Yearning for Stability

It has been five years now. Five whole years. The promise of Canada. Uncertainty of immigration. False promises from the lawyer. Hopes of an undergraduate degree at McGill - the big university experience I had always dreamed of. Living without ever knowing where I would be in three months' time and hoping to finally make the move and start afresh somewhere new. And how I loved Montreal, my parents would be happy there too. Then in September of last year, five years after we applied to go to Canada, after finishing my degrees, securing a job and finally getting some stability into my daily routine - all the documents were ready for us to go to Montreal!! Sigh. The irony of life!

Now it's finally time for the move and I am filled with all sorts of emotions. After an insanely chaotic year of traveling back and forth from overseas as well as managing the move and all the time-consuming processes that come with it, I am facing the surreal possibility that I am finally going to be settled in one place for good! It feels as though I have been an observer of life for so long and have hardly lived it, just dealing with family obligations and taking life day by day. And it’s funny to think that I used to be (maybe I still am) this big career woman filled with ambitions and goals a rigidly planned out future! Maybe it was a lesson to learn. Allah gave me this year to slow things down and make me realize the importance of other things in this world... I want to start my life. Deep inside, I am just yearning for stability.

In the back of my mind a little by-thought always reverberates. Will I ever be able to attain that stability? Or will I always be a nomad of the world? With my brothers and sisters spread all over North America and the UK with the rest of my extended family in Libya, I doubt I will ever have a place to really call home. Maybe with marriage and a family of my own.. I can plant those seeds. Hmmm.. let’s store that thought away..

So now I find myself in my childhood home for the last time ever. Eighteen years of my life is in this home and every single room has a story. There was so much love, happiness and sadness within these walls and of course, so much familiarity and security. It has always been our little haven from the world. Wherever I travelled and whatever happened, I always had this house to come back to and it was always a relief. I remember that as each of my sisters got married, I would move into her room and relocate my belongings.. until now I am just spread out all over the house.. no place being uniquely mine but at the same time with all of it being mine. I should feel a sort of sadness to let it all go and while I do feel a glimpse of nostalgia already, I am numb.. and doing what I do best - looking to the future for survival.