Fight In Me

Recently, the topic of marriage came up. It’s been coming up for a while now. But I have been shoving it back inside the bottle the best I can. But like a genie, once it’s out, it’s out.

The question I often end up answering is, what am I looking for in a life partner. Does he have to be tall? Well educated? Independent? Employed? And the weirdest thing is, as important as those might be to some, no one seems to ask who do I need to complement who I am?

I am looking for someone with whom I can make this world a better place for my daughters to be. Someone, who acknowledges that the world is not a fair place. Yet. But who wants to work with me to bring changes. Who doesn’t think it’s beyond my means to alter how society is at it’s core, but who knows that the very heart of society lies at home. Who knows, change begins at home. Who doesn’t relegate me to what he considers, or what this society considers, to be a woman’s job. Who doesn’t let gender roles dictate our marriage.

I don’t need someone as educated as I am, I don’t need someone who earns more than me. Or someone who can take care of my bills. Those were necessities of a time when women were not allowed to fend for themselves. When they didn’t have the right to be their own person, cast their own votes, have any say on how to shape the world in which they would raise their family. We do not belong to those times anymore, so why are our expectations tied to the realities of an outdated era?

I want someone who feels this fight in their bones, the way I do. Someone who is willing to accept there is a problem. And then willing to do what it takes, so that the future doesn’t hold the same problems. Who understands that our choices reflect and create the future of our next generation. Someone, who sees that society has an antiquated approach to most things, and doesn’t let the fear of what others will say, to rule over what he knows is right. Who doesn’t need me to help him make up his own mind.

Women don’t have the privilege of not fighting, of ignoring the constraints of this world. There is a saying in Bangla, that roughly translates to this – ghosts’ foot prints are backwards. This world is a ghost foot print, turned backwards. If we don’t push it forward, it will go back on its own. And that is a price we should not accept so easily.

So yes, it will be hard to defy what everyone thinks is acceptable. But I am looking for someone who is not afraid. Someone who knows, that this fight is worth fighting.  Who knows, it is so tempting to take the easy way, to let society and it’s norms dictate our lives, to go with the flow. But who also knows that sometimes taking The Road Not Taken is the only way to go to place that has never existed before.

Water and Air

Today I will sit on the patio and watch the rain.

I will close my eyes,

And listen to the raindrop as it hits the ground.

The rain is not afraid to fall;

So why am I?

I will listen as the winds howl pass me,

Chasing something I can’t see.

The wind is not afraid of the chase.

So why should I be?

If I have been made from water and air

Why should I be afraid to be like them?

Haunted

And I have never been afraid to ask these questions;

I only fear the answers I may get.

If being haunted is the only choice I have,

The question then remains,

What would I rather be haunted with?

Things I never got around to asking

I always thought we had time to learn the mundane things. After all friendship such as ours muddled through the depths of our souls. I thought we would always have time to know the simple things about each other. May be by the time we would have been old, we would have finally gotten around to ask the stupid stuffs.

Now as your first death anniversary nears, I can’t help but wonder who would answer these unanswered stupid questions of mine?

Hey, what’s your favorite color? I recently heard from someone it is green. Is that true? How can I know so much and so little all at once? What’s your favorite city? Your mother told me that you used to say New York was your favorite city. Do you know I always wanted to go there. But now, I don’t think I have the courage to enter the city in which you have chosen to die. I have heard some of your friends went to the Central Park. I don’t think I can do that because I don’t think I’ll get closure there. I have never seen the Central Park lake and yet when I close my eyes at night I can see you struggling to take your last breath there. How is it possible that I know a place so intimately, a place I have never been to before?

Hey did you like staying here? Did you plan to go back to Bangladesh? Did you change your major? I remember you told me you wanted to change your major. Did you end up doing it?

You said you’ll see me on your next spring break. Hey, if you were alive, would you have come to see me? I really wanted to see you. I never asked you to come and see me before. You see, before last year I didn’t have a place I could call my own. But last year, I finally had a home. Of sorts. And I wanted to see you so bad, talk to you face to face. I wanted to hold your hands and say thank you for giving me hope.

