How did I end up so alone?

Two years ago, in a desperate attempt to stop me from trying to move so far away from home, everyone and their mothers came up with every BS excuse in the book to prevent me from going: being far away from home would look bad on my father’s izzat, people will talk, there won’t be any home food, I’m a girl hence anything can happen, everyone will worry, blah blah blah.

No one ever thought to say that they needed me–not their honor needed me, not their izzat, not their need to have people not talk–but me, Nida. No one said that if I went, life would be any different other than the fact that I would miss home and that people will talk about an alone girl being far away. No one said that things would be different if I left, that their lives would somehow be emptier or less worth it if I left, or that my presence in their lives made a difference to them.

The sad part is–I don’t think that the two years I’ve been away has changed any of that. If anything, it has proven that back home, life will go on without me. It has shown me that my friends are perfectly capable of laughing, loving, and living without me being a constant presence in their life. And in these past two years, there hasn’t been anyone new in my life that I can truly and honestly say ‘needs’ me in any sense of the word.

Tonight as I write this, I truly and fully understand the security a child must bring to its mother. Or maybe the same thing happens when you get a ring put on your finger. Somehow it all ends up being an assurance that if you move far away, if something happens to you, if you disappear, life won’t go on–at least not for a while. It’s the idea that someone needs you—really truly needs you. They don’t need your cooking skills that are easily replaceable with a cook, or your straight A’s in science, or your ability to swim in a perfect line–but you.

It must be a very, very wonderful feeling. Scary—but wonderful. Enough to make you stay.