Late nights and repurcussions!

I can say I love a scheduled life. During my working life and even my student life, I have followed schedules to a T. No partying or late nights during the week, save that for weekends. I am no owl person either!! Late nights just affect my next day adversely - be it sitting up to watch a movie or partying. Only a really interesting book can make me stay up beyond my 11:00 pm and in-the-bed regime.

The husband never fails to express his disgust of me  when I am often slinking away to bed at the appointed hour and always leaving movies half-watched!! I can live with that, but not without my required sleep. He and me are quite opposite - like night and day.

Well, actually this is a rant. TH has always had these friends whom he used to hang around with. One thing I never understand is why good conversation between guys needs to be fuelled with booze. Back in Mumbai, in the pre-G days, when we both had pretty much distinct worlds of our own, I would be in bed, waking every hour to check if TH is home. Calling him (a possibility after the cellphone arrived) was a strict no-no. That would tag him as hen-pecked!!! And he would get very upset. But what about me - I needed to know if he is doing fine and approximately what hour can I expect him home. I mean, after all, its a home, not a PG or an appart share and its a working day tomorrow.



We used to have some pretty intense fights on this issue. If I had to work late I would dutifully call and inform him that I would be delayed. He would be surprised at this and say he would expect me when he sees me!! I could never understand this response, bordering on indifference, but I convinced myself I was paranoid, so maybe I was hyperventilating too early.



Cut to a night when TH went out with friends. Yet again, in the course of the night, I called a couple of times to see when he was coming back, it was getting to 2:00 am, he stopped taking my calls. I fell into a restless sleep. I got a call around 4:00 am from one of his friends, saying he has had an accident in the head, while riding the bike home and is in the hospital. For a long moment, I felt more angry than concerned. How many times had I forewarned him. But this was not the time for that, I just grabbed my purse, and woke a sleeping auto-driver to take me to the hospital.



It was a bad scrape - head and leg still bear the scars of the fall. The doctor said that he was lucky he got to the hospital quickly! I did not even feel like looking at TH, who says he had tears in his eyes for putting me through this. I had a stone-heart at that time. The doctor said he would be kept in the hospital for 24 hours under observation. The last remaining friend (night-bird) left. TH was under medication and fell into a sleep and I was in a zombie trance - ruing all major decisions of my life.



I would like to say that time and experiences make us a better and wiser man! Not always, not everyone! TH who was so repentant after this incident, slowly and surely, sporadically if not frequently did go back to these  late night soirees. This was also repeated when I came to Belgium, 7 months pregnant and absolutely no one to call on in case of any emergency! Thankfully our social life here is rather restricted and after G, he has become a bit more sober.



So why am I staying up so late to right this, you guessed it, TH is out to meet an old-time acquaintance, promised to be back by 11 pm and come 12:30 am is not home or contactable. Some people never change, do they?? Or am I too paranoid, I wonder.