I went to Bangladesh in May which is why I missed my monthly blog post last month. As I write this on a Canadian, hot, summer day, while commuting back home from work, I still can’t believe I made that trip. 6 years was way too long.
I moved out of Bangladesh in 2010 and last visited the country in 2016. I was grateful to have two places to live in two different cities there like before. But none of them were the same places from my childhood. I didn’t visit those homes 6 years ago and I didn’t dream of them for all these years. So much was missing, so many people were gone now. My memories of my life there before 2010 already had some gaps and it felt like whatever I had left would slip away any minute.
I also turned a year older there. Don’t remember the last time I celebrated my birthday with my cousins. I ate three different cakes and had to pretend to be surprised by their surprise birthday plan for me. The neighbors' kids were invited and they had way more fun with the balloons and party hats than I did.
On most days, the heat was unbearable. So I agreed to the rickshaw drivers’ high fare demands. Men in the family were emotionally triggering. The looming presence of patriarchy in the kitchen & at the dining table was hard to sit through, but I focused on all the home cooked food that I can’t eat in Canada. I didn’t have much privacy or freedom as I do here, so I stayed glued to my cousins. We ate all the food we could think of, listened to music & sang, hung out on the rooftop, laughed at memes and held each other in our sleep.
I tried to steal some moments for myself amidst all this too. I visited the homes of my childhood where other families live now. I passed by my schools and saw kids in uniforms that I used to wear. I met an online friend for the first time. I played with babies, clicked pictures of almost every meal I had, took videos of rainfalls, sunsets and of us singing. I documented all that I could while actively trying to sleep less and stay in the present to take it all in.
6 years was way too long but my heart finally has some peace now.
