Diary of a Lost Wanderer - Acceptance and Belonging

By

 


After Mumbai, I moved to Singapore for a brief period. 

One of the most often-heard things about Singapore was how it was all plastic and lacked any authenticity of its own. This was often followed by the stark difference between the rich and the poor who co-existed in the island city.  I was also told that this difference would seep into conversations, leading to a lot of mixed behaviour the moment they know which part of Singapore you are from. 

I moved there with a very open mind. Moreso because, all of this (and perhaps much more!) I had already seen in Mumbai (and Delhi, and even Bengaluru to an extent!). I remember a friend who had moved to Mumbai after working for decades in a small town. She had literally planned her entire career and reached that place. When I spoke to her a few months after her big move to Mumbai, she told me in between tears how she had lunch all alone as everyone treated her shabbily for being a small-town girl. According to them, she was a misfit in everything - starting from her clothes to her language. Though she stuck through and today heads the customer service for a leading company, it needed a lot of courage. It was a daily struggle till one day they all stopped it.

All the while I stayed in Singapore, I never could call it home. It never became one even after staying there for five years. There was something amiss. Till date, I do not know what. But that place never felt welcoming. I never felt I belonged there.

"Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance." ~ Brené Brown

When I read this quote, it made me question whether I was presenting my authentic self to everyone around me. And that is how I concluded, I had not been my authentic self in years. After a series of incidents early on in my life, I developed massive trust issues. (Confession: I still have them!)

It has been a decade since this realisation and I am still working on this. But this opened the doors to self-acceptance which eventually led to a sense of belonging, of feeling love, and in a few years, finding home. 

This also taught me that the past does not define us. Rather, whatever happens to us at any point of time does not. How we choose to react &/ respond to it does. And that thought was incredibly freeing. It helped me let go of the guilt of having not done enough, of having not stood up for or protected myself from the harsh experiences. 











Popular posts from this blog

Diary of a Lost Wanderer - Lost & Found

By
Image
Dear Diary, I fell in love with Mumbai when I first visited it in 1995. Bombay, as it was then known, fascinated me since then.  If you ask me what made me fall in love with this city, I perhaps cannot explain. It wasn't that I was seeing the sea for the first time. It wasn't even the biggest city I had been to till then. Still, there was something so magical about this place. The trip was a short one lasting less than a week but this city now had my heart. Years later, I arrived here all alone on my first solo trip in 2005 and fell in love all over again. I got my first job and was required to come to Mumbai frequently. The local trains, the chaos on the roads, the crowds, the humdrum, the salty smell in the air, the stale air- everything about this city was intoxicating for me. 
Keep reading »

Essay: How to mourn the loss of love?

By
Image
Image Source: Unsplash.com I remember the first time I mourned the loss of love was when I was eleven.  For me, dance was love at that time. I had discovered a strange joy as I glided in and out of those movements. Every time I swirled; I could feel my heart soar. Any beat that strained to reach my ears, tempted me to move my body to its tune. I just knew I was born to dance and that is the only thing I wanted to do, all my life.  I had my reasons to believe so and a very simple one at that. It made me happy. That was a reason enough. However, my father thought otherwise. Girls from good families, do not dance. That line was enough to break all those rosy dreams of dancing on a stage. The day my brother was sent to the same dance class which was not good for me, was the day I experienced heartbreak for the first time.  That is the day I mourned the loss of my first love- Dance. 
Keep reading »

Metro Diaries: The Art of Making Love

By
Image
Image Source: Unpexels (Cottonbro) “Do you know why is it called making love?” He whispered, pulling the comforter closer.  I don’t remember for how long we had been in that room, on that bed. Lying aimlessly, just feeling each other in silence. I managed to just whimper to denote my curiosity.   “Because that is the moment we create love. We are the closest we could ever be to love, in its purest form. It is sheer magic as we are naked, in every form. Mentally, physically and emotionally before that one person, we love. We know they can hurt us, as much as they want to, in the way they want to. But love gives us that power to trust them, that they won’t.”   “And here I was thinking it is a need. Something you want at that moment and you get it!” 
Keep reading »