two.

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If I stop just for a second and the pen disconnects from the sheet, I will lose it.

Something...he said something about the ocean getting warmer and then colder...a cycle, dense and rare, blue arrows, red for warm...

Okay, I lost it.

I push my face out of my notebook and take a deep breath, looking at the visual overstimulation of colors and text on the screen in front of me.

I am in class. The professor is teaching something about ocean circulation, which is a very fascinating topic. But one and a half hours of his constant droning about the subject without a single break is grueling. This person takes his exams from the words he speaks in class, not from the set course syllabus. So missing a single word means losing an entire mark. Or even two. Hence my frantic scribbling and doodling while he goes on and on and on.

But now I have lost my rhythm.

I turn to look out the window and sleep hits me. On the occasion where I am the only trustworthy, attentive note-taker in class, I wouldn't allow myself to look at the sun shining off the leaves, birds jumping and flying around, and the airplanes that inch past every five minutes. I cast a glance to my left and yep, I have a trustworthy, attentive note-taker.

Mansi.

Mansi is not my best friend, but she is the friend whom I can always go to with any of my problems. She is one of my few favorite people, sticking with me since my first year of graduation, the "lalala" to my "okokok". It was an Instagram trend for those who didn't get the idea...just look it up.

Us ending up doing postgrad together was one of the greatest failures I accomplished—if it weren't for the breakup and the depression of it leading to me sucking at the interviews I gave for my dream universities, I would've never told her about my plans for giving up on everything. If I hadn't told her that, she would've never told me that she is going to come here and that the admissions were still open. "It will be fun!" She chirped in one of the dozens of voice notes she had left me back then. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have filled the form, got an offer letter a few days later, and be sitting around here, in a very serious class, thinking how everything panned out.

Mansi is a lifesaver. I probably have been a horrible friend to her but still she decided to be around. She makes life a bit easier. She gives me reasons to feel more than just sadness, hatred and betrayal. She catches me whenever I start shutting people out. She taught me how to allow new people into my life and how to have fun. She taught me about makeup and good fashion...although that never matches for us. And I still suck at both. She told me it's okay to have crushes that start on one day and end on the next—the complete opposite to my loyalty towards a single person for a lifetime. She taught me grace, self respect and how to take care of myself.

But she is not my best friend. We don't carry that label although we completely fulfill all duties and responsibilities that fall into it. Around college we always come as a pair—we both cringe at that fact but if Samayra is there, Mansi has to be, and vice versa. Most of our friends and classmates get worried if they only see one of us. I think the idea of this co-dependent relationship hurts both our independent girl asses but we aren't even trying to change it.

So anyways, I don't have to worry about not making those notes. I always got Mansi to save the day.

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"I didn't make notes either," she confessed with a tired smile, "I thought you were doing that."

This co-dependency is fatal.

We both sigh and lapse into a worried silence. Both of us zoned out at the exact same point in class and neither of us remembers a single word said after that. Staying together for far too long has not only synced our periods but also blended a lot of our personalities together and created a single superorganism that can be highly inefficient in some situations. Such as in this one.

Although not entirely convinced myself, I assure her that I would figure it out. That worked easily. She left for her dorm to get some sleep with a confident smile. Now for the difficult part—the part where I figure out where to get the notes. This part involves me talking to people and looking desperately helpless and needy and at the disposal of somebody's kindness. Bleh.

A quick glance across the room and I turn in my seat to look at Daksh.

"Daksh, hi," I poke his arm with my pen, dragging his attention from the people behind him to myself. His face erupts into a gleeful smile, his group of friends quickly forgotten.

"Hello, what's up?"

I contort my face into one of a damsel in distress and sigh exaggeratingly. "I zoned out during class so I need help with the notes. Do you have them?"

He shakes his head much to my disappointment and I sigh genuinely this time. But I think my distressed face still worked when he suggested, "I can ask around in class and send you the notes."

I beam at him gratefully and nod. "Thank you so so much! You are such a lifesaver."

He laughs bashfully and mumbles a "I didn't even do anything" and goes back to his friends, while I turn back into my seat and text Mansi a true reassurance this time.

