Dear Anita,

I will continue my reflection here as it is serving me well on this Saturday, feel free to read at your leisure as the rest will be reflections of my childhoos

We spent a summer in Chicago once.  Perhaps when I was in middle school.  who knows, those summer breaks were so long, you could do so much in 2.5 months.  speaking of, i remember the adults discussing how it was too long for kids to be out of school as it required planning of keeping them entertained.  well, i hear this now amongst my colleagues too. somethings may be universal.  however, my mom’s thinking is never universal.

we stayed with my aunt (mother’s sister) in chicago.  she is in a terrible marriage (with a man who overtly cheats on her with a mistress, who the whole family has a relationship with – as though she is my aunt’s friend) bizarre, that’s a story for another day. well one summer my whole family was there because it was my cousin’s birthday party. aunts and uncles and cousins came in for a week or so.  my mother, sister, and I stayed longer, around a month since we had summer break, and my mom doesn’t work. my aunt did not not have much money at the time.  She lived in a complex of a lot of immigrants in a more urban area. this was in contrast to our big beautiful home in the suburbs of NJ, that was not diverse and urban.  so on the outside, my parents had a more successful life, better house, better town, etc.  of course, however, the town in chicago was much more fun.  everyone sitting outside after dinner.  tons of Indian immigrants people for my aunt and mom to relate to and speak with.  noise and chaos and kids everywhere.  that’s how it goes.  my mother felt these places were the happiest.  and where we lived was cold and alone.  sure there was some objectivity to that.  there is a difference between the energy level of the Bronx versus an upscale suburb outside of the city.  and yes, many people do feel isolated in the suburbs.  but my mom took this concept to a whole new level.

another summer, perhaps when i was 10, we spent the whole summer in India.  now, my mother has always glamourized her life in India.  It was fun, and authentic – people were kind and open and supportive, the perfect life of a girl from a small village where everyone knows you, and neighbors have open doors.  So much of this is true in comparison to America.  the culture in Asia and even Europe can be very different when it comes to community, neighborhoods, friendliness, and openness.  Yet it can be.

But once again my mother took this to a whole other level.  I remember one of my last days of being in India, I was sitting on a swing writing.  I was always huge into reading and writing (something that continues to this day).  I was inquisitive and thoughtful beyond my years.  So I was sitting and writing a letter, it went something like this:

Dear India,

I will miss you.  You are the only place in the world, where people are kind and the world shines bright.  Neighbors love each other and help each other.  There is no loneliness…

I was around 10-13 years old.  I also recall returning from this trip, and going up to my room and crying for the rest of the day that I was back to sad, lonely America.

Fast forward some years, I went to Harvard summer school in between 10th and 11th grade or so.  I think I was 16. It was a summer program for gifted children, where we took some college courses, and had an experience living on the campus.  This was something I wanted to do, and my parents were supportive.  In context, my life was good.  I had a lot of friends, I did well in school, and even had a boyfriend (the first boyfriend I wrote about)

I had a wonderful summer, met people from all over the world. became especially close to my roommates, a girl from Texas, and one from Japan. It was an enriching experience.

I returned in the fall, and fell into what I can explain best as a melancholy state.  I recall being despondent, sad.  “What an amazing experience in Boston – now I’m back to my normal life.  No one here is as amazing of a friend.  The friends I have here do not come close to the amazing people I met there.” I felt sad to be back, I felt upset at the caliber of the friendships I had at home.  I felt what I had at home was not good enough.