fine line

There are days when I don't know if I want to go on. Days where I feel I don't have the strenght or where I surrender. Why did I choose this path? What did me make to go that way? What will I find here? Should I give up and leave?

There was a point in the last week where I stood again with myself and I actually didn't know if I want to carry on. A university had been attacked by a suicide bomb, many students died. A bazaar was bombed. Over 150 people dead. I had been stuck in a traffic jam, which turned out to be there because of another attack just right around my area. Akbar bhai, who lives with us had seen the people who had lost arms or whose faces had been half destroyed. He, a huge man in his middle age, faded. The little girl in my family stayed home for ten days, because there had been coffins at her school. They were delivered with the warning: „you are next“.

Do I want to stay at a place, which is so unstable? Friends asked: how can you stay? Why don't you leave?

And I was honestly considering it.

But on the other hand: who am I, a priviledged european girl with all the opportunities in life, to say: „oh no, this is too dangerous for me, I leave.“ while my friends here, the family that I live in and that I started to love, while all of them have to stay? And couldn't it be as well that I leave the country and die in a traffic accident in India or with a desease on my travelling back?

Where is the personal border, the line that needs to be crossed until one person says, „it's enough, I leave“?

I think for every person this line is somewhere else. And from the outside one will never be able to tell someone else where that line should be. The line also changes. It might change when you experience a day to day life in a country which seems to be at war at the same time. Or it changes when you gain strength out of a situation.

After being unstable in and with myself, I found my line again through talking with friends, travellers and my pakistani family. It might be further out than the borders of other people, but I can see and acknowledge it (again).

Just when I had found it again, I got a message from one of my friends, whom I had been speaking with about the situation and who had given me a lot of great advices how to see the situation and what to think about.

Thank you for being always at my side.

Here is what he wrote:

Hey,

Have been thinking about you since we spoke. I know you're facing some hard choices at the moment. My normal advice for most travelling is that most threats and journeys in dangerous places are not as great as they seem with a sensible attitude and careful preparation.

But sometimes like yourself you find yourself in a changing situation with a specific threat. Chances are things WILL be fine for you, but I think in this case we are all too far away to really understand the nature of this threat. However you are still close in the hearts of all your friends and I will support whatever choice you make. I wish you wisdom to deal with fear without undue haste or stubboness.

I wish for you most of all that your dreams come true, and if some are not in reach straight away that you may let them fly knowing that they may return later and in the mean time other dreams may come.

I get down sometimes that not all my dreams came true, or the ones I am living are not being realised as quickly as I would like. But then I remember that we are blessed, you and I . In our lives we have both chased some of our biggest dreams and seen them come true. So many people dare not even imagine that their smallest dreams might one day come true.

So this dream that you are lucky to live has now a life of it's own that is in some part out of your control because you have been brave enough to give it life. For the part of this dream that is still in your hand do not strangle it by grasping to hard, or poison it with undue fear. It's up to you to find the hidden joy and lessons it is trying to bring you in return for the life you gave it.

And finally I ask you, when you spot that I am loosing the sense of my own dreams please give my ass a gentle kick and shine a little light in my direction.

love and hugs,