My Life — The Way It Turned Out

When I look back at my life, sometimes I wonder how one person can live through so many different versions of herself.

I was once a young girl in a boarding school in the snowy hills. I still remember those years—the cold, the mountains, the feeling of being away from home and growing up surrounded by people who were not family. Those years shaped me in many ways. I learnt to manage on my own. I learnt to adjust. I learnt not to expect someone to always be there to hold my hand.

Then came college, and with it came the age when you start believing that you understand life.

I thought I understood love too.

The truth is, I didn’t really know what love was. I was in love with the idea of love. I believed that if two people chose each other, everything else would somehow fall into place.

So I fought my family. I rebelled. I wanted to marry the person I had chosen, and I was determined that nobody would stop me.

I wish I could go back and talk to that young girl.

I would tell her, “Don’t be in such a hurry. Don’t confuse wanting to be loved with actually being loved. Wait. See the person clearly. See how he treats you when he doesn’t get his way. See how he treats you when nobody is watching. See whether you feel safe, respected and valued.”

But young people don’t listen to older versions of themselves.

I got married.

And the strangest part is that I didn’t even have to wait very long to become disillusioned. The very same night, I knew something was terribly wrong.

I had fought everyone for this marriage, and yet almost immediately I found myself wondering what I had done.

There was no dramatic escape. No magic door through which I could walk out and start again.

Life simply continued.

And one day became another, then another year, and eventually another decade.

Fifty years.

Sometimes I cannot believe I have lived fifty years of married life feeling, in one way or another, that I made the wrong choice.

But life doesn’t stop just because your heart is disappointed.

I had to work.

I wanted my own money because money meant independence to me. It meant that I didn’t have to beg or ask for everything. It meant knowing that I could take care of myself. So I worked, learned, adapted and kept going.

Work gave me something important—my own identity.

And also that I was a mother.

Three daughters.

Three beautiful girls.

For them, I became a different person altogether.

I could tolerate things for myself, but when it came to my children, I became fierce. I wanted to protect them from the things I had experienced. I wanted them to grow up knowing their worth. I wanted them to have choices.

I don’t know whether I always succeeded.

No mother does.

But I know that I fought for them with everything I had.

Whatever else happened in my life, my daughters are the part of it that I will always be proud of.

They are my three beautiful pieces of happiness.

As the years passed, I also learnt something else—how to develop a thick skin.

When you hear enough criticism, enough taunts, enough instructions about how you should do everything, enough unnecessary drama and enough attempts to control little things in your everyday life, eventually something inside you changes.

You stop reacting to everything.

You learn to say nothing.

You learn to walk away.

You learn that not every accusation deserves an answer.

And you learn that sometimes keeping your peace is more important than proving that you are right.

But having a thick skin doesn’t mean that you don’t feel.

It only means that you have become very good at hiding what you feel.

Even now, there are days when I am exhausted by the constant need for attention, the arguments, the accusations and the stories told about me to other people.

It is particularly painful when someone takes the life you have lived and tells it differently to anyone who will listen.

I sometimes wonder whether people believe those stories.

And then I remind myself that I know the truth.

I know who I was.

I know what I did.

I know what I sacrificed.

I know what I endured.

Nobody else’s version of my life can change the life I actually lived.

Now I am old.

And perhaps this is the strangest stage of all.

There is no great ambition left to chase. No career ladder to climb. No children to raise. No future that needs to be built from scratch.

There is mostly today.

So I live one day at a time.

Some days are good.

Some are not.

Some days I laugh at something silly. Sometimes a song brings back a memory. Sometimes a movie takes me away from my own life for a few hours. Sometimes a cup of tea feels like enough.

It is funny how, when you get older, the little things become the big things.

A peaceful morning.

A kind conversation.

A good meal.

A laugh.

A memory.

Hearing from my daughters.

Knowing that someone thought of me.

These small things have carried me further than I ever imagined.

I have also reached a point where I am simply tired.

Not tired in the way sleep can cure.

Tired in my mind.

Tired of having to explain myself.

Tired of being misunderstood.

Tired of unnecessary conflict.

Tired of carrying the emotional weight of things that should have been easier.

There are times when I pray that God will simply call me home.

Not because I have nothing to be grateful for.

I do.

But because I am tired and I long for peace.

I don’t want to fight anymore.

I don’t want to prove anything anymore.

I don’t want to defend myself anymore.

I just want quiet.

And yet, when I look back at my life, I cannot say that it was all bad.

It wasn’t.

There were good days too.

There were people who were kind to me.

There were moments that made me laugh.

There were places I loved.

There was music.

There were books and films and little pleasures.

There was work that made me feel capable.

And there were my daughters.

Most importantly, there were my daughters.

So perhaps I should not look at my life only through the things I didn’t receive.

I didn’t get the love story I imagined when I was young.

I didn’t get the marriage I thought I was fighting for.

I didn’t get the peaceful companionship I perhaps deserved in old age.

But I did get experiences.

I got independence.

I got the strength that comes from surviving things you once thought would destroy you.

And I got three beautiful daughters.

Maybe that is what gratitude is at this age—not pretending that everything was wonderful, but being able to say:

“Yes, there was a lot of pain.

Yes, there were choices I would make differently.

Yes, there were years I wish had been different.

But there were also moments of happiness.

And I am grateful for those.”

I don’t know how many years I have left.

I don’t want to count them.

For now, I will simply live them.

One day.

One cup of tea.

One song.

One memory.

One conversation.

One small happiness at a time.

I have spent most of my life taking care of everyone else.

Perhaps now, even if only in small ways, I can learn to take care of the woman who was me all those years ago—the girl in the snowy hills, the young woman who believed too much in love, the wife who discovered too soon that she had made a mistake, the working woman who wanted her independence, and the mother who became fierce because three little girls needed her.

She has been through a lot.

She deserves some kindness now.

And perhaps that is the one thing I would finally like to give her.

A little peace.

A little tenderness.

And the knowledge that, despite everything, she made it this far.