Know it none

My name is...umm...Zoya

As a kid growing up with six people in a one room apartment in the suburbs of Mumbai, I always imagined myself having a 'greater than life' life and a penthouse in New York and to look like that really fancy lady from that really white movie that I saw on my tiny little TV. Not that I remember much about my childhood, but I do remember thinking that I would work so hard in life, that I would never have to live like I used to. I like thinking that the reason I don't remember a lot of my childhood has to be some kind of trauma, but again, I also like thinking that because it makes me feel mysterious. It is mostly because I didn't do much as a child. I had one friend Heram, who I would paint with, if I was not studying or at school. I never learned how to ride a bike or to swim or to play any kind of sport whatsoever. I never even learned how to paint really. It's not that my parents were bad parents, they were just unaware. Well, maybe they were unknowingly bad at parenting, but I don't mind that because I know in my heart that they wanted the best for me. You see, they got married at the age of 18 (mom) and 23 (dad), when both of them were financial (and mentally) pretty unstable. Then they had me and my brother, and the instability just kept increasing, until screaming every day just became part of our lives and crying out loud like an absolutely crazy person was just a regular human emotion to all of us.

Okay, so coming back to my life goals as a kid...I did work very hard and I achieved what at that time I thought were big things to achieve and I got a job that at that time I thought was a great job. The job is great, and by great, I mean that it is one of the most interesting jobs I could have had, but it doesn't pay me enough to go to New York and buy that penthouse. I work with a global company as a white collar crime investigator and it pays me well enough to do whatever I want in Mumbai and live an extremely comfortable life. I also met the love of my life when I was 24 and got married to him at 26 - BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE! Overall, I would say I love my life more than I would have loved the dream life I imagined as a kid.

My name is...umm...Zoya and this is my life in 3 minutes ha!

The therapist was listening to Zoya very patiently and making her notes and smiling like she cared. Zoya looked at her after her 'life summary' and realised that maybe she gave out way too much information for a question so simple - Do you like your life? This was Zoya's third session with Dr. Tina and with each session, Zoya was getting more comfortable with the idea of therapy. The reason Zoya started therapy was a not so gentle push from her best friend Priti, after a nervous breakdown over a minor mistake at work. While it is normal for people to stress about mistakes at work or anywhere really, to cry for an hour about grammatical errors in a client report was alarming. The first session was a discussion only about work, where Dr. Tina subtly hinted that Zoya might have a toxic relation with her boss and the Company. Session two wasn't great because it just made Zoya feel worse, as the discussions were mostly around Zoya's need to be perfect all the time. Zoya was not a sad person at all. In fact, she was the life of every party and the coolest boss (according to people who worked with her) and a very happy wife, daughter.

Dr. Tina finally gave a reaction to the 'life summary', well, Dr. Tina's reaction is almost always a follow up question than a reaction. "How much of your childhood do you remember?", she asked. Zoya was surprised that out of everything she said, Dr. Tina was curious about the most irrelevant thing she said. Zoya explained that it was just a joke, and that she remembered most of it..mostly most of it. Dr. Tina had a lot to ask about this, but decided to move on to Zoya's relationship with her parents and the other therapy-y topics.

Zoya had really started liking these sessions. Not like she didn't have anyone to talk to. She had the most loving husband who she loved very much and could talk to about anything. But the idea of paying someone who HAS TO then listen to you talk, was comforting to Zoya. 

Zoya really loved her name. She would always tell people that if she could choose a name for herself, she would have always chosen the same name. But she always did feel like she gave this name to herself, that it wasn't hers, but she had to remind herself that it was. Zoya's brother's name was Adi. She was really proud of her parents for doing the naming the kids part right. 

After the session, Zoya was feeling very nostalgic and decided to visit her mother and go through her box of trinkets that she had preserved and updated regularly since she was 12. The box had everything starting from the paintings she made with Heram, to the receipt of the first time she had a drink, all the letters she ever received, tickets from her first trip abroad, her certificates and medals, a very well preserved butt of her first cigarette (very nicely hidden from the common eye so as to never have her mother see it). The more she looked at the items in the box, the more relieved she was since she remembered all memories linked to those items. "Sometimes, people are really right about therapy" she said irritatedly.