big tummies, gurgles and school
The all too familiar routines
that were tiresome yet cool!

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