The Story of Me

Someone asked me "What's your story?"

And my whole story came flooding to my mind. 

I don't think about it often, but I never forget it either. 

It's my root, my core, and all of me, every molecule, every facet stems from there. And it's such a long story, with so many people, in so many places. 

But that's not important. 

What's important is, my story has always inspired me. I've never been disappointed by my story. 

By events in my life, sure, disappointment is part of life. But the whole story is just amazing. 

From the baby girl who was born in February during a snowstorm in Quetta at an Army hospital, to the woman I am today. I've seen so much of life, some of it I never want to see again. And other moments which move me with such blinding feelings, of love, of a Higher Power, of the goodness of people, of Karma.

My earliest memory is when I was (maybe) 5. 

It's not summer yet. Karachi afternoon. I'm in the backyard at my grandfather's house. It looks like miles and miles of grass, even though it's just an ordinary garden. But I guess everything seems exaggerated when you're little. I'm wearing a red sweater, with a monkey's face on it. The monkey is blue and yellow. He has plastic eyes. The kind with a white base and transparent cover, with a small round black disc inside which moves when you move. My aunt who's just started college comes out. She's so beautiful. She's holding a silver, shiny, round steel bowl. "Michi, dekho meine kya banaya hai!"

I'm so excited, I think it's food.

I look at the bowl and it looks like watery mud, the kind that's on the side of the lawn after it rains. "Mujhe nahin khana..."

She laughs and looks even more beautiful, then sits on the veranda steps. Puts the bowl on her side, and reaches out to take me into her arms. I love hugs, I go willingly. I notice there are sticks in the mud in the bowl. She makes me sit on her leg and takes a stick out of the mud. Then takes my hand and starts drawing on it with the muddy stick. I try to pull my hand back but she tells me not to and I listen. She promises me something amazing will happen, I believe her. Some time later, a drawing of the monkey on my shirt is on my palm. I am mesmerized by it. I didn't know then, but that mud in the bowl was Henna.

And this memory has nothing to do with the whole story, the amazing story of my life, the story which inspires me, which inspires me every day, and makes me who I am.