Sunday, 2 November 2014

Our Math

We live in a world where figures are given a lot of importance. We need to keep count of everything - time, money, odds, gifts, pros and cons, and so on...We are even instructed to count our blessings!

I love that between us, there are no ledgers to be maintained. There are people in this world who can love and calculate simultaneously but I am glad of our mutual incapacity to do so. I love that you allow me to shut my mental calculator because yours does not function either. Or maybe, we do count but in a rather twisted way.

"You called me only once today while I called you four times." - In the way we count, it only means that we spoke to each other five times. I am glad we do not count and settle on the numbers of things we love and hate about each other, or check on which outweighs which. It's relieving to see that instead, we choose to dwell in the depths of knowing each other's best and worst, and in loving each other because of and in spite of everything.

I could say I love you with all of myself, as fully, as wholly as I can, but I cannot measure the love, because there is no measurement scale that I know of for spaces beyond the infinite. Just like a count of the visits one makes to the temple or the formal prayers one recites is not even the slightest measure of one's degree of faith, how often we acknowledge our love for each other, how many gifts we give and receive between us, how many common friends we have - nothing really is a yardstick to measure our equation of love.

And despite all of this, when one of us fails to fail at relationship math, and either of us says anything that sounds like "you never do this right" or "you are always wrong", I love how the other can usually see through the mindlessly uttered blanket statement, and understand the creases.
Sometimes, we both fail. We make mistakes, and when we do, we count what we learnt, and we count the opportunities we have to make those wrongs right.

So, I figure our relationship does have math but, thankfully, not the kind of complexities that require a mental calculator. It is just basic math that the heart does of its own accord. And even if we try, there is no denying that we do, in fact, count. We count on each other; and the best part of such a calculation is that neither of us is ever let down. 

14 comments:

  1. Ah! Getting better and better at quantum maths, are we!
    Wonderful, Divya!

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  2. I liked how you separated the two types of counting that happen in a relationship ... very deep and thoughtful :-)

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  3. Relationships are all about equations of the heart that often have no fixed formula or solution. Wonderfully said Divya.

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    1. You're right, Reshma. It's a pity we always run after concocting the perfect "formula" for a "perfect" relationship!

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  4. And counts are what make you expect and expectations ultimately end up in he loves me , loves me not situations. I would say if love cannot be counted or measured, why ruin it makin countings metrics to measure it.

    It thoughtful, and leaves the reader judging if I can relate to this . I did.

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    1. Thanks for dropping by! It is hard to not expect anything out of our relationships - I would be lying if I said that all my relationships are free of expectations but yes reducing it to number of counts over one thing and another - surely, we should try some different method ;) Relationships aren't about keeping score!

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  5. Very well written, Divya! The feeling of belonging and needing one another counts far more than keeping track of number of calls and other such counts:)

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  6. Its Lovely :)
    -Shruti(Chaitanya's Friend)

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  7. It's easier to say that but expectations always start to creep in...It isn't so much about "repaying" but we expect people to treat us the way we treat them...Unfortunately, priorities aren't always the same.

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