Hello, my sweet sweet girl. I am writing this to you in a wild, fantastic hope that someday you'll find this and realize how priceless you are to me. My hope and my dreams all end with you being with me right there when I'm old and grey.
My dear daughter, I know how tough you must be on yourself, only to feel more seen and heard. How haunting some decisions you might have made along your healthy life that slithered their way into the folds of your heavy blanket, anonymous to you who is tucked into your bed at night, laying there wide-awake, whispering to you, filling you with the dread,
"How will I face the sun?"
I know you feel tired, and I hope you also know that that the monsters are harmless, once you realize just one simple thing
Fear is not be feared. With uncertainty, comes adventure.
It's okay to not know what you want to do in life when people around you feel so sure. I wasn't either, but I figured it out along the way.
Let me tell you a silly story about it actually,
Till the fourth grade, I would feel my heart beat faster and faster as it came to my turn to tell the class about what I wanted to be when I grew up. Up until that time all I said was, "A teacher, like amma." As I would see all the small letters she would keep in her purse from, with crayons and markers, telling her she was their favorite. I wanted to be someone's favorite as well, so I would take any toys I found around the house, set them on the bed and teach my students everything I learnt in school. I wanted to be just like her.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlf1lnerDUq
On an unexpected warm winter night, my mother hurdled us in front of the old boxy Telly, screen blaring with the static black and white till the wavy lines morphed into a big grand stage, streaked in red, black and blue and I saw my father, singing in it.
So till the sixth it became "A musician like my Father." The loud cheers ,the colors, the sounds. The feeling of fun and excitement as he swayed on the glossy stage, surrounded by the people who shared his passion. I wanted to make what he made. I wanted to be just like him.
I would sit with him for hours as he would teach me the same guitar strings over and over, never phased by how mundane it all seemed all of a sudden. The vocal practices, stopping and starting over and over till he would give me a toothy grin and say "You got it!", just to start all over again.
But later, I wanted to say something different. You see, I saw a movie about monsters, one of those monsters went to a fashion school in Paris where she worked day and night to make beautiful clothes. Absolutely bonkers, right? So when it was my turn in class next Monday, I rose up and said "I want to be a Fashion Designer." It felt cool when what I said was so different from what everyone else did.
I never wanted to be a fashion designer. Truth be told, I just thought the character was pretty, I never really cared much for it, yet I would find my self in the corner of my room, chubby fingers getting pricked with needles as I stitched together dresses for dolls my mother would get me.
My love for art only grew stronger.
I had a friend at that time, she would carry this tiny blue dairy full of poetry she would write. I was her special friend so she would share it with me, so I wanted to give it a try since she wrote with such love and commitment. She would read mine as I would read hers over home-made lunch during a 30 minute recess.
Till it wasn't anymore. Till that friend went away and I was left with pen and paper I never really like to begin with.
Then I wanted to be an nuclear engineer the next year, because my younger brother who wore his glasses all the way up his nose, stubby and loud with the accent of a posh English child. All I knew about the word nuclear at the time was about how it hurt people in wars. He would push his glasses up every time he got the chance to tell me how I would always get the facts wrong about dinosaurs and animals or chemicals and plants, I wanted to show everyone I knew how smart he truly was, only I stole it and said it was me.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwU0DXgfdda
I met another friend during this time, she loved to write the most fascinating stories. Delicate, full of treads of gold and silver. I wrote stories with her, only to feel as close to her as she felt when she was lost between the worlds the created with her words. Just as the last friend, she would show me hers and I would show her mine.
And then, just as the last one, as bittersweet as it was we bid farewell as time moved on so cruelly past us.
Then suddenly, I saw my older brother, conviction in his eyes and a heart of steel. He held his head high and announced, "I will become a Fighter Pilot."
I remember being so entranced by declaration, I turned it into mine. Soon everyone in school knew, "she wants to be a fighter pilot." It felt good, the look in the teachers eyes as they heard me say those words. But, as always I was never really honest about it, I was simply wishing to feel that burning loyalty and ambition he felt when he said those words.
I would stay up all night, reading about every war, every hurdle, every twist and turn in the history he wanted to bleed so proudly on. Yet, no matter how much I read I always seemed to realize one thing when I would hear him and my mother would converse.
