Together in Harmony, Maybe

Moving to a new city, starting a life on your own is fun, but hard. The only hope here is that you find tasks manageable than easy. Let's face it, if it is easy, it ain't right! When I found my house on Housing.com, having been raised in a chaotic environment, I found it to be eerily quiet. So, yours truly asked the kind (?) landlady for a roommate. I was hoping for a Monica, expecting a Rachel and was hoping against hope not to end up with a Joey!

The moment she walked in, tiny, petite, looking around curiously, my brain only produced a "Oh, shit, living with a stranger. Now what?"

Being the pessimistic cynic that I am, I noticed the cracks in this roommate-ship in the first few days. She had all the signs of my grandmother. Oh, the flooding memories of my childhood and teenage years! It all started when she opened her wardrobe door for the 16th time that hour, constantly rummaging for a pin or a comb or just to peer inside, I guess. It then extended to her taking her bucket out from under her bed, bathing and depositing the bucket back under her bed along with her toiletries. It then continued with her safely locking up her food in her cupboard and shrieking one day because the milk had spilled all over. All this alongside "Hey, could you please help me open this jar of jam?" to "Hey, could you please switch the gas stove on for me? I'm not able to do it." to "OH MY GOD! THAT DOG IS SO CLOSE TO US! HELP ME!" Need I say more?

Then again, it dawned on me- we are all here alone, trying to make the best of things because, let's face it, living alone is fun! Whether the nutty roommate is fun is a different question altogether.

It all started with me wishing her a highly enthusiastic "Happy Birthday!" Considering the high pitched tone was fooling no one and she had no plans on her birthday, I came back home from work with a hellish indulgence in the form of a dark chocolate pastry. Since I couldn't find birthday candles, I lit a matchstick as a makeshift candle and in the guffaws that followed, the matchstick burnt itself to the cake. This happened thrice. Once bitten, twice shy says who? Not bad for a anti-social creature (me, in case you were wondering) bonding with a fellow human being!

It only got better with me trying to burn the house down. I am not exaggerating. I had some left over Chinese food and we have a century-or-so-old microwave in the house that takes up to 30 minutes to boil a glass of water. So, I set the microwave for ten minutes to reheat my leftover Chinese in a plastic container and off I went to watch my TV show. The sound that startled me after five minutes was some loud clunking. When I went outside, I was shocked beyond wits to see the house filled with smoke, a deep burning smell in every nook and corner and the plastic container inside the microwave on fire. Literally on fire. As I yelled out to my roommate, I got no response, I switched off the microwave and poured water all over it. She walked down the stairs calling my name and asking me what happened. The mess, explaining and the stink was followed by about two hours of non-stop laughing, sitting outside the house for fresh air and finally closing the day with a round of drinks and a rerun of Horrible Bosses.

I am the stubborn, usually non-adjusting kind. The kind that stays in one corner of the room where people enjoy mingling around. I don't like meeting new people, I don't like socializing, I don't like being 'out there'. Then again, like I said, away from home we are all here trying to make this work, one way or the other. Maybe a good laugh and someone to laugh with makes it easier? Maybe people aren't so bad after all? I may not have a best friend forever, the ultimate roommate or friend turned to family, we do have good stories to tell. This is the one thing that keeps me going.

Just maybe, it is the company that matters. The power of being #together.