Tucked away on a shelf I can’t reach, the store staff help me get a book titled, “Mississauga: The First 10,000 Years”. Holding this book about the city I was raised in, while I stand in the city I was born in, Karachi, makes time and space bend onto itself and any feeling the word ‘home’ has, radiates from it’s dusty cover. I don’t open it. I need to buy it.
This relic, released in 2002, started being compiled in 1994 when I was only 2 years old.
I enjoyed reading this line in particular “Not even the dead are assured a permanent rest in Mississauga.” This was referring to the relocation of buried ones which occurred in 2002. I smiled because it reminded me exactly what my life had felt like before I left Canada earlier this year.
I love to work, contrary to what my parents may think of my work ethic. It just manifests differently, or at least appears that way on the surface. When I explain I need to feel fulfilled in my work, or purpose beyond survival and paying bills this translates as idealistic, impractical and naïve to them.
However, my parents are also just as motivated by purpose and fulfillment, but their values which define those words are different from my own.
Or as my dad explains Python to me. “your a doesn’t have a value”.
a = fulfillment
print(a)To my parents, providing a safe place to live, food, and supporting their children is not just a responsibility, but something they are driven to do because it is fulfilling. It’s fulfilling because they were raised with these values and felt aligned to them without much friction.
Despite my parents’ best efforts I don’t feel fulfilled by this. To me it’s a practical fact of life, a survival necessity. Maybe one day I will be wise enough to feel fulfilled in this simple act of life.
Most of my life I witnessed my parents working with few intentional breaks. Vacations weren’t planned, but happened by chance when something would come up such as a relative’s wedding in Pakistan, or some other occurrance derailing their original plan.
Much like that, this year has been a break from work for me. I didn’t plan this extended period of not working, I was forced into it from every angle and I was out of options, out of energy and out of cash to keep pushing through every obstacle that came my way back in Mississauga.
And as much as I want to put in the grind and get back to work, I know it can’t be with the same mindset I had. Just as [a = fulfillment] doesn’t make the program understand what I mean, forcing myself to find fulfilling work doesn’t result in fulfilling work.
If there is a common ground I can draw between my parents’ definition of fulfillment and my own it’s this: to make the most of what is presented to you. I still have the same goals and ambitions, but what is changing is how I get there. I don’t know how I’m going to get there, I probably never did, but wherever I am I’ll show up as honestly as I can and let that guide me.
✧✧✧
Yes, I am currently in Karachi. Much like every other trip this year I didn’t plan on being here. I had some visa issues through which I chose to leave Dubai abruptly because it was the cheapest option. It’s only been a week since I’ve been here, but it’s already been very eventful. The things that bothered me about this city don’t bother me as much anymore, and the things that I loved, I love even more now.
Lastly, I’ve been hosting open Zoom calls for writers the last couple of months. If you’re a writer looking to get a fresh perspective or just talk about your latest project with other human writers then check the post below :)
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