And so, another year has gone by and I'm no better as a blogger. I had one resolution for 2016, which was to get Facebook, and I didn't. I feel that when I verbalise my goals to other people, I'm less likely to do them. So there's nothing on the agenda for 2017.
New Years Eve found me cleaning up one of the storage closets in our house. My parents and my younger sisters are in Sri Lanka, and since they've left, my older sister and I have been selecting various corners of the house daily and cleaning them. I don't know if this happens to everyone, but I find that once you've settled in a house for a long time, it's near impossible to keep it pristine. There are corners of our house we just can't clean, because we don't have the time and energy on top of our daily routines. But with the most of the family gone, my older sister and I don't make a lot of mess, and it's the holidays, and we like cleaning.
And we accumulate. I feel that this comes from my mother's side. I have been told that her mother is a hoarder, who never throws anything away. I think my mum is similar, but only a part of it is due to attachment; mostly, she has a lot of stuff that she never gets back to. So in this closet, amongst many, many bags (is that weird?), I found a couple with her papers. Stuff to do with studies and whatnot. And one with her obstetric history.
It was... surreal. I know most of her history. I know she's had two miscarriages and one abortion, because of some miscommunication with the healthcare professionals involved. I know she must have had complications with sister number three, because I remember the visits to hospital, how ill she looked, jaundiced and drained, barely there. I've asked my parents for the stories, what it was like, how did they feel. I am increasingly curious about the lives of my parents, my aunts and uncles too. For a long time I wasn't, just because I had unconsciously accepted that they wouldn't have the types of stories we saw in movies. You know, awkward first dates, prom, romantic marriage proposals, fairy-tale weddings, drama, sacrifice, that sort of thing. I knew we were the products of arranged marriages, parents who seemed to have had a strict and boring upbringing. What was there to hear?
As it happens, I think... somehow, at some point, I realised that however different the time and place was, my parents, my uncles and aunts - they're all human too. They were kids once. Adolescents. They had hopes and dreams, fantasies. Crushes. Hobbies. Favourite celebrities. They made mistakes too. They have stories. And when you ask them about this stuff, they melt a little. You close the gap. You realise you're not so far apart.
Where am I going? I don't know. I started looking through all the paperwork. Innocuous appointment schedules, routine check ups, blood test results. Referral letters from the doctors. Charts, before and after birth. The labour documentation. The ultrasound of myself as a fetus, as well as my sisters. Something just snapped, and I started crying.
I am not usually so sentimental. Actually, I am quite soft, but I've never been the type to look at a photo and cry, or something like that. But to see this, everything my mum went through, the entire rigorous process, the complications, three out of four kids in a foreign land, by herself, it was just. Something. Tears brimmed just noting the 'interpreter required' sticker on one of the hospital forms.
I'm not entirely sure why I am sharing this. It's been another year, and it seems sensible to share the highlights, of which there have been a few. But this is what is on the forefront of my mind, so this is what I have for you.
It's just that the more I get through life, the less I seem to know. Is this a popular platitude that everyone's already heard of a million times already? Perhaps, but it's certainly one I personally attest to.
I remember being so very strongly opinionated in high school. I still have certain values and causes that I am devoted to - I still bleed easy for humanitarian crises. But I remember that I was so passionate, dogmatic even, about how I argued the contexts of these issues, particularly the political side of things. I was so sure. And now I'm not. There are no heroes versus villains in my world anymore. Nothing is simple. Everything is murky, fogged up, twisted, complicated. We have so much access to information, knowledge, and yet there is no way to know what is real and what isn't. Who is telling the truth, who isn't. What version of the truth is the right version. Is there a right version. And what do we do. How responsible are we for everything and everyone.
I feel a little hopeless, a little small.
This was not meant to be a dismal post, though. I suppose, I don't know, you spend your life trying to find your purpose or whatever. 'The meaning of life'. Who you are, what you're meant to be doing. I guess, in realising how complicated the inhabitants of this world are, I'm trying to balance... I don't know, forgiving their flaws, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but then, not depending or expecting too much. Acknowledging that there is always more to a person. Still devoted to the humanitarian cause, but no longer from the top. I want to help from the ground up, do big things but do them quietly. I'm a little sad that I don't have convictions anymore, makes me feel a bit insubstantial. Perhaps they'll come back, perhaps they won't.
It's all very vague, but there's something in there that is starting to make sense. Still be spiralling out of control, but trying to go with it.
Peace in,
Laila
