[ Sunset of 2007 ]
True, the past is best left behind; except perhaps for those precious memories that you must cherish. Yet there come times when reflection on the past is inevitable and even necessary. The end of a year is that time. And so, I reflect...
The year I am putting behind myself is not just another year. I leave so much behind with 2007, in a sense even myself. My former self, that is.
As usual, 2007 started off with the promise of brighter tomorrows, new resolutions and renewed optimism as with the beginning of each year. Yet, at the time, my future was so uncertain that deep down, I was rather afraid. Having left Junior High, I wondered where I would go next. Of course, I would study further. But the question was where.
My GCE O’level results came; I was disappointed knowing that my tardy revision had stopped me from achieving better. My parents, though, were surprised I had done that well with just a few weeks of revising. But the monotony of the days lingered. I had naught to do, and a job (apart from at my dad’s office) was out of question. So I stayed at home; ate, slept, watched television, got on and off cyberspace and the telephone and the occasional trip out...
There was someone around whom most of my year revolved. At first, I felt utterly and completely besotted. But as days flew by, I somehow became someone unrecognizable; even to myself. Some point along the way, I felt as though I was caught in the eye of an ever whirling hurricane of confusion. I had no idea what I was doing wrong; somehow I had got my priorities mixed up. I had always been temperamental, but I found myself directing fits of rage at people I didn’t mean to and bursting into tears for god knows what reason!
I must have, should have, seen it coming, but I guess I was too blinded by some things. When it did happen, the impact of the ‘explosion’ left me shocked but made me see things in a clearer way than I had in quite some time. It was like being dazzled when someone flicks on the light after you’ve been groping in pitch blackness for ages.
Horrified, I was, to think it was too late to see. Too late to change. Too late to prevent the damage. To myself and everyone I cared for. Thank God Almighty, I was saved by the ones I truly love...
Even then, I felt trapped. I had no idea why or by what, only that I had the constant feeling of being chained. Then we had to leave. Of course, we (my family and I) had planned the move; packing our belongings into boxes, etc. We were going to leave in a calm, relaxed manner – no last minute rushes. That’s what we thought. However, the night before we were supposed be leaving, my younger brother fell and fractured his arm (his third fracture in two years). The impact of the fracture had dented the other bone and needed surgery to set it right. Or so they said.
We left within the hour in such a furious rush that I could not quite grasp that that was it!! That was leaving. That was leaving the country of my blood that I had called home for all of my life. That was leaving if not for good, just then, then for a long, long time. That was my lifelong dream.
I looked towards the city as the ferry whirred to the airport. The “bodu dhidha” (big flag) that stood softly waving in its red, green and white splendour. The Islamic Centre with its majestic gold crescent on the white dome. For a moment a lump caught in my throat. A wave of nostalgia swept over me and I wanted to wave to the city as I used to as a kid, crying out “Bodu dhidha, bye!!”
Then I saw the jungle of buildings rising from the city; the many vehicles zooming, the people and the sounds. I remembered what the society had become. Was becoming. Quite abruptly I turned, towards my destination. To the future. I was not leaving anything behind, except my past. Yes, there were my relatives and I would miss them, but that was another story altogether. I was leaving behind all the hurt, all my mistakes and all of my regrets.
Looking back, I realize that the emancipation I had longed for happened as the flight took off from “home”. I only realized it in Singapore where we transited, en route, for my younger brother’s treatment.
It was the laughter. My laughter. I didn’t remember the last time I had laughed like that. In fact, laughed at all. It must have been months. And it felt good; so good. My laughter was uncontrollable and contagious as I rolled over on the white bed of the hotel suite, joined in by my family. And I felt - physically felt, the heavy weight I had been carrying around leave me – my soul. I felt like the colours of the rainbow, like a soaring bird, like floating... like everything beautiful in the world... I welcomed gaiety back to me...
A couple of days later, I was looking out of a plane window onto a never ending greenery, with houses peeking out here and there. It was a beautiful sight. And as the plane landed in Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud, I felt that at least one part - the most difficult part, of my emancipation was complete...
