A girl, who was pampered throughout her life, came to Dubai for a career, to start something that she had always dreamt of, but life had other strategies to make her stronger for she had to live in this harsh world.
Sweltering heat, scattered thoughts and a void within is how that day began when I was asked to pack my bags and leave. And the person who said so was someone whom I had given my father’s place! Someone I had always been looking up to for courage since my childhood, someone who always called me his daughter. But now, he was no longer the same person for me.
That chilling change of heart in someone I loved all my life reminded me of a classic adage: If you truly want to test someone’s character, test it during a journey. I was on my crucial career journey in Dubai when a person who was supposedly my comfort seat turned his back at me. He left me midway to face that uncertain journey all by myself.
It took me many sleepless nights to come to terms with the ugly reality of life, that people change — even your own blood bonds don’t remain the same. We often exploit ourselves emotionally to bind everything together, to keep everyone at one place while you forget your own importance, I did the same.
My story began from that day. How would it feel when struck when you are at your most vulnerable, when every principle that you had held intact since childhood shatters and makes you wonder why?
It’s in that particular time where you question your list of priorities. When on one end a relation opts for unfaithfulness another comes for your rescue, “Sister”.
With oil still in my hair, a gloomy face and loads of disappointments, I went off on a journey where I had to discover who I really am.
Never had I ever imagined that I would be living with two more girls in a bed space, as stories regarding the same used to haunt me. But rough times indeed call for rough measures.
Like a lost child
I was no better than a lost child, a fairy tale was taken away from me and I didn’t know how to express that exasperating feeling within me. Everything seemed pointless, until I found a family. It started with a pledge in one room where all four girls sat and took an oath, to never harm or hurt each other’s feelings, to look after and never let anyone amongst the lot cry and to support each other no matter how depraved the condition.
Honestly, for one, I thought it was all just beginner’s luck sort of thing and it won’t last, as “my own” had disappointed me, how could I ever believe in the “pledge”!
It seemed as if I was again going to believe in something that has a lesser shelf life, as we call it in print language. I mustered all the courage not to fall apart, to not let anything get in my way, to make my mother proud.
While I was trying to settle in, I found comfort in that room, it wasn’t too much but I was at peace, with each day passing by I stayed focused on who I am and what I want to become from this experience.
A blood relationship is the tie that exists between entities who are descended from the same person. But, I tell you the girls I live with aren’t related to me by blood but they make me feel beautiful and that counts.
This depression takes a huge part of you and if you don’t nip it in the bud, it will latch itself onto you and never will you be able to get rid of it. But I had dreams to follow up on, I couldn’t let that get a grip of me. I started feeling replenished when I started thinking of how I can make little things count.
It would be cliché to quote, but I will anyways, “Life is designed to knock you down. It will knock you down time and time again, but it doesn’t matter how many times you fall - it matters how many times you get back up.”
I had undergone a turmoil of emotions and it wasn’t easy to get back to life. But I did.
And on top of everything, I got a family.
— Fajar Shora is a freelance writer based in Dubai.
