Goodbye Oksana

Human beings no matter where they go in the world, will always seek home:  in places, in people, in things, and in food. Perhaps because at the end of the day one wants to be vulnerable and yet are loved. We search for a setting where not the flesh, not the bones, but the very soul beneath it is adored and cradled like a newborn, squealing, and needy for love. 

As long as I lived with my family, I never realized the worth of home, unless one day, I was out in the wide world, alone, apprehensive, and being indoctrinated by societal norms every single day. The only pockets of peace that I was left with was a 'chosen family': a farrago of strangers that I met, and before I could decide to love or hate them, I was entangled with them like wollen strands in the mesh of a new warm cardigan. I have lived with a plethora of strangers, loved them, held them close in my most vulnerable moments, and then cried bitterly when we parted. After a time, both parties agreed on their fate and moved on, albeit keeping in touch. 

But Oksana... she came to my life like a breath of fresh air. Literally out of nowhere, she found me and moved in with me in this dingy two-bedroom apartment within a week of knowing me. How time flies: it has been a year of ups and downs with each other.  She has healed me with her love, day by day, she held me as I cried over the five-year friendship that split up right before my eyes. She brought life into the woman I was a year ago: broken, pathetic, hopeless. She taught me to trust again.  She was exactly the person I needed at that time. And as all that healing is done, maybe God has decided that her part in my life is over. As she packs her books, her clothes, and the little things she treasures all into an unenthusiastic Amazon box, a part of my insides shift uneasily. As we sit in the piles of her belongings straddling the hallway, quietly tucking away every last piece of her clothing, tears can't be stopped. I'm vulnerable today, but who will hold me,  Oksana?

Living with a chosen family is like building a straw and mud house on the lowlands, every year as the monsoon arrives, all of it washes away only to seamlessly unite with the sea,  every ounce of its existence succumbing to the whims of the universe. Again and again, relentlessly, all the life erodes from my heart and leaves me barren, helpless, and lonely in this unimaginably brutish world.