That English Family

Tea, Dreams, and Bittersweet Realities: An Envy-Fueled Odyssey Of That English Family

While doing my research on the postgraduate college I wanted to attend, I stumbled upon a piece written by one person with a sketch drawn by his brother. When I read a bit more about them, I came across a blog by their mother. Her blog, her words, and her pictures of her sons, grandchildren, and relatives became a soothing balm for wounds I didn't know I had. Her little stories of faith, her memories of her mother, her entries about her elder son getting into university, her videos of playing with her younger son's kids She had lived a difficult life yet managed to make the most of it. She and her family look very, very happy. Not the Instagram happy where they morph their differences into lies to get coins and likes. Genuinely happy. Smiles. Guitar. No lies. Their eyes sparkle. Their moments attest to genuineness. The comment section is a giant,  soft quilt of compliments showered by her friends and extended family. I do not know how they are related to each other or what kind of relationship they maintain. But she seems like a genuinely good person. Just humans and goodness mixed like sugar and butter. She reads and writes beautifully, and her words have turned me into some sort of "fan".

I recently saw her update about visiting her elder son, who is studying in a different country, in a beautiful city in Europe. He glowed. He exhibited luminosity. His face just sparkles. He makes music in his free time. He had multiple bands. He uploads them on YouTube and sells them as well. He is studying hard to build a career as well. I watched some of his music. There's freedom. There's passion. There's love. There's acceptance. I imagine them to be a family of love, freedom, and acceptance. Living in a home filled with warmth and good tea I imagine them meeting on holidays and celebrating with their friends and family, exchanging gifts. I imagine them saying goodbye before the elder son leaves for university and sharing tears. I imagine them having video calls where they try to match their timezones. I imagine her elder son taking her mother around the city, showing her the museums, parks, and famous eateries. She is writing another book, and I have yet to buy her first one. I am saving money for that. I imagine her meeting her son's friends as they show her around. I imagine her going back home and reminiscing about her time with her son, which is reflected in her blog.

After glancing a bit more at the photographs she had uploaded with tiny notes about each of them tucked underneath, a train of reality hit me. It is the same university that rejected me. I looked at her son, standing outside the university. Reality—my grusomely bland reality—pulls me back to my cold room, to my cold cot. And I think about my interview with the professor from that university, which was flailing and embarrassing. I think about the non-existent photographs of me with my family. I think about the screams and angry silences around my house. I think about the last time I spoke to my sister, who is from a completely different country. I think about the last time I spoke to my father, who had just moved in downstairs. I think about my friends who have left to pursue their dreams in different cities. I think about my mother, who is sleeping next to me. I think about last evening, when we all made our teas separately and drank them separately.

I check flights for cities in Europe. One leaves tonight. Should I go? Should I pack my bags and just leave? Should I visit the university, talk to the students and professors there, and talk to her elder son about his experience there and his music? Should I visit her as well? Tell her I am saving money to buy her book. That would be ridiculous. I don't even have the money to buy her book, and yet I am visiting her from a shabby little town in a shabby little country. She doesn't even know who I am. I decide against it and go to sleep. Try to sleep. With fantasy and reality fighting over my head. I lie there while they both rip me into pieces. I think about tomorrow morning and how I have to pick up these pieces and face life in this room. I imagine what she must be telling her son about how much she enjoyed her trip to visit him. And I imagine her son reading her mother's happiness while walking to the university while passing a park where she shared a cup of tea with her while telling her all about his studies. I think about the last time I took a trip and shared it with anyone and glance over my empty gallery. I close her blog and try to forget her URL so as to match my fantasy with my empty reality. So, it can be a fair fight.

- Oizys.

Peeling Rusty Layers: Trying To Unveiling the Uncharted Realities Within

I would like to begin by mentioning my credentials as a fellow dissosiate. I have been dissociating for as long as I can remember. I would play with toys to show my parents, but underneath, I would be pretending to live some other life. At first, I felt enigmatic. I felt like I had the magical power to take myself on a journey wherever I could. I was building this labyrinth-like maze around me. I found a refuge deep within the walls of this intricate labyrinth and lost myself in the complicated maze from the chaos and confusion around me. It became my sanctuary, a place where I could retreat and find solace in the midst of overwhelming emotions or external pressures. The more I dissociated, the more elaborate and intricate my labyrinth grew. Each twist and turn represented a coping mechanism, a defence mechanism that shielded me from the harsh realities I struggled to comprehend.

But as I grow older, I realise that my labyrinth, while once a source of comfort, has become a barrier that isolates me from genuine connections and authentic experiences. It was as if I had built an impenetrable fortress around myself, preventing others from truly seeing me and, in turn, impeding my ability to fully engage with the world around me. I touch my knee, and I feel a jolt within myself. Whose is it? I cannot recognise my face in the pictures. Who is she? Every time I wake up for sleep, I feel like I have been teleported into a completely different world. I feel as if I have forgotten my mother tongue. In the labyrinth of my mind, fragments of melodies linger, wisps of forgotten conversations that evoke a longing for a language I can no longer grasp. It is as if a veil has been cast, obscuring the words that once flowed effortlessly from my lips. The food feels foreign in my mouth. The taste of my mother's comforting meals, once a symphony of love and nourishment, now feels like a distant memory slipping through my fingers. The once-beloved dishes now seem distant, their flavours veiled in a thin shroud of unfamiliarity. I chew chilli peppers after chilli peppers and cry my eyes out, yet I feel no spice.

Now, I try to navigate my way out. It is not easy, as every wall and corridor has memories, emotions, and fears carved deep into them that I have tucked away. But, I think, the real hindrance is confronting the underlying causes of my dissociation—the wounds that led me to seek refuge in the labyrinth. It is hurtful. The core reason is hidden somewhere deep. And it is wrapped with layers and layers of woolgathering. It is painful as I try to navigate and unwrap. It feels like I am scraping off the rusty layers of derealized lives to give birth to my reality. Ever pulled out a dry tampon? Yeah, that's what this feels like. So uncomfortable. So difficult. Skin-wrenching. A completely unused life. But the conundrum is that even if I successfully pull it out, I can never reuse it, right? Think about it. I will spend months and years peeling off all these fake identities to embark upon a realisation pilgrimage—a quest to reconnect with the actualities that formed the foundation of my identity—only to find out I have no countable experiences in my real life as a contrast to my fantasies, where I have lived a wide range of characters, lives, and universes in my own metaverse. With each layer shed, I am forced to reckon with the profound absence of tangible experiences, genuine relationships, and a solid sense of self. The time spent lost in my dissociative metaverse has left me with a fragmented timeline, where the milestones of childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood slip through my grasp like sand through clenched fists. While I find out this new fact, I will have lost time as well. With my childhood, teenhood, and half of the twentyhood already eschewed by psycheclipse, I will be left with an infant in an adult body who has lost a chunk of sentience.

I fall back into bed. Tired and wounded. I scrape off the rust and chip away at this oxidised facade, leaving reality in my palms. It looks like a weak, crying baby—red-faced, marked with spots of uncertainty and fragility. And I am a tired mother who is suddenly thrust into this duty to nurture and care for this fragile and broken soul, offering solace and comfort as she navigates the path of self-discovery and healing.