While I could be hailed the Empress of Brooding, I definitely am not a sulk-er-ess. I just created the latter term, in case you are wondering. It means, according to me, a woman who aces the sulking act.

Before I venture further, there is a difference between brooding and sulking. To brood is to think about deeply; and to sulk is to brink an element of self-pity and childishness. Another difference is that to brood is to discover a solution, to sulk is a reaction to a problem.

I go deep within to understand why I am pushed to the point of needing to sulk, and the sulking vanishes and wisdom surfaces. So, I brood beyond the sulking stage.

Just as we are social animals, we are slaves of sulking, through time and space. However, a breed of humans evolved from being ‘sulkers’ to becoming brooders. Brooding is good as long as you return from the depths wiser. You will cherish every mistake if you brood over it, thoughtfully, and lovingly. For what teaches you something definitely makes you wiser. If not wiser, then smarter. However, if you keep making the same mistake, then probably you bypass brooding, sulk and return to only repeat the same mistake. The more times the mistake is repeated the more foolish you grow.

Learning once from a particular mistake is on the highest scale of wisdom, making the same mistake twice to learn the same lesson is not all the low on the scale of the wise. Making the same mistake thrice to learn the same lesson is a little lower on the scale of the wise. However, making the same mistake four and more times tilts you closer to the scale of foolishness.

This is why I definitely cherish every mistake. I prefer making new mistakes, rather than repeat the same, to learn the same lessons. Life becomes monotonous and boring. I definitely do have a superior complex, when it comes to suffering fools who keep spilling the milk, and crying over it. They refuse to learn to stop the milk from boiling beyond the edge. They are tiring.

Cherish your mistakes, as a thought actually occurred to me this morning when I made a new mistake. I definitely have no regrets, no guilt, completely forgiven myself and the husband, as I brooded for 9.5 minutes, had the light bulb moment where the lesson occurred and got of bed to have my Saturday morning tea and biscuits treat.

So, we woke up; had our blood given for our bi-annual body check-up, then I freshened up and sat for meditation, and he took to his throne with his phone, got ready to leave for a meeting. Post meditation, I lay down to rest and I had this funny, funny slightly wet feeling between my legs. In men’s general language its called feeling horny. As the husband came to kiss bye-bye, I told him how I feel, and his response was, “The blisters in my mouth are burning. I need to go. In the afternoon we will do something.” Right, that was such burst to the bubble.

I was not expecting a slam-bam few moments of excitement, what I definitely thought would be a little laughter and some warmth. Definitely not the update on the blisters. But, I love him, and I brooded as he left. Shut eye brooding. Suddenly it occurred to me, I made a mistake and I have a lesson to learn.

What is that lesson? “Self-satisfaction needs nobody else. Do it yourself!”

Such is life, you could share intimate moments, and feel in the orgasmic second oneness, but the fact is that as the nights passes, the wife and husband roll over to their own sides. It is always two bodies, two minds, two sensibilities, two egos… except for in that orgasmic second. 

Carry the feeling of that second to love, but don’t let that second burden the relationship with expectations, as at the other end of the expectations is always heartbreak. Happiness, does not need two people, or a group of people. Happiness needs you to turn towards her/him (choice of your happiness’s gender rests in your experience). For me happiness is a her, as is all of me within, including my inner child!

Another person can only give you pleasure, from moment-to-moment, largely depending on what they choose to do. They have their mind set, their lessons, their journey, and they definitely are not here to play to your tunes. You will feel hurt if they do not do it your way. However, when you realise that it is not only about you, but about them, then nobody gets hurt. All that needs to be done is make it about us. Sometimes they forget the ‘us, we, our code’ it is alright to keep reminding them, not as a nag, but as a sensible conversation, empowering them into realising the need and power of the ‘us, we, our code’.

This shall bring harmony to every relationship.

While brooding over what hurts me, there are two things that I bring forth to my conscious conscience where the dilemma exists: “What is there for me to learn?” and list in my mind all the positives that actually happen. If the rage cannot look at the positives, then I play the empathy card to understand what may have caused him to behave this way. When that comes to me, I feel I have found a way to help him, and us. 

