Practicing Perspective

Yesterday was the start of a New Year, according to my religious calendar. And one of the things you have to do is to be thankful and count your blessings. I’m not going to lie. This year has been shitty for me. I am miserable at work and my self worth has taken a major beating. It feels terrible to be that unhappy and to doubt your own potential. I have always been unflinching in my belief that everything happens for a reason and goodness is right around the corner. But these last few months have sorely tested my faith. There have been days, dark, dark days when it feels like every exit is blocked and the more I try to get out, the deeper and further I am sucked right back in.The struggle just seems endless and pointless and at moments, even the laughter of my precious boy does not reach my heart. The burden of feeling useless, undervalued and discounted burrows deep into your soul into dark crevices where only sadness and hopelessness fester.

Then something happened which I have not spoken about to anyone, which forced me to try and change my perspective. It was an eye opener and it put me on a path to what I call, practicing perspective. It’s a struggle and I have to consciously work on it, but it works. It’s about focusing on the good and focusing on it with a single-minded determination.  It’s reminding your self repeatedly of all the goodness in your life and feeling lucky about your blessings. 

About 2 months ago, something quiet literally, snapped me out of my misery spiral. I work in a children’s hospital and my role is in research. Typically, what that means is that I am shielded from the realities of working in a children's hospital. That is, I am insulated from the horror, the heartaches and the intense joys that the hallways of my hospital bear testament to every day. That particular day however, as I was walking with my friends, my heart heavy, my shoulders stooped, barely listening to the conversation around me, I came across a Middle Eastern man sobbing. He may be Jewish or Arab, I don’t know, but he was staring at his phone and sobbing. I couldn’t stop myself from going over and asking if he was OK. Every fiber in my being was rebelling against what was coming next and I could hear a voice in my head, repeating manically, please don’t let it be what I think it is, please don’t let it be what I think it is! and all he did was point at the ward he was standing outside and then he started crying again. 

He couldn’t speak English but I hope to this day that he has just received some bad news and not my worse fear; he had lost his child. His raw anguish, his grief was  beyond measure or quantification. This poor man may have lost the light of his life, and here I was feeling sorry for myself. For what? Because my work sucks! While I could do nothing for that man but offer him empty platitudes that would do nothing to lessen his pain, I resolved at that moment to focus on the good in my life. So here I am, practicing perspective.

1. I am practicing perspective that I have a healthy, joyous, vibrant, beautiful boy who lights up my life. Whose one smile makes my heart soar and whose hugs have the power to heal the day’s weariness.  Who amazes me with his wit, his kindness and his desire to help. Who looks at me with so much love and makes me feel like superwoman. Who reminds me that there is someone in this world who irrevocably needs me and depends on me.   

 2. I am practicing perspective that I have a husband who despite having the burden of taking care of everything, never complains, who will do little things to remind me how loved I am.  This is a man who knowing how much I love mangoes, but dislike the pulpy seed, will save the best parts for me while keeping the pulp for him self. Who comforts and encourages me to keep fighting. Who takes me to beaches so that we can watch our son frolic in the sun.

3. I am practicing perspective that I have parents who will drop everything, and I mean everything, to be by my side when I am at my lowest. Whose unconditional love and unwavering confidence in me always leaves me humbled and grateful.My parents have shown me what loving your child looks like and I am blessed to be their child.

4.  I am practicing perspective that I have friends who rally behind me to remind me my worth and when I need it, give me the kick in the ass to get me moving! I am fortunate that I have people who I can count on no matter what. It is powerful and gratifying all at once.

5. I am practicing perspective that I am healthy and capable of bringing another child into this world and the only thing stopping me are transient circumstances that will eventually change.

6. I am practicing perspective that I live in a breathtakingly beautiful country where I can fall asleep without being terrified that some asshole/shithead/racist/fundamentalist army/mob will bomb my home/murder my family/ brutalize me/trample my rights to live as I chose/ take away my house or land just because they want to and can.

7. I am practicing perspective that I have food when so many in this world have to watch their families and selves wither away without a morsel to eat. I have a roof over my head and after following #HONY in Pakistan these days, I am grateful that I will never have to suffer the  horror, humiliation and helplessness of  bonded brick kiln workers*. http://www.humansofnewyork.com/

8. I  am practicing perspective that I am alive and my friend, who I only see in my dreams, is dead. That I have a support network, which makes me feel loved and cherished. I also feel sad that I could not for him what so many do for me. 

9. I am practicing perspective that even when I am at my lowest, a little voice reminds me that a door will always be open and all I have to do is to ask and I will feel at peace. 

