While watching yet another episode of Downton Abbey, (season four episode five), a statement by Lady Mary struck a chord with me.  ‘I’m not unhappy.  I’m just not quite ready to be happy’, is profound for someone who has lived a similar context.  It reminds me of a woman who spent nineteen of twenty-five years of her married life practically alone.  There was never a lack of options or offers.  She rejected some because she did not want to lose those friends and some because she did not want to lose her freedom.

I have always wondered what happens to people who lose love of their life, their soulmate.  Life does not stop.  Desires do not stop gnawing.  Longing does not subside.  How do these people survive, especially those that are still very young?  Having seen many examples in the family, I have always marvelled at the forbearance of these women and men.  May be, they were a different generation.  May be, they were a generation that could sacrifice their entire lives for the family.  Then you meet this woman of the later generation.  She is as modern as modern gets.  A working woman, she never sacrificed her lifestyle.  I would like to believe that she continued to be the life of parties and family gatherings.

What then stops people like her from choosing someone?  Is it difficult to be happy with someone else?  What happens when you lose the love of your life, your soulmate?  Would any choice thereafter be always wrong, a disaster?   May be, people divert their happiness consciously into other things.  May be such people find broader meaning of happiness and never let one inadequacy in life overpower their entire lives.  There are only questions with no definite answers.  To each his own.  No one can predict the actions and the related happiness for others.   All I know is that this statement will resonate in my mind for a long time –

I’m not unhappy.  I’m just not quite ready to be happy.

||Sarvam Sri Krishna Arpanamastu||