I am afraid to cut the tags on these clothes. New clothes, for a new life. Across a continent they will fly, with the tags of my fear trailing behind. A simple line to cross, from precaution to paranoia. After years of waiting and hoping, I find myself suddenly unable to hold on to the right side of that line. Through so many dark months I have waited and prayed, prepared for the worst, and now- I am unable to have faith in the best. The self that I believed in, that held on to strong words and courage, laughed through hunger and hurt and disbelief and fear seems suddenly dead. Replaced instead by a woman that trembles at good fortune, and leaves the tags on the new clothes, leaves the boxes half-packed. Having spent my strong self on hope, the shell that remains is lost, unsure of what to do with the future that was once hoped for.
The only certainty that remains is uncertainty, this sureness that fortune is not in my hands. The girl that called to the winds and trusted the universe to hold her up in flight suddenly cowers under this single certainty- that the winds are treacherous; they turn without warning and dance to malicious calls that I do not hear.
And so I leave the tags on the clothes, in case they must be returned. And I leave the boxes half-packed, unsure of where to send them and when. I worry about what comes next, even as I say I have lived through the worst. And when I am spent with fear, I free fall with the words of my favorite poet, that give way under my feet and don't even attempt to hold me up-
"Ek sailaab tha, sara ghar beh gaya. Phir bhi jeene ka, thoda sa dar reh gaya."
(The flood washed all of my home away. And despite that, I am still a little afraid to live.)
