Every journey has a story behind it. Why else would anyone leave the warmth and comfort of their home behind to travel across the length and breadth of continents, braving the elements, getting scorched in sun and drenched in rain? Especially someone like me, who was cocooned in the love and affection of my parents in a small town home would have never thought of a journey which would take me from North to South and then some more places.
It was a time when none of my efforts of bringing my life on a desired path were giving any results. All I had were wasted opportunities and shattered dreams. It was as if darkness was attacking me from all directions and I could see nothing but gloom ahead. But I was not ready to give up. I had to get out of that place and chase my dreams. I was not born to be dominated by the smallness of social boundaries drawn for girls, I was born to break them and find new horizons for myself, so I thought. The life that several other small town girls had was not meant for me. And I never ever thought any different from this.
There was a time when I could see girls younger than me getting married and having children, going about their lives in a run-of-the-mill fashion. Friendly neighborhood uncles and aunts would keep talking to my parents in hushed voices, while I tried to ignore them. I knew in my heart of hearts that that kind of life was never going to be my life. Thankfully, my parents never tried to decide for me and heard me out.
The next step was to change lanes and press the accelerator hard. I took the bold decision of moving to Delhi for higher studies and make an altogether different career than what I had originally thought. While my mother cried her eyes out and my father was worried sick, they still supported my choice. Delhi has not been in the news for all the right reasons, and especially for a lonely girl from a small town and an even smaller exposure to the ways of the world, it was like trying to conquer Mount Everest.
After my first couple of journeys when my father accompanied me forth and back from Delhi during holidays, I insisted that I travel alone, as I could not bear the thought of troubling my parents, and I knew travelling was a huge source of anxiety for my father. After that, as if I had grown a pair of wings. I completed my management course and got placed in a reputed IT company in Hyderabad. I flew to Hyderabad with my parents and joined my company, and gained the reputation of a lighthouse in my small town circle.
As for those uncles and aunts, they are making their girls study professional courses and have ditched the plans of getting them married soon after their high school.
Written as a post for the prompt 'start a new life' for housing
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