Homecoming

3 days before turning twenty-three, and I still don't have an answer for the year that's gone by. I feel weird. Useless, like I haven't done anything worth counting. I don't fully know what I want to do with my life. But I know some things for sure: I want to stop feeling that sharp ache of helplessness every time a homeless being looks at me, hungry; and all I have in my bag is a ten-rupee pack of biscuits. I feel ashamed when I hand it over, because I know it’s just a temporary band aid on its hunger. I want to feed my dogs the kind of wholesome, quiet life they actually deserve.

I want to live with my mumma and pappa, while they’re growing older and need me close. But I know they also carry that quiet worry about what people will say, about a grown daughter still living at home, about what "society" will think when they see me here, settled in my own skin, unbothered by the milestones I’m supposed to be chasing. I hate society sometimes, when I think about this. I hate feeling like I have to choose between the life that keeps my heart full and the life that just looks right to everyone else. Because I “do” want to be where my heart's full. I want to earn my keep, and I want to be home.

I want to plant trees with Lily whenever it strikes me. I want to ride down to the beach whenever I feel like doing it; feel how sweet the salt air is, watch the tiny crabs dig their small holes in the wet sand, watch the sun rise and set, listen to the birds wake up demanding their morning food. I want to sit for hours and watch the three squirrels that play in my balcony every day. I want to talk to my plants and sing to them, whenever I want to.

I want to bury my face in the spine of an old book and start reading at three in the morning, just because I loved a character too much to abandon him alone in the dark.

I want to help Papa dye the parts of his hair he can't reach in the mirror on his own.

I want to drop Mummy to college and pick her up, the exact same way Papa used to wait for me outside the school gates. I want to stand beside her in the kitchen while the tea boils, listening to her talk about her day, the students who acted up, how tiring and terrible it all was. I want to hear Papa complain, every single day, about how I leave my tea cup on the windowsill for hours, how my bedsheet is full of Lily's hair and how I’m terrible at keeping it clean. I want to sit and chit-chat with the aunty who comes to help us, brew her a warm cup of chai, help Nanu with her daily bath, and make sure she never feels like a burden for needing a little support.

I want the slow, quiet time to clean my bookshelf. I want to bathe Lily, dry her off, and feed her nicely made, colourful meals. I want to notice the seasons changing, watch new birds show up in the backyard, watch the leaves shift before summer, and how everything turns soft and green when the rains finally come. 

I want this, all at once, and then, finally, when the day comes to an end I just want to sleep peacefully, with Lily curled up inside my blanket, her warm nose pressed against me, her breathing slow and even, while I drift off too.

If you ask me what failure feels like, I'll tell you how it's exactly devoid of all these things and how it is miles away from everything I just wrote, sitting under the flickering fluorescent lights of a glass office, chasing deadlines that mean absolutely nothing to me. 

For a long time, I thought wanting a simple life meant I lacked ambition, because this is what is taught to us. That wanting to stay close to the people we love, to care for our beings, to grow our greens, and to have peaceful evenings in our balconies is a compromise. But sitting here today, I realize it’s the only ambition that has ever made sense to me.

I don't have all the answers yet, and I don't know how long it will take to bridge the distance between these glass walls and my balcony. But I know where my heart truly lives. And step by step, standard by standard, I am going to find my way back.

Because all I really want, more than anything, is to be in a place I can call Home!