15 Mar What Stories Serve You Best?
Stories elicit sentiments from love to hate, joy to sadness, compassion to misery, and every feeling in the human emotional lexicon. The stories we tell ourselves and make up in our minds have the most control over us. It’s no wonder their influence lasts long after the story is finished and held after the heart needs or desires. Some stories no longer serve our higher purpose so they must be burned at the funeral pyre, ashes floating in the sky allowing ourselves to grow, heal, and begin anew.
During the mid-80’s, even though Chicago’s suburb of Bellwood had been home for half my life (I was only 12 years old at the time), Daada, Daadi, and Puppa decided it was best to go to a climate similar to the arid desert of Pakistan we had left behind just six years prior. Puppa’s bones hurt and his joints ached from the wind chill gusts that blew through O’Hare Airport where he worked. Decades later the aches have grown; never a man to remain quiet about his situation, Puppa grumbles about the cold that sets in Southern California, which means if it dips below 75 degrees Fahrenheit.
“As most animal migrations go, our family relocated as a herd…”
As most animal migrations go, our family relocated as a herd: Daada and Daadi led the charge, with our family of five, uncles, aunties, cousins, and great-aunts totaling 21 in all. Most of us lived within a few miles of one another but it was understood that our home was Grand Central Station for the Pakistani community in the Inland Empire, a portion of Southern California.
“Samita, your school isn’t completed so you’ll have to be in the cafeteria of another local elementary school while the buildings are finished,” Puppa told me one day.
We’ve moved across the country, before the last year of elementary school from the only school I’ve known since Kindergarten and I’m a refugee. Just great!
Most people knew each other or at least that’s what it felt like on the first day of 6th grade: kids played hopscotch, using paper clips all attached together, as opposed to rocks; a few girls jumped double-dutch but not as much as in Bellwood; basketball; dodgeball; kids walked around and talked.
Reluctantly, I approached a group of girls whose leader was a head taller than the rest of us with a name almost as unusual as mine – Venus.
“Hi, my name is Samita,” I began. “I just moved here from Chicago.”
Stares.
“What type of name is Samita?” Venus questioned.
“Its origins are from Arabic even though my ethnicity is Indian or Pakistani depending on what stand you took after Partition. My grandfather was in Pakistan when I was born in London, but he wanted to name his first granddaughter,” I continued as the stares turned to shock and open-mouthed looks. “He tells me that it means the ‘most beautiful pearl in the ocean.’ ” I smile. They did just ask what type of name was Samita and I answered. Right?
“You are weird!” Venus finally spoke as the other girls stood mute, looking at me in amazement (not the good kind either).
It was one of my first peer encounters with shame and judgment, the two evil stepsisters of healthy emotions that Umme wielded like a master. In fact everyone in my family was training to become a Sith-Lord with a double edged light saber – shame on one end, judgment on the other – used to enforce rules, decorum, decency, morality, and ethics. I don’t resent them for practicing and instilling in me what was inherent in our culture, religion, family dynamics, and overall a protective mechanism for survival.
If most of the elders were Sith-Lords, Daada was a Jedi through and through. He greeted every neighbor and passerby with the same exuberant smile and hello as if saying Salaam to one of his 11 brothers or sisters whom he left behind in our ancestral home; he believed that everything – from the air to the animals – emitted an energy that was connected; his compassion towards others was unmatched; his humbleness unrivaled. He was and remains my hero. With his strong mahogany hand nestled in mine, when we took the short walk from home to the gas station (which he named after his only grand daughter at that time – Samita Service Station), he guided me with love and acceptance of myself no matter what the world told me – even if they were family.
“My parent’s idea of love was controlling others through guilt.”
My parent’s idea of love was controlling others through guilt. As children we live the path our elders set for us as opposed to the journey that we want to create, even if that means struggling uphill on our own, bumbling around in the darkness, and finally finding our stride. It’s scary, as parents, giving our children the freedom to express themselves, go out and make mistakes, learn from their lessons (we hope), and keep living, but that is exactly what life is about – having the courage to be our authentic selves.
Last week, after dancing my tush off, surrounded by women easily two to three decades my senior (just trying to keep up with my elders!) and shaking their groove-thang, I walked out of the local YMCA Zumba class. My phone showed a missed call and a text from our daughter’s counselor and close friend of the family for the last 20 years.
“When you get a chance call me or stop by the school,” it read. “It’s about your daughter.”
One of the many blessings of being a work-from-home parent is that I can drop almost anything and attend to our children. I drove straight to the middle school.
My friend wasn’t surprised I was there within minutes. She explained to me that there was an incident of bullying and our daughter was caught between the aggressor and victim. There was a history with the young lady that was pursuing one of our daughter’s best friends to harass. Unfortunately, this child has shown signs of antagonistic behavior since primary grades at the local elementary school, with mom siding with her own child no matter the situation. Somehow, for the last seven years her child is always the victim and the world is out to get her. That is the mom’s story and it is her version of the truth.
Our daughter was negotiating a peace treaty between the two parties trying to find a middle ground because “it would be so easy if everyone got along.” She’s her mother’s daughter, I thought – hopeful healer.
“Mom, she doesn’t want me to have any other friends than her,” our 12 year-old said. “But that’s not okay.”
It’s not, I thought, but thankfully she came to the conclusion on her own. We discussed being in healthy relationships that do not control and hurt; the history of the young lady and this is who she is unless she gets help from a therapist or counselor; whether our friends get along or not – we are okay; we don’t need to fix anyone or any situation; we work on ourselves and set healthy boundaries.
Monday morning, my noon appointment couldn’t arrive fast enough with my therapist. (You didn’t think I did this all on my own, did you? I have a village of healers guiding me!)
“She learned all of this from me,” I cried. The full-blown cry: snot running, tears streaming, grabbing tissues by the handfuls, hiccupping, and gasping for breath.
Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe.
“It sounds like you’re judging yourself,” Carol noticed. “Please don’t.”
Like a cartoon, a light bulb went off on top of my head. What? Just like that – do not judge myself. I see. I see! Do not judge myself just like I don’t judge or shame others because I too know what that’s like – fearful.
More tears. (I have tears from childhood that are just being released from captivity in my forties. There is a need and demand.)
Daada and I in Pakistan.
What better way to control a human than through fear as opposed to love? Love doesn’t control; love doesn’t use guilt; love doesn’t shame; love doesn’t judge; love doesn’t manipulate; love doesn’t constrict. Love is expansive and endless. Love is courage. Love is brave. Love is kind. Love is truth. Love gives you the freedom to forge your path and if coming to the end you find yourself at a cliff’s edge, you grow wings and soar. Love is the ultimate leap of faith!
Now, I am writing new stories by healing and rediscovering myself. One day at a time and one moment at a time, I’m seeing the world from new eyes and creating a life that speaks to my soul and authentic power. It’s scary having set fire to what didn’t serve me, the blueprint that led me down a path that was set by Puppa and Umme. It was what they knew; it’s not my truth. My journey involves being scared but standing in my integrity; accepting myself; having courage walking on an unchartered course; trusting my instincts; being guided by a faith greater than me, than you, than all of us combined.
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