Feeling the Pride in yourself....

Have you ever felt proud about yourself?? It could be for anything could be for helping a stranger or for being there for a friend when he urgently needs us. I am my biggest critic, that keeps my insecurities at a safer place because no one can ridicule or criticize me as well as i do. So there have been a very few moments in my life where i have felt pride in what i did. Last 2 months have been one of the best days of my life. There are things which you dream as a kid and there are things which you want to do because you feel some positive energy from it. yeah the same positive energy the multi-million dollar industry of 'personality development' thrives on.
Since childhood i cannot remember amma-acha ever been on vacation. vacation is too big an ask for a deep rooted middle class family. A working mom and a tireless dad are the only assets me and shyama had. When many of our school friends went to 'home town' during vacations we were living at our hometown. Anytime we planned for a vacation the discussion ended with the topic of 'money', 'studies', 'travel' etc. And then either of me or shyama would go to 'Delhi' to visit our favourite aunt and rest of the patrol living in neighbourhoods of Delhi. And that's it the whole idea of vacation for my parents is to visit a hell lot of relatives and their houses and some 'sniff around' visit to all those places around the city. There were no relaxing breaks or anything like that all was crammed up into a jam pack session.
Its been 3 years since i have been in USA, with the very first year i engineered this mega plan of bringing my parents here for a visit. And expectedly my dad's first question was 'How much is the Ticket?' And my Mom's answer was 'Ammamma (grand mother) can't be left alone so count me out'. My never say die attitude and lot of brain washing resulted in them agreeing for the trip. And Valiyammma being a sweetheart came down from Delhi to be with Ammamma. Valiyachan had retired last year and even he needed a much needed break from busy-busy Delhi life. But boy did i enjoy this 2 months?? Hell yeah!! Behind all those delicious food from mom, and daily fights with Dad over football and what not? there was a little 'ME' jumping with joy. For the first time i had the reins in my hand and they just let it go on cruise control to relax and take a long break. So here comes the proud moment i was talking about earlier, all the plans well executed dad and mom happy back to their busy lives in palakkad. They made a good rapport with my friends here in Columbus too and guess what they too love them. If you too are planning something like this, well dont wait that is what i would say first. For all the sacrifices they make for us a good break is all we can do for them, many want to do this but give up at the last moment coz of personal overrides in life. Money, well it matters in our fast paced life but sometimes its all paper or some punching numbers on a screen.