let me be whole
a love letter to growth, identity, and loss
now listening to:
fact: i grew up as the eldest child of a first generation immigrant family.
for my entire life, my family and i have been dotting around parts of countries, searching for the best parts of a world that wasn’t built to cater to us. a better job, a better life, a better education, a better place. searching for… something to make us whole? we didn’t realise we’d be leaving a part of ourselves in every place we left behind.
growing up without a permanent home builds a version of you that is able to be fluid. you are not resistant to change, and can embrace the ever-changing world that you now live in.
i do not need tradition to function. i don’t need the rules, the confines, the rumours of the many walls i spent years attempting to find myself within.
change is the fire that burns within me. when the snow gives way to sun, i feel revived. when the sun begins to set earlier and earlier, i settle into a familiarly inconsistent rhythm: i don’t know what’s next, and i can never hope to. but i know how to make the most of it, and that’s what will make everything okay in the end.
fact: i am the only daughter of my two-child household. my mother is the youngest of three girls, my father an only child.
perspective is a beautiful thing.
i developed a strange hope for the world which led to sometimes placing faith in the wrong people and wrong things. this hasn’t yet changed. the entire time, i heard whispers of ‘your family are the only people who will be there for you’ and ‘you’re on your own’ at every corner i turned. i grew into my mother’s hopefulness, and my father’s conviction. my mother’s melancholy, and my father’s anger. oddly, it was both terrifying and comforting, but i knew there was more.
i did end up proving them wrong. i found my people. they may be far from me now, but i know they are there. i like to think it encouraged my parents to find theirs, and to put more effort into those relationships. family is a home to which most of us will always return, but it helps to have a village.
fact: home is where the heart is. and yet…
growing up in your hometown makes the world seem smaller than you can bear. your focus becomes escape: move out, move away, experience bigger things. every fourth person you see is an old friend you once lived and learned alongside. your best friend is down the road, the boy you once liked is a five minute drive away.
but live in a busy city, and you’ll think the world is huge. no longer fitting snugly in the palm of your hand, you can walk past a hundred people in the space of a couple minutes, and not recognise a single one. where is home? who is home?
fact: i have done good things. and i have also made mistakes. they do not make me evil.
then why is there a constant nagging at the back of my mind, mourning the person i used to be?
the younger i am, the fewer things i have done wrong. the older i get, the more i find myself needing to learn. how to think, how to speak, how to act. move to a new city, start a new job? meet new people, experience new situations. like people, and hate them. treat people unkindly, whether you feel like they deserve it or not. understand that sometimes, that’s okay.
you’d think at some point you’d have it all down, but wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with wrinkles. speak to enough people and you’ll know.
fact: i have lived, learnt, and left behind.
how do i say ‘i miss you’ in a way that makes your heart ache the same way as mine?
some days, the memory in the back of my mind feels more bitter than sweet. i want to write letters to everyone i have ever had to say goodbye to. i can’t always handle the weight of knowing that there’s a last time for everything.
there are people still walking the corridors of my life who i will never be able to hold the same way as i did ten years ago. people i can never again be honest and open with. there are people i’m still learning about, finding that i love or understand them a little more.
but you pick yourself up and you move on. sometimes you revisit them, softly, gently, in your mind’s eye. but never do you ever reach a hand out.
that’s the thing about the past. if it returns, it does so only to haunt you. and the future? well, only time will tell.
fact: i am 21 now. i am a woman. and yet, just a girl.
i do not know what i am doing right now. i don’t know what i’m doing next week. in five years’ time, i don’t know where i’ll be.
i know only that my heart is filled with well-wishes for the people of the past, and the hope of gifting kindness in abundance for the people in the future.
the parts of me left in places i will never see again build something shaped a little like a home. i remember each friend i made, each smile we shared, and each tear we shed.
i might not remember their favourite colours, but i remember the things they were passionate about.
tell me- is that enough?
fact: there isn’t a quick fix to most things in life.
there’s not much you can pick up and say ‘okay, this will solve my problem’. ‘okay, this will fix me’.
it’s uncertainty, constant doubt, an inherent sense of dread that something will not work out the way you planned for it to. it manifests itself when you’re running a little late, or you finally stand up for yourself, or when you’re screaming for help in a room full of people who love you and nobody quite understands what you’re asking for.
when the floor gets knocked out from underneath you, and you’re breathing like every one is your last, what do you really have left?
what do you wish you had left?
love from,
yahvi :)
