The Year That Was

Answered these questions innumerable times since morning. So please, find the answers below before calling me and asking me same ones.

Q:One year!! How does it feel?
A:I am a year older and am married. So, now I am not only old, but married and old. Feels great!!

Q:Do you think you have changed?
A:Well, duh, its been a year. Everyone changes in a year's span of time. Wedding or no wedding.

Q:Soooooooo, whats the special thing he/you did?
A:He gave me 12 roses, one each for every month we have been married. After waking me up at 12 in the morning. Yes, midnight. I didn't punch or kill him. That is special and new enough for both of us.

Q:So, how was the year?
A:Crappy. I have had better.

Q:So, what are you doing to celebrate?
A:Oh, you mean in the Oh-thank-god-we-got-thorugh-a-whole-year kinda celebration??
Ok ok. No grandiose plans. Have been celebrating and partying the whole year. Feel kinda guilty now.

If your question wasn't in any of these, do read on...
Both hubby and I discovered that apparently people attach a huuuge milestone-kinda thing to this day. Something to celebrate. Celebrate? What? Its-been-an-year-less-from-the-life-sentence kind of thing?? I don't get it. Take a holiday and go somewhere? I am afraid me and hubby are more of a spontaneous gift-givers and celebrators than occasion-waiting ones. Why celebrate when the whole year we have been celebrating?

A year. A whole year. Doesn't seem like it. Shouldn't I feel elated/ecstatic/wistful on this momentous occasion?? I don't know. Seems like just another day in the amazingly long time that me and hubby have been together.

So, how was this year? A year-end review is in the offing, methinks. It has been different, yes. But its the same guy I knew since school. Oh yeah, the boy is now my ex-boyfriend and now-husband. But other than that, superficially and intrinsically, almost everything is the same. Year was full of milestones achieved, dreams realized, plans executed and some biting the dust. And full of the firsts. Our wedding (duh!), my first 4-course dinner from scratch for people (not just the two of us), my baking successes (and the one disaster), our first white-water rafting experience, first of several 'married' fights, our flat.

Accomplished what I had promised myself or bet people. I started cooking and actually enjoying it. Won my bet with, oh, lotsa people when I didn't bawl at our wedding. (or shed a tear. Seriously, my mom was ashamed to find a radiantly smiling bride at the 'bidaai') Neither before nor later. I think my mother-in-law was a bit teary-eyed, though. Dark portends?? ;) Have I changed, you ask? Umm. For the good and bad, yes I have. And so has he.

Been a memorable year,in more ways than the married angle. Met the zaniest bunch of people, started my blog (been in my to-do list since like eons), started investing and managing money, cut down on spending sprees(marginally, but hey, an achievement is an achievement), relaxed for a solid 4 months and started more introspection than ever before.

Of course, the bad side of it - I actually have a piece of furniture in my house of solid-wood thanks to my heart that is sucker for the whole 'puppy dog eyed' routine of hubby's, have read less this year than ever, haven't donated to charity this year, oh the list is a bit longer than I thought. All in all, the most eventful year till date. One, that I am never going to forget.