I have been gone off the blogging radar for a long time. Besides an occasional book post, I haven’t had the opportunity, or rather the courage to write about the many things that have been keeping me from writing a post on the blog.

Today, I’m determined to publish a post without worrying too much if it makes any sense for anyone besides me. This is to tell myself that I have the ability to get back to recording my life on the blog like I have been doing for over ten years now.

Wow! a decade does sound like a very long time to have been blogging. This blog turns six in a month’s time, though my journey as a blogger spans over a decade as of now. In all these years of blogging, the one thing I have learnt is that of all things, creativity included the one virtue that can keep a blog thriving is its honesty.

Somehow, everything else comes after it.

Anyway, I digress.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’d be well aware of how this time of the year, I cannot help but assess my progress in life since my marriage fell apart. In the past five arduous years, I have come a long way, transforming into a person, I never thought I could ever be.

This year, while taking stock of my life I was face to face (yet again) with one nagging question that has been haunting me from the time I decided to return to my parent’s home. That is since my marriage was on the rocks.

To understand what has been bothering me, we need to go back to the time when I had barely cleared my class twelve board exams. The time when I got admission in one of the country’s premier government institutions.

That was the fleeting moment of my life because it was then that I had tasted freedom in its true sense for the very first time. Living hundreds of miles away from home in a hostel, taking my own decisions for everything from what I wear to what I did in my free time was like moving to an altogether different planet.

At this point, I’d like to clarify that this new-found freedom enticed me because I was free from the constant control of my parents. Though I’d like to believe that my parents aren’t orthodox and are pretty liberal in most ways, but their controlling nature, somehow always made me feel suffocated, yearning to fly free. Quite like my elder brother.

My elder brother deserves due credit for sowing the seeds of the desire to study away from home in my heart. The time when he joined a college a thousand miles away from home, I was a blooming teenager. I can still vividly remember him looking forward to returning to hostel soon after vacations and how he couldn’t stop telling me, that life’s beautiful beyond the four walls of our home.

Once I moved out of home for higher education, there was no looking back for I went to places and countries in quick succession and eventually got married to a man who lived in a far-off continent. All those years while I was away from my parents home, my life wasn’t all that rosy or sorted, but deep in my heart, I was sure that I didn’t want to go back to living with my parents. I often wished for my parents gradually changing their ways (with time and experience).

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
― C.G. Jung

It might sound rather mean but that is the bitter truth. The intensity of my desire to stay away from the controlling environment of parents’ home was such that it even forced me to consciously choose a life with an emotionally abusive husband over wanting to return to the home where my parents lived.

But destiny had other plans. In the strangest (or rather painful) turn of events, life left me with no choice but to return to my parents home while I was pregnant with Pari only to choose to make it my home for the rest of my life.

As you can well imagine, in my heart, I couldn’t help but question why life took a steep turn to bring me to the one place I had never wanted to be in. And this very question has been plaguing my mind to the extent that for months I’d spent sleepless nights pondering what had I done to end up with just the life I have been running from.

Though I always had the choice of moving out with Pari, I didn’t have the heart to try anything along those lines.

“Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you’ve learned, but in the questions, you’ve learned how to ask yourself.”
― Bill Watterson

After all these years of battling my troubles, my sorrows, an uncertain life of being a single mother and being stuck neck deep in elder care, finally, I believe I have found my answer.

Yes, the elusive answer to the one question I have posed to life for the longest period of time.

Today, I know, I stand where I belong because that’s actually what I had been wishing for.

Wait a minute, I know that sounds absolutely wrong, it did to me too, until recently.

I strongly believe that life grants most of our wishes, in one way or the other, sooner or later. My case is no exception.

For over fifteen years of my life, I had been constantly praying for my parents to change, for them to become more open, more inclusive, more empathetic, without ever giving it a thought as to how could that ever happen.

Apparently, the timid me always hoped that someone (of course, not me) will someday bring about that change.

But the Almighty who’d been listening to my prayers knew just how to make it happen. He chose to grant me my wish by gifting me the opportunity to bring about the change I so desperately wished for in the people whom I loved with all my heart, myself.

This is why I am here, fighting one battle at a time, learning, falling, rising again, fighting back and gradually bringing about the changes I wished to see in my family (more correctly in my parents) gradually but surely.

All these years while I was busy cribbing of being thrown back in the hole where I never wanted to be, I was failing to see that I had been blessed with the massive opportunity to change the narrative of my family history and in turn my life to what I always felt it should be.

Nobody can fight a battle for anyone else. We all have to do it on our own. Wishing alone doesn’t accomplish anything. If anything, change is surely not one of them. This is why life chose to grant my wish by putting me just where I need to be to challenge the status quo and bring about the change I’ve yearned for the longest time.

Ever since this understanding dawned over me, there has been no looking back. I can feel a fresh surge of determination fuel my system to conquer my fears like I haven’t felt in the longest period of time. Armed with the will to be the change I wish to see, I have taken some major decisions recently (more details in my next post).

It’s amazing to realize that finding the one answer I have sought for many years could make me, the usual uncertain bundle of jittery nerves, go ahead and confront some of the key decisions of the people; I have grown up dreading all these years.

Life isn’t all sorted, my parents aren’t yet fully ready to let me and Pari lead life on our own terms, but this new found confidence that destiny wants me to take over the reins and be in charge of the narrative has given me a massive boost.

“Very occasionally, if you pay really close attention, life doesn’t suck.”
― Joss Whedon

I sincerely wish I am blessed with the strength to accomplish all I have always wished for my family while continuing to find answers to the many questions that govern my life.