Dear MA,
I hope you are doing well, although I know it is impossible for you now not to miss me and to be in an agonizing hell for me. Just think how self-centered I am that I have assumed that you will do just that; not a single word of concern about you or FA and SA.
Right now: the Village premise is lively with the guttural, gut-busting, laughter from Friday-night beer-sluggers, interrupted with incoherent songs, no traces of tune or lyrics. I guess that is the universal lingo of drunkards, lost to the world; solely-found amongst fellow inebriates.
I fancy the liberty to join them. Casually sundressed in vibrant tye-dyes, batiks and chickons; esperadilled or barefooted; wanton-eyed; lipped with cherry-hued cupid bows; wild hair asking for the touch of strong masculine fingers. Oh My! The Queen of the Damned!
But there I stood, staring, wistfully, a Rapunzel at the 3rd floor window, with 4 bug-like, bulging eyes, unwashed and sweaty wisps hiding my over-tanned, patchy, scarred face.
The rain-washed concrete walkways, the sand-and-pebbled quads, the freshly-tilled soil, the baby ferns staring up with contemptible fish-eyes. The clicking and thundering footfalls blowing fists at the bruised ego.
Did I just admit that? Damn well I did! I have so many complaints!
Why did I have to leave MA? So that I can have a new beginning? Why could not I have it back home, amongst you? What if I did not want one? Answer me!
Tell me:
What do I feel when I see a 20 year old crying at the plane window as she returns to Sydney from a 6 month trip to India? Should not I be the one with eyes brimful? No! I was not the lucky one: I sat, perplexed, angry, and naive.
How am I supposed to appease Aladdin, a Libyan security guard at 6.00am in the morning, after I offended him by saying he looks like a white Caucasian Australian?
How do I get back to the obnoxious bus-driver shouting, ‘Ain’t you gettin the message!’, after I just fell down on the bus steps, both hands filled with shopping. I just chuckled, fatality taking over my anger.
What am I supposed to do when a Bangali point-blank refused my pleasant advance, with a strict ‘NA!’. Not a ‘No’ or ‘Hi’ even!
How am I suppose to hold my temper when the chauvinistic, Iranian PHD student refuses to acknowledge my presence; bitter of the interest I receive because of my chirpy participation (no modesty please) in group work?
I am…I feel…I think. Uprooted. Left lost. Too busy even to feel a morsel of misery. Without a friend. Involuntarily ignored. Without an existence...a meaningful one. …I am simply floating around, against the up-heaving avid surge of my gloomy heart; along the tide of ever-vigilant mind.
I know MA: you do not have any answers, with the very best of intentions for me, in every drop of your own existence since you conceived me.
It’s all right. I will be fine but not enough to get up and Hoover my room. Let’s just save it for another day, shall we?
Love,
A