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Having a friend like Daksh is a must. One who delivers without the need for a promise. I texted him a gratitude filled "thank you" on my and Mansi's behalf. She isn't really that fond of him but that is okay. I am there to balance that.

See, superorganism.

I finish my notes and take a giant stretch before collapsing back into my chair loosely. Today is one of those rare days where, one, I missed taking notes in class, and two, I studied after college hours. Studying or copywriting notes—it's the same thing as long as I remember, at least vaguely, something of whatever I wrote.

I shut my laptop and push aside the notebooks and papers scattered on the table, returning them more or less to their original position. I then get up and cast a furtive glance to the bucket filled with my laundry and contemplate if postponing that for another day would hurt. Weighing the options and tasks at hand, I determine that doing the laundry is actually more productive than scrolling on my phone. And with that being said, I plop down onto my bed and decide that the laundry can wait another fifteen minutes.

My Instagram algorithm is still acting up but today I feel indifferent. Not once did my brain go to the so-called "love of my life" or the very painful heartbreak that absolutely shattered me. It doesn't hurt as much today so I call that progress and moving on.

But really, how long am I supposed to mourn the death of a relationship? When it happened, it was mind numbing. I went for hours and days without drinking water or eating, limiting all social interactions, angrily cutting off everyone by uninstalling Snapchat, disabling Instagram, and even considering deleting WhatsApp. I am glad I was not at home when this happened, else the emotional rollercoaster which had manifested as breakouts all over my face would encourage my parents to take me to a doctor—worse a therapist.

Going to a therapist is not bad. I mean, I did end up in therapy. I am still in therapy. But that is without my parents knowing and without their supervision. They aren't bad people and I am sure they love me even though I doubt that frequently. But if they knew I needed help like that, they would stop treating me normally. They would be more loving, more caring, and do everything excessively more. And who knows how they would view me then. Maybe as a weak, fragile daughter. Unreliable, immature, too naïve.

In a brown, Indian family, being the older child and the only daughter is not for the weak. You become the unsaid parent of your younger sibling while being a punching bag for your mom. And your dad is there to constantly guide you into doing things his way while you want to do those on your own. You are not only responsible for your own life, but also for that of your brother's, and your future husband and his family's way before you even get married or know who that lucky candidate is.

Everyday is an assessment you need to pass. Every detail about you has to be prim and proper—you have to sit in a way that doesn't seem like you are spreading yours legs too much, you can not curl your hair on your fingers because that habit is distracting, working too much and not doing chores is as bad as doing too many chores and not working. If you go home from college after a long, tiring semester in hopes for a vacation, hold your horses. It is not a vacation. It is an opportunity to learn how to cook, clean and how to serve your family and husband and children because that is an unavoidable role you have to play in the future. Now how near or distant that is doesn't matter. You have to know how to cater to your family and balance that with your professional life.

Be co-dependent and independent at the same time.

And all this is expected of you before you turn 30. I am 22. That leaves me with 8 years. I have eight years to figure out a job or whatever I want to do with my career, to fall in love, get married, adjust into a new family and have my first kid at least. I will be a fresher at a job while being a fresher at running a household and parenting.

I have one question. How?

How will just 8 years teach me to be a wife and a mother and an independent professional while being co-dependent with a someone I will barely know? Add to that my responsibilities in being a daughter and a sister. My brother will need help with his college and what to do with his career, and mom said I have to figure that out too because I am currently well aware of what's up in the market.

My parents are not that inhuman and rigid. They don't force me to do these things and I still have my free will. But they make a point to bring it all up all day, everyday. On good days, it leads to healthy conversations with me voicing my thoughts and them listening and carefully telling me why some things are done in certain ways and at certain ages. On bad days, they taunt me for being lazy and totally uninterested in stuff I am supposed to be interested in. On worse days, they just scold me for not behaving like a woman of my age, with the same examples of my mom who birthed me and took care of the entire family at a young age, my dad who was working 17 hours a day then, and our neighbor's daughter who can do her chores and study wonderfully.

More than counseling for a heartbreak, I need counseling to survive the unpredictability in my family's mood. But I think healing family trauma will take more time and money out of my pocket than the heartbreak.

So here I am. Saving money. My parents should be proud.

Well my laundry has now waited thirty minutes.

And I guess, another five minutes really won't hurt. 

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