Things are changing:

When a person leaves, I now say goodbye, without bitterness.
I used to take it very personally. Of course, this does not apply to all people. But the exceptions I can count on the fingers of one hand.
When I want to leave, I now say goodbye, without sadness. (And the number of people who'd try to stop me I can count on the fingers of one hand.)

Comes with practice - years and years of practice. But this is a good place to be.

You know you want something quite desperately when you wake up in the middle of the night to find yourself arguing for it out loud.

There are only three certainties

With so many question marks, it is easy to miss the exclamation points.
They are, in no particular order -

The Man loves me. I love him.
My parents love me. I love them.
Home is beautiful. And I am here, in my other home, by choice and it was the right choice and I know it.

And there is someone smoking outside my window and I can smell it and I am back in a quitting phase and that ashy smoky fragrance is not helping matters.

Postcard

Back from three weeks in India.
Surreal trip. Have you ever had the sensation that looking at everything around you, you wanted to draw a giant question mark over it all?

How long does my father really have?
What Will Happen After?
Where I will live.
The fractured horizon over the river - on one side, glass-fronted skyscrappers and on the other, homes made of mud and plastic. A dead river in between. Airbrushed adverts of glossy couples sheltering mothers nursing their babies on the pavement. Everything becoming gloss and polish, surfaces and screens, where there used to be old trees and carved buildings. Shops where there used to be markets. Empty coffee shops where we used to stand amongst crowds pushing and shoving to eat a vada-pav.
Why? How? What can I do?
When Mumbai finally eats up the mangrove, where will those little fishing boats go?
How long does Pasha have?
How long does my Mother have? Will we meet again? (Yes, we will, won't we?)
If I don't buy this dresss or that blouse or those shoes, will that woman or those slum-dwellers have more, will a green field somewhere stay green?
What can I buy the woman who has helped raise me for 28 years and slept on an army camper bed in my sisters' room every night and washed our dishes and our clothes and made our breakfast and woken us up early to study for our exams and held us when we scrapped our knees and slapped us when we said something rude or thoughtless, harder than our own parents would ever think of doing?
Where will I live?
How long does my father have?
What will happen after?

All day, all night, these images, the question mark superimposed.