Hey, did you ever you blame me? Was there anything you wanted me to do for you? I never told you this before, but you were the one of the two people in this world I would have done anything for. The other day when I told your mother this she asked me why I never said that to you. I couldn’t tell her then that I didn’t have a contingency plan for our friendship. I didn’t know there was a time limit. I didn’t know I would never get to say goodbye. I’ll always miss you. Know that, okay?

Your mother says it’s okay to talk to you even though you are not here. So these days that’s what I do. Hey, is that okay? Is it okay to not let go yet?

Fear What We Love

I have been thinking these days, more often than not, what I am truly seeking. What am I heading off to do and most importantly where did I start? Once there was definite sense of what I wanted from life. But the more I ponder, the more I realize I won’t ever get those things because a part of me is actually blocking me from it.

I want love, the kind of love they write about in books. I want friendship to guide me all my life. I want a family and a home to belong in. I want to have purpose, the fulfillment of a life lived to the fullest. But the more I want, the more I close myself in my own sphere. A part of me fears these wants of mine. What if they don’t come true? What if I don’t find the fulfillment I expect from them? What if I am left with a broken heart or worse – a broken trust? Isn’t it easier to just imagine a world where everything neatly falls into place? Isn’t it harder to actually go and make it happen?

May be it is just me or may be not. May be everyone I meet has this one thing they want above all others and yet their fear is stopping them from reaching for it. May be we all go around pretending we are not bothered by how much that fear controls us. But do any of us truly know how to let that fear go?

Through the Innocent Eyes

Last year I wrote this, not knowing how close I would come today to answering it.

Death. I have never experienced death closely. All the people I love are thankfully alive. But sometimes I think how would it feel to know someone I loved died. I am so scared of losing.

Sometimes I think if I see death too closely, I won’t ever be able to love again. I want forever. But in truth, there is no forever at any given time. No one can guarantee that they’ll be with me forever. I am scared once I get used to their presence, I wouldn’t survive their absence. 

To those who die, death is the end. And the start of some sorts. But to others its the middle of something. You don’t want to go on, but it’s your not your end. You can’t start over because nothing has ended for you. You are stuck at this impasse you can’t get out of.

Death’s not about questions or answers. It’s just ultimate and irreversible. So how do people deal will death? How do they find the strength, the hope to go on? I don’t know, I guess I don’t even want to find out. Because once I do, I’ll know for sure how much I have in me to love again.

Today as I sit down to write this, I cannot write with the innocence or the eloquence of the girl who doesn’t know death. Death seems so hauntingly familiar now, no longer a concept I cannot grasp. I do not ask those same questions anymore, because sometimes answering them doesn’t make it any better. I still have been thinking though, how death has changed not just my perspective, but my whole existence.

When someone you know died, the death you are mourning becomes inside of you, as if a part of you had died as well. You can’t rationally explain that death to yourself. You cannot distance yourself from it. It feels like you are carrying a little death inside your body, in your memory and nothing will ever make that part of you live again.

You start to mourn not only for the person who is gone, but for every little thing that is now gone from your life as well. It’s hard to explain to others that you can’t just moved on. Logic like you are alive makes no sense to you. You see death no longer as something incomprehensible, but as something substantial.

Death changes the lives of the people who live in ways the dead do not understand. Death becomes a name, a face, a voice you long to hear. It becomes touch, and memory and all the things you wished you had prayed for. Death is not lying in the grave, it is staring at you everyday in everything you do. There is no getting rid of that feeling, no hiding. It takes away your ability to see the world without fear again. It makes you think you will never trust again.

People tell me, eventually this fades. They say I will smile again, laugh again, enjoy my life again. I do, but one moment, one memory is all it takes to invite that cold, seeping emptiness back into my life. Sometimes, quiet foolishly, I wish I had never written that piece last year, questioning, mocking death. For now death will follow me in every step of my life.