I felt envy and anger for my lack, thereof.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjYuJKjC1AG
I never really wanted to do anything to do with planes, heights terrify me.
I was an incredibly coward person who could never give up her life for someone else.
So I continued to say what ever felt it fit me into a room full of confused and blissful children. Till I wore the profession out.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQPeWugZJon
Till college all I could tell people was just a multitude of all the things I wanted to be, but never really.
But guess what?
That younger brother? He wants to make movies and has grown into an odd ball of a fitness fanatic.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNYXaAI5hOK
That older brother mine ended up with his own business now and takes me and your aunt for coffee's every alternate Friday.
Yes, your aunt. A woman whose only difference is the fact we didn't share a womb. 15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj6eK3LE45N
Their lives did not end when they couldn't pursue their dreams, and I felt happy that they were both so fulfilled despite it,
But I never felt more afraid of losing something I never truly had.
What if, one day I realize what I wanted to do, and I find it too late.
I became terrified to try. To fail.
So, to compensate that cowardice I simply wandered, watching all my peers know what they wanted, where they had to go for it, what they had to do to get there. I felt frustrated. Alone, tired. Aimless.
I tried to rekindle my love for art slowly but surely I would feel purpose. I showed it to a girl I thought I could trust, but all she did was remind me how empty it truly was. I felt hatred, I felt my art was truly not my own, She told me to do something more normal, more convenient.
And at the time, I believed her.
The feeling of bleak continued to spread, like black ink on paper.
I started to believe I had no future. I had no ambition. No plans, to dropping out of college and studying at home felt more convenient. It felt right. My brothers who would sacrifice anything to make theirs, while I had no direction.
People scared me then, put me in an empty room and you won't even know I was there.
Here's where I had no hope.
But here is where it found me.
Memories of that old friends came rushing back to me, I dug out my old diaries and began writing and reading. My love towards the two blossomed into something no human could ever compare to.
I taught at a school. I was a teacher for a month, just like my mother. I received flowers drawn on paper with crayon and colors with hearts slipped on to my desk be little angles who would come running to me calling me teacher.
I found solace in music, receiving compliments for how closely I listened to the presenter, I never knew how and when, but I guess my father did teach me how to focus on ones voice.
Your aunt loves qawwali, we often find ourselves lost when ever she find one that's beautiful enough to hear. She stops every once in a while to tell me what the words mean and my fondness only seems to grow.15Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlTCU6H9bFP
I learnt I could paint on walls and I did just that.
I made portfolios and dairies full bright and colors and worlds I never knew I could make.
I meet new people and lose a few every once in a while, but that's okay as well.
Yesterday I made my first ever piece of clothing. Its a long frilly skirt that's way to big to be worn casually. But I made it.
It was mine, it was my art, it was my ambition.
The gift given to me of poetry pushed me to want to share it with others, and when ever I look back to all the people who felt it worth a read, I feel fulfilled. I feel in place. I feel at peace.
My sweet daughter, who seems so far into my future. I have so may stories I want to share with you. I have so much I want to see with you. You feel so far away, yet so close to my heart.
My sweet child, I already have love that goes beyond for you. Love I wish to give nobody else but you.
My future, which I now have some clarity of no longer feels so dark. It took me a long to realize it, but life makes space for you as it goes. Time is cruel to you but it teaches you patience. People may hurt you, but my dear it is so to teach you.
The fear you feel, is fear meant to be felt to create something greater. The uncertainty, the chaos, the helplessness, they are fuel to push yourself, to be ruthless, to be greedy for a life you know you truly deserve.
Give love as open and vast as the grave blue sky, be who you wish to be every morning, free, proud and hungry for tomorrow.
My angel, my gift, my life, I can assure you, we will be okay.
You will get there. Where ever you are meant to be. And you will feel the glass to be finally full.
Just as I have, you shall be even greater.
And if the world feels to big and hollow or to small and suffocating, too hot to stand and to cold to walk upon
Know sweet brave child, my arms will open make it fuller yet open enough to breath the hemisphere with every inhale, becoming a celestial with every exhale, cradling you into the warmth of safety.
Although, I doubt you'd ever come back afraid.
You will be my daughter, after all.
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