Leaving my borrowed life behind

It’s time to move on, I thought. My mind giving me cross references that made my heart ache with mixed sensations. I had left that morning to a new life, excited, scared and obligated by the circumstances. I was a half immigrant, with one foot in, but still chained by the incredible toughness of a system.

Nostalgia and fear, they all were there and sat next to my mind as co-pilots on the ride to a new life, one that was given as a pity loan, in which I was the object of a deal that I had very little to say for.

I didn’t have time to apply a judging thought to the series of events; I was merely existing, in silence, with very little hope.

I borrowed a wore-out smile, a tiny sample of dignity, and carried with me a bag full of old and tight clothes, filling the space with the unavoidable sense of fear; fear of the unknown and the uncertain.

My new life was set up in the shape of a fruit basket, lying in the breakfast bar of an empty kitchen, and that meant the world to me. It was a clear sign of hope, as I have taken to give fruit baskets to people in some sort of disgrace.

My steps were cautious; I had learned too well to never give a step without proper inspection. Just like a street cat in a new home, skepticism was my biggest shield, I wanted it to be truth, I wanted it to be right.

And the new life began, split like the heart of a war criminal, I had a life left behind far away, and a new reality, consistent of an environment that I couldn’t grasp, an office filled with strangers that passed by a back door at a rapid rate, slamming the big, noisy metal doors as they went through and the feeling of being the only dark grain in a full bag of white rice.

Step by step, what should have been a process of adaptation became a new way of survival, a new set of rules, in which I had to respond to a series of expectations that were part of that broken deal; filled with secrets in which I had very little input. I realized that my life was still wrecked in two parts and there was an obvious winner.

Then freedom came, in the shape of an e-mail, then a passport, after that a piece of paper that three weeks later would translate in a small two by three-point-five inches card, step by step, like a survivor in a disaster area making his way through the rubble. I could barely content myself, just to realize that I still had the moral commitment to my “redeemers”, or so I thought.

The light was shinning right into my eyes and after such a long time of darkness, I was blinded for a while; feeling lost, without direction, the warm stream of emotions raced throughout my system, giving me back the freedom which I still evaded feeling for the fear that it was a dream, a fantasy. I was ready to fly, to explore, but then fear came, cornered and trapped me.

I was the one to blame I thought; the guilt translated in insecurities, which echoed in my non-fructuous efforts to escape the state of mind, the overwhelming thought of coming back to earth as a full person, as a rightful human being.

And life happened… I was forced to take back the curse of life, the one I had been assigned as what I wanted to think was my destiny. With so little hope, so few expectations; but hungry of living, of seeing, of harvesting all the promises left by the sacrifices.

Half broken is how I felt. The memories of my life were misting with the bitter pictures of those who held me back; the ones that once made promises and held me captive of their selfish existence. Unable to scream, to run, I was a slave of the circumstances.

A mental picture of the loss of dignity; Printed in the back of my head, while I saw too many planes flight away with my own dreams on board, and half my heart left to be stepped down by that new acquired sense of quilt. I chose to suffer, because I was still blinded by the stream of light, the price of freedom, the recuperation of myself.

What is fair? I thought bitterly, why am I still here? I told to myself in a desperate plea for redemption. Then I saw it, clearly and shiny, life is not fair; I had to gain it back, and return this borrowed one to the circumstances.

The choice then was mine, for the longest time I felt able to show some of my feelings. I slapped in the face those who for so long showed me coward sympathy, I terminated the unfair contract that was signed with two hands tied up in a string of emotional distress, and decided to fear the unknown, the uncertain landscape of possibilities, still half-broken, still afraid.

And this is how I leave my borrowed life. I take with me my old tight clothes, but I leave behind the fear of a half immigrant, the lack of dignity; I take with me the uncertainty of the future, but I leave behind the slavering strings of circumstances; I move on, leaving my borrowed life behind, to look back at a dream, that was a nightmare, to learn more lessons.