The Story That Never Transpired

I found myself awake yet again going through some photographs from when I was younger.

I was wearing my ethnic attire that my mum used to love dressing me up in.

Even calling it ethnic attire implies there was a balancing act of growing up away from where it was the default.

I’ve always been told and taught my roots, and I think a lot of that has spilled over in ensuring I understand where things come from, including the words I slow down with each week.

But I suddenly also felt a sense of sadness.

I was looking at a photo of a moment in time when perhaps that little girl had assumptions about what her life would be like when she reached the age I was now.

I’m approaching a big milestone next week, and the quiet grief (if that is the right word), is appearing more than I like.

Why is grief appearing in this story now?

I realise I have spent months analysing and overanalysing the past.

Past decisions, past mistakes, past struggles.

I’ve faced my past in the same room.

I’ve faced the absent father too.

And saw his back to me again.

An image I’ll probably carry as fuel to ensure I continue not to let it define my entire story.

I’ve grieved quietly for a while because the story I assumed when I was younger, and probably have been assuming ever since, is one that just hasn’t transpired.

I know goal setting would have probably helped.

Maybe I should have believed in manifestation more?

But those who know that any attempt to stand up and go that bit further produced many achievements, but also dead ends too.

Those dead ends have felt overpowering recently.

I watch those around me at my age handle more than I probably am right now, and see how they are doing things perhaps I wanted to in this story I had created in my mind.

But the reality is a little different.

And I come back to Shiv Bhakti.

All the reels about being a Shiv Bhakt keep telling me that He tests you by taking everything away.

Killing an ego that you may have built over time, and then from that a sense of self that was hiding behind it comes through.

This is the true anchored self that was waiting all this time.

Those reels produce tears too.

And again I can’t make out whether it’s because it’s the lack of sleep or this silent mirror that is reflecting on the reality of a life that actually exists compared to the story I expected to be told.

I don’t know what the truth is.

My equation with Shiva has been interestingly subtle but stark too.

Doors closed eventually, even though there were clear signs to find the right room way before.

Within those moments grew a voice in the written word.

I ended up stopping that effort of trying too hard in rooms that I eventually saw were not for me.

I listened to myself more.

Dealt with the inevitable guilt that came with the word ‘no’.

I faced my look in the mirror that saw detachment, and of a story coming to an end.

I suddenly felt detached from Shiva whilst telling the world he was the reason for these transformations.

Then feeling guilty that I hadn’t been the best bhakt he could want.

And now this weird feeling of wanting to align aims for the future with the reality of the ground beneath are happening.

Maybe the anchor is forming.

And I am now able to tell the story from this voice that made it through the rubble.

Perhaps writing the story that isn’t told by anyone else is the fear.

But what is a story?

I had tackled the Latin roots of the word history before.

Historia was there then too.

And it’s here describing itself with words like ‘inquiry’, ‘account’, ‘narrative’ and ‘history’.

But there were two stories here.

One that was happening in real time, where I was awake in the middle of the night looking at a photo of a younger me having experienced all that happened.

And the narrative of expectation that I was crying over.

Historia evolved into the Old French estorie / estoire meaning ‘chronicle’ now too as well as keeping the idea of a narrative and history.

And through the Norman influence it entered the English language to become the word story which is closely linked to the idea of a tale.

So many moments have pushed me to confront this tension.

And I have done this hard work over months. There has been this grief - this feeling of helplessness that the story didn’t transpire.

I am coming to terms with it all; trying to find that attachment in the detached image in the mirror.

And now I have the realisation that I can write the story in the unique way it demands.

This is new territory that has a tinge of familiarity to all the other times I started again.

But this time I have to admit, there is a different texture to it.

The resolve is different.

Perhaps the voice I am now hearing is my own.

The guilt isn’t really there, and I am breathing through this grief.

There is so much I want to do. There is a queue of possibilities watching me handle this messy phase.

Part of me will perhaps still feel unsteady walking on this path, but this sigh I am letting out is meaningful to me.

It’s still my own sigh.

Maybe I am breathing out the story that never transpired, and finally letting it go.