I returned from a month-long trip home on Thursday, and am still wading through the sleepy mist of jetlag and homesickness. The uncertainty of knee-jerk changes and choppy execution at work is so exactly as it was before I left on my 5 week vacation that I am for the first time comforted by the familiar absolute lack of stability. It isn't that I once more report to a new manager and belong to a new department (this has happened to me now 4 times in 3 years of employment - no big whoopie) - actually its not work at all that has me riding the waves and crests of my meandering mind. I find that rather than solidifying my beleifs that had emerged from long years of experience as a woman, a daughter and an Indian - this trip home has tossed out all my pre-conceived notions and put the onus of my decision-making process squarely on the shoulders of my own intellect. For all my posturing as an intelligent, largely self-sufficient, emancipated woman of the here and now -I find myself terrified without the crutches of culture, tradition and ritual to back me up or conveniently hold me back from decisions I didnt want to face. The time-tested scapegoat of duty and sacrifice have deserted me and I learn that I knew nothing of my own insecurities and strengths until those trappings had been stripped away. In the long hours of exhausted sleep this weekend, my sub-conscious mind only conjured up torturous and inventive scenarios of regret. Surely it is not a divine warning but only my simply mind that communicates using such unsophisticated signs and obvious symbols.
At this juncture in my life when I have been handed everything I had asked for, whined about, made a production of sacrificing - I have to grit my teeth against turning tail and running from the reality of my desires. Not only is its beauty terrible - but like the heart of roaring flame, or the savage crashing of ocean waves, it is also mesmerizing in its potential for destruction. I am not afraid that it will go away - I cannot imagine not being releived to be released from its strange hypnosis. What I am afraid of is that it will consume me and everyone I have always wanted to protect and spit out the bones of my mistakes. I feel prickly will my doubts sticking like needles into my loved ones' contentedness and hardwon peace of mind. I have not mastered the art of turning those needles inwards and never allowing the bruises to show - but I am learning to everyday.