Barren | ✓

p u r p l e

there is no greater happiness than independence.

as a kid, I came from a family with humble beginnings, my only social outing being to school and then playing with my friends.

school was three lanes away. my friends stayed in the same building i did.

years passed by and my friends grew apart, each choosing a new destination of their own while I looked on at their travel diaries, astounded.

how did anyone get the courage to go so far away from home?

my parents would leave me for a day and I would feel the isolation shake me to my core until they were back.

home never really felt like home without them.

once college happened, travel then became a 10 minute affair from one suburb to another.

that was bravery beyond bounds for me.

by now, my friends had begun travelling to unheard-of destinations.

i once curiously asked them how much a trip like that would cost.

the answer gave me sleepless nights for several days.

college ended and i was a graduate with a basic paying job. it was enough.

until the letter came home.

six months ago, my employer had asked whether we would be interested to write a scholarship exam for further education as a part of an initiative taken by the firm.

knowing that my parents couldn't afford the dream of my post graduation, i readily signed up.

giving an exam wasnt really that big of a deal. besides, who knew whether i was even going to crack it.

ironic, right?

i did.

the letter came home and i was jubilous, but only for a minute - for what came next shook my very core.

"... you have been offered a place at the prestigious London School of Economics for our prestigious course spanning one year, all expenses included, with the scholarship aiding your financial payments up to 90%..."

london? london?

wasn't this where great people went to study?

how would a poor me even manage to travel there, far less live? how would i travel to a place i had never been to?

days and days passed by in deliberation before my parents forced me to accept the offer of a lifetime, as they sternly put it.

but didn't they understand, i was always shielded in their cocoon? how was i to step out now?

i didnt know how to step out.

this was eight years ago. the first time i sat in the flight, i shivered and silently cried during takeoff. i threw up in 30 minutes and had a nosebleed after an hour.

i vowed to never travel again.

but a year later, i travelled back home with my eyes open. things were not the same, anymore. i was not the same anymore, for in that one year i had learned how to fly.

i had learned to see the world.

and that was a rush i couldn't give up.

i returned shortly to get married to a doctor. he was based in bangalore but had to travel for conventions round the year. as an analyst at a job that required me to travel globally for yearly planning, it enabled me to see the world with unfiltered eyes.

it only made me thirsty for more.

two years ago, we went through a divorce. but that didnt take away my love for exploring the world. if anything, it only made me save more passionately to travel the world by myself.

my friends offered me sympathies and my family biodatas of prospective boys who could fulfill the supposed void of my life.

i simply smiled at them and accepted their cards, tossing them in a forgotten pile right next to my passport.

my passport has been my bible.

and perhaps it's the only ticket i need to not let the world enclose me into my cocoon again.

🌌

- by an independent girl once cocooned into her fears

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