A Wrinkle in Time

I have just recorded my own CBT voice memo for the night. Pushing myself to talk and hear my own voice is still strange to me. I am trying this new tactic to express what I am truly feeling without filtering anything. Today I started watching Grey’s Anatomy again and felt my childhood summer spent with my sister rushing back to me. This feeling felt happy, subtle, weak and reminded me of my teenage years. In one of the episodes, Meredith mentions something striking. Something I had to pause and reflect through out my day and was in my mind like ripples.

She said,

With all of my emotions splurging inside my 5x5 boxed room full of fluttering veils, I crumbled down and told myself — I was created stronger than this.

I came across a bundle of photos stashed away in my mother’s drawer.

This is my grand father holding me into his arms. He named me Tayyaba. He would dance clapping and touching elbow. A weird dance, maybe pashtun. Who knows. My grandma and my entire family have laughs about him tearing his shalwar (pants) in the mosque while in sujood. This laughter still sits with me and I smile in remembrance of his beautiful soul. May allah have mercy upon him. Ameen. Here I was a baby, opening my eyes to see the world Allah had wanted me to live in, learn in and overcome. As babies, what do we know who we are and who we will be. All we were given was love and warmth. The more we got older, the colder the world turned out to be. Let me explain.

Here is my aunt holding me on one of my birthdays. I loved bangles and lehngas (traditional skirts). Behind my tiny cute brother are two of my mothers. One who gave birth to me and one who I called Amma. Our neighbor who took care of me and who I recall most of my time spent with, sharing a bosom with. In her house, I split my pinky finger and got stitched. It’s still there. In her small bathroom, she would cleanse me with bubbles and giggles. She would put me to bed for me to wet. She would teach me how to hug. She would teach me, of what I know of now. She would teach me how to long for someone. My cousin would always come and get me when the night was deep in sleep. A knock on the door and I could never hold back my tears. I rarely spent time with my own mom. I was three in a half happy with life in the plastic milk bottled I carried around jumping with joy in my lehnga and bangles everyday. Until one day, I was to leave to a place called United States to be with my father along with my mother which also meant leaving behind Amma. And I just did not want to. My separation from Amma isn’t clear. But it feels like the knock on her door for someone to come get me. Terrifying. Fearful. My first encounter with loss.

Here is my mom. Neelam Ara. She has her own story I look up to and adore. She sacrificed her whole life for me yet we still don’t have a connection. Imagine that. She cries for me, I cry for her. She is getting older by the day and I still refuse to give her my whole heart. I promise I have tried. I still try. I massage her feet. I lay on her arm sniffing her underarms which always smell so heavenly like lavender and flowers. A mom’s scent. I always thought this was our connection. For me my sense of smell helps me find home. I have only slept in one man’s arms. Sniffing his scent the way I sniff my mom’s. It helps me recognize where I belong. As I tried to obey, argue, rebel as a child towards my mother for separating me from Amma, I always felt a space I couldn’t get back. Maybe this is why I still rebel, argue and try to obey as best as I can. To really connect to her. Though with tremendous respect, I still felt cold in New York City. Meeting with my father who I once said wasn’t my dad. He was aggressive, blunt and didn’t like kids much but did his best to make them smile at any cost.

Here is a family trip somewhere in New York, I always liked my hair like that with little flowers or bubbly hair ties. I want my daughter to have the cutest hair ties too! This memory reminds me a lot of my parents and their arguments. My mother always being patient. My dad with the upper hand always silencing us. A very confusing time in my childhood. He would ask me to hug him and I remember refusing. I remember him telling my mom to dress me in a looser shirt but all I wanted was to be a in a beautiful dress. I never liked him much after that. It was funny to me. I grew up in a desi household where your shirts have to cover your ass and not show too much of our curves or hips. But, we were born with them. So then what? Wear an XXL. Got it. I was a very curious person. I always wanted to go to the library alone. Even though I wasn’t allowed to. I always wanted to travel and told my mom I would. She would always say no not alone. I would be devastated. I would hide under the covers and read books and forgetting my pain of constantly hearing no’s. No you can’t go there. No you can’t do that. No you can’t wear that. Obviously there were great things. But I was ashamed sometimes of my language and accent. I was ashamed I couldn’t speak English. I was ashamed my mother couldn’t. I wanted to learn English and excel in it. One of my greatest accomplishments till today! I remember struggling in ESL and always being called out of art class to practice reading. I would dread the fact I was being deprived of learning how to express myself in a different way. Art to me was a new world like words. My words still get jumbled in my head and in translation so I can’t express myself to the best of abilities. But art! Boy was art like a new world to me. Coloring, shading, going crazy with crayons and markers. I even had a crush on a Guyanese kid named Ihsan who always bullied my accent. He would always wanna be partnered with Andrea, a blonde haired beautiful girl. Andrea and I became friends with Cindy and we would play totally spies but I would always end up being the dark skin brown girl named Alex. With the short hair. I didn’t mind but I always thought I wasn’t pretty enough to play the orange hair girl or the hot brunette. Every time I would want to express this, I didn’t know how. I started to cave. And suppress my voice.

I don’t know how old I am here. I went from playing with Barbie's and wearing bangles to loving dragon ball z and wanting to play need for speed at a young age. I hated how I couldn’t voice my opinion to other girls so I wanted to know everything about sports. I became bright eyed and talkative. I wanted to know things. I wanted to learn again. I wanted to play for the WNBA. I loved monkey bars. I loved racing other boys in my class. I didn’t know how to speak to boys so I would be rude. I liked being around the guys. It was fun until I grew up a bit and they never picked the only girl on the court. I felt dismantled. I didn’t know where to belong to. At home, it was always wear baggy clothes now. For my sister it was different. She was supposed to be more feminine. Like this, I went back to books. My favorite story is the balloon tree. I still think about how beautiful a balloon tree would look like in the midst of the night. Just a pretty girl and a tree filled with different colors of balloons. I started to leave a world I didn’t know how to cope in and jump into a world I could learn from and connect to meeting different people from Maya Angelou to Clifford the big red dog to Eric Walters.

I felt something familiar. I felt ache when I found this photo today. Something nobody ever noticed. I cut myself out thinking I didn’t want to be a part of this world anymore. I wish I had more resources and friends I could have talked to. A teacher who could have understood me. Parents I could relay my heart to. In the fourth grade, I got an award for being the most empathetic. I use to have anxiety to have my name called out so I wouldn’t go up on the stage so I prayed I never would get an award. But when I did! I was so excited. I went home and showed my parents they were happy for me but said, what about your grades? What does empathetic mean? Like the fresh cut oranges in my plate, I still remember the feeling of not being good enough. I am learning to confront a lot of my feelings. Today I questioned my insecurities. If I will ever be good enough. Why does this world feel so cold? And why do I still feel so alone? When did my responsibilities begin and when will they stop? Maybe this was all a joke and hysteria to keep going. But why am I losing and not knowing where I belong? A lot of questions need answers and one of those is —

I smile in hope. How beautiful is this journey, Tayyaba? Reminding myself to bask in it.

O Allah’s angels, the gatekeepers of my heart, lighten my burden for me. Ask of your lord and pray for me as I pray for the souls distraught in this world, in hopes to meet him.

Until then, I will be patient and live to the best of my abilities. In sha allah. May we all have a good ending.

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