10. I am practicing perspective that even when I thought nothing could replace Lost (only the best TV show ever!), I can still spend hours obsessing over Jon Snow's parentage and wait impatiently for the next season of my newest obsession  Sense 8  #sense8rocks. 

11. I am practicing perspective that I remembered how much reading nourishes my soul and I rediscovered Rumi, Shams, Murakami, Tolkien, Austen, Rowling, Shamsie, Hosseini, Parmuk, Ruiz Zafon and so many, many more wonderful authors who take me into their worlds and allow me to live countless lives. I am also humbled by the realization that while I have unfettered access to books, there are still places in the world where girls and women are killed for daring to read.

12. I am practicing perspective that every humiliation is a lesson and that after every storm there is sunlight and I will live to fight another day.

* Please read Humans of New York's blog or follow them on Facebook.  If you feel like donating,  and can donate, even better! Syeda Fatima, who is featured in their visit to Pakistan section, is a true inspiration. Fatima has been working tirelessly, at great personal cost,  to protect the bonded laborers in Pakistan. Bonded labor is modern slavery. Its a barbaric practice where countless generations are bound to spend their entire lives working to pay of a debt that never ends. Syeda Fatima is a superhero in every sense of the word.

Grief

Three years ago we lost a friend. Well two for me as only through the sheer will power of sweet hubs, no one, and I mean NO ONE told me anything until a year later. You see I was 8 months pregnant and in my state, it was not the right time to tell me. And of course, during the whole next year since I was the only one who had ever been pregnant in the history of the world, I was so self-absorbed in my own journey that I barely gave my friend, my sick friend, an ocean away, any thought accept for cursory questions about his well being and getting vague mumbles and averted eyes in response.  I never picked up on anything. I was drowning in motherhood and all that mattered, was me. Honestly, I lost you years before you actually went . The last few times we met,  you weren't the fiercely intelligent, witty, sardonic sullen goblin who could insult someone without them even knowing it. What was there instead was a husk. A beaten, bent husk in such unbearable pain.. I'm so sorry meray dost, I never understood that.

I'm angry and ashamed. Angry at you and angry at me. Angry at you that you couldn't hold on for just a little longer, to let this cloud pass to see what was waiting for you beyond that mountain. I'm angry at my self that I never understood just how insurmountable that mountain was. I am mostly angry myself that the last words I spoke to you were harsh when what I should have said was that I loved you dost, hang in there. We will hold your hand. Instead,  I sprouted science at you. Because that's what I do when I cannot handle 'emotion' and I was a bitch. If only I understood that last smile and last time we talked on the phone when you called to say good-bye. Why did I not tell you how much you meant to us? I did not because I was a pregnant, hormonal bitch who thought the world needed to revolve around me. I was so angry at you for ruining my perfect vacation plans. I was so mad. This is my regret and guilt that I carry with me always.

I'm angry that my child will only know you through anecdotes and half stories with no context. A footnote. An abstract ideal and not a real person. You were supposed to be his favourite chachoo. You who would encourage my children do to the things I explicitly forbade. Not because you wanted to indulge then but because you knew it would piss the hell out me. You who planned to have your future son marry my future daughter and then move into my basement and hatch nefarious plots to annoy me.  I am sad that there are still times when I hear something deliciously wicked and my first thought is that you would love this. I miss our conversations over endless cappuccinos. I miss your insane requests for chai at odd hours. I just miss you.

So I grieve by not knowing how to grieve. Grief is a strange beast. It's palpable and real and consumes your mind and body. It's the sudden quickening of the heartbeat in the middle of the night. It's the heaviness in your chest. It's the hot unbidden tears streaming down your face when you hear a song in the bus while hoping desperately that your extra large sunglasses hide the puffy eyes. It's also the clear eyed, square jawed numbness when retreating into your mind is the only relief. It's sharing and over sharing. Talking and not talking. A teacher and a tormentor. It's gut wrenching,raw, personal and it's mine! 

It confounds me. The bloody thing is an insidious little bastard. It burrows deep into your soul until it becomes a part of you. A festering sore that gnaws away relentlessly and rears its head at unexpected times . In happy moments, a voice will whisper your name and I see you and miss you terribly. You embody my grief , buddy. When I cry in sorrow for myself, for the world, for all the innocent lives cut short, I think of you and weep again. I weep for you in my moments of solitude, in the middle of the night, on buses when all my walls are down and all the regulations melt away. When there are no expectations on me and off me. Silently and quietly and then I write and delete. I write and delete in my mind all the thing I want to say to you, so many things. So forgive me meray dost, I failed you. 

People say that the grief  lessens when you let go of the hurt, the anger and the shame but I don't think I can. That's my last tenuous link to you and if I lose that,  it almost feels like you will be gone all over again and forever. And that my friend, is unbearable.