I really shouldn’t be writing a blog post now. Not mine, anyway. I should be spinning social media strategy for one client, content ideation for another, writing three structures for another client, ideating a logo for another, invoicing, paying writers, checking GST, tracking word counts, and generally acting very busy. I shouldn’t be writing anything at all for myself.

But what is life but the moments we know we have?

I woke up today with a familiar feeling of dread. I opened my email and gulped when I saw the notification. I thought it was what I had been dreading for so long now. It wasn’t. And really, I shouldn’t be dreading it because that person would have to be incredibly naive and irresponsible to mess with me this time. 

It was a mail from a beautiful friend I adore (you know who you are and I do adore my friendship with you even if I may never meet you) writing about what had resonated with her from my previous post. I shook my head, but the cobwebs of the past take a while to clear. 

But then I smiled. I smiled because I realized that I am free. It will take a while to understand what freedom is because it’s still wound in anticipatory fear. Yesterday, while walking on the road, I flinched when a guy who resembled the person who harassed me came up in front of me. I stepped back and stood away, heart pounding while this innocent stranger passed by, looking at me curiously. I swallowed. I know it will take a while for that fear to recede. 

But then, I looked up and saw the Gulmohar trees above me, their green leaves dancing in the wind. The friend I was talking to on the phone asked me anxiously if I was ok. A dog pranced past me, snapping at my ankles. His owner held out a hand and assured me: it’s okay, don’t worry, he won’t do anything.

He was referring to the pup, of course. But that’s the message I needed from the Universe. It’s really okay. I have protection, I know. 

I also have the protection of my friends’ prayers. And I have the Universe. 

I have always believed that the Universe has guided me, in mysterious ways, all my life. 

It brought into my life a girl who knocked me on the head gently and told me about the price of silence.

It brought into my life inspirational feminists, one after another, womxn who had led incredible lives, showing me that a path exists out of fear. I didn’t go looking for any of them. They came. Quietly. Through work. Through chance. Through coincidences. But then we know there is nothing like a coincidence. Life is a beautiful pattern of happenstance, of pieces coalescing into the beauty of being.  

Slowly, the Universe prepared me. It made me understand what love really is. It made me wake up to the fact that compassion includes myself. It made me understand that I am never alone. It worked the law of Karma, showing me how actions make way for consequences. It has been a long, excruciating journey, but when random strangers reach out to me and tell me I changed their life with something I wrote on LinkedIn or here, I can’t help but realize this is Karma too. I am giving back without realizing. 

What that lovely girl told me to the feminists who helped me to the friends who heard me to the sky that hugged me to the butterfly that swung by to the water that quenched my thirst to the hug that held me to the sheer love that I am enveloped in, everything was a path laid out for me. I just had to start walking.

I am still scared. But this time, I won’t allow fear to silence me. I will continue walking. 

I take a deep breath. I can feel my freedom unfurling itself. It’s not present all the time. But it is there, fleeting in at moments when fear lets go. And it’s worth it. 

To each one of you who write to me: You aren’t alone. You are brave, beautiful, and utterly magnificent. May you be full of light, gorgeous, and undimmable despite what was done to you. You aren’t what was done to you. You are more than that. 

Sia says it better in a song I have heard some 1,000 times. Together we can do anything. It’s a song I listen to because it makes me believe too.