So, while I may be upset with the husband, I love to love him immensely, for the sake of love. I know for most times his actions and behaviour specially in social settings may not be as romantic and affectionate as I would want to it to be, yet within his heart he loves me so much that it hurts sometimes.

This is looking at the brighter side. It is not an escapist’s route from the situation. It is actually a learning and evolving path individually, as well as for the relationship.

This is the value of cherishing your mistakes. They teach you so much.

I look back at every mis-take life threw at me, and I thank myself for walking that path. No regret no guilt. Regret’s about yesterday, poison’s today. Any guilt about yesterday, poison’s tomorrow.

There is a difference between the two – Regret is what holds you from performing not. It paralyses you in the now. It is all you live in. Guilt is a toxic emotion that fills you with som much anxiety that you cannot see the future with any clarity. What you cannot see with clarity, you miss for sure.

While growing up my father always felt it was important to feel guilty. Every mistake he made he would get stuck in guilt. He kept telling me the same. He always said, “Let guilt teach you harshly the lesson it needs to.” That surely was slow poison for my future. I was always scared, timid, felt inferior. 

Things changed when I lay in the hospital bed all alone suffering from tuberculosis of the lungs. I was all of 22, and my life seemed to be getting over. I actually did not want to live. I led myself to this situation. I was guilty-as-charged of every mistake I made till then. 

As a child I had visions of me getting Diabetes, after I saw a cousin suffering form it. Guess what, those visions manifested into Type 1 Diabetes, thanks to medical negligence when I was 16. My mistake of having those visions. I had visions of my parents divorcing. Guess what my parents divorce happened when I was 21.

I was in the 6^th grade when I figured my mother loved somebody else, I was in the 7^th grade when over a discussion I told my father I knew why he was fighting with my mother. When they divorced it was a culmination of every mistake I made. 

I was seeing somebody to be engaged, at 21. Three weeks before we get engaged he blames my parents separation to back out, as his mother thought it was a bad idea to have a daughter-in-law from a broken home. See, again my mistake. 

I then stopped taking my insulin shots and the result was tuberculosis of the lungs – “slow suicide” the doctor called it. I was quarantined. Left alone, and all I did was brood, brood, and brood. Then the light bulb within switched on after my father visited me and said, “You should feel guilty for what you are putting us through. Let your guilt teach you for the rest of your life.” Well, at that point I was definitely not certain how long was the rest of my life.

I lived on, I guess because I learnt to cherish my mistakes from that day on. I did not brood over guilt. Instead, I brooded over everything of the past I considered to be my contributing mistakes to all that was happening. Guess what, my biggest mistake was the guilt I carried of making mistakes.

I looked back and realised that all that happens unintentionally is a mistake, as it is here to teach you something – each mis-take happens for a purpose, and let the purpose be evolution, maturity, awareness; whatever you wish to term it. Each mis-take is a stepping stone to realising you.

What you do consciously is a blunder. When the subconscious nudges you not to, and yet you do it, it is a blunder. Guilty-as-charged, but the sentence is not guilt; the sentence is brood to the depths of introspection, and promise your self to be aware of the inner voice. 

When I look at the husband I wonder whether getting married a second time is a mis-take that happened; or a blunder he made. I accept, I am not exactly the easiest of women, especially since I am the Queen of Brooding, and he the King of “I Do What I Want to Do Kingdom.”

By the way, when I ask the husband, he always says, “I never wanted to marry, but my sister and my father-figure-boss insisted, so I decided to get married.” I look deeper into his eyes and he said, “I met you and I felt I needed to get married again.” Blunder, or mistake? The husband definitely is a smart cookie for this one. Once married, second time wiser.

Marrying the husband is the most cherished mis-take I have been gifted. It is a constant brood-in-progress. Everyday gives me reason to better my self, for him, for us, for the orgasms.