In my native language Pushtu there is this proverb, which goes something like, “If you want to reveal the true identity of someone, go out on a long journey with him”. This is my story of my travel experience with my parents, when I went to perform Umrah with them in the start of year 2018.
I may not be able to cover all details of my trip, and mostly will be covering the important lesson I learned out of it. It was this travel where I realized the unconditional love of my parents towards me, especially of my mother. No one loves me more then her, she is the dearest among everyone to me. We were on a religious pilgrimage in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for 15 days.
It was this same trip when I found out about my dark side (the true me actually). I have been hiding behind this mask for most of my life. It was during this trip when I lost respect for myself. It was the second to our last day in Makkah, when a single statement from my mother ruined the whole thing for me, the statement was so disturbing for me that to this day, I am unable to get it off my mind, and it is stuck in my head. It goes something like: “We thought that we will visit the birth place of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but couldn’t tell you about it because you have been depressed and angry most of the time so we decided not to tell you of it”. The time stopped for me at that moment, I felt so alone among the millions of people present at that moment of time. I am a kind of guy who would never raise his eyebrows over my parents but hearing that from my mother who is the dearest of all people to me is what killed me and to this day is killing me. I was there at that place for no one but my mother. All this time I thought I was doing great in terms of my overall behavior. It was that when day I became a total stranger to my parents.
I must admit that I was not ready for this trip, and you may be thinking with all this depressed mentality why did I go there, it was because we had this plan since 2014 but for some reasons we were always switching dates. So I had no other choice but to not further delay it and move on with it.
The purpose of writing this article is because I have to put this pressure off my mind. I had expectations from myself and because I did the exact opposite of what I expected from myself. The advice for everyone will be not to initiate something you are not ready to do wholeheartedly, especially if it involves your loved ones (in my case during the trip I was only acting of feeling good, my mother and my father read that well), I never discussed that with them to this day, because they are very touchy when it comes to their association with religion, this can break them apart.
Why write about it publicly then? I could have written it placing a different scenario but that would have been deceitful of me, and it wouldn’t help me in overcoming the depression I am going through for the past 4 months. Right now I am trying to bring this strength in me to tell my parents about why I am not the best among their child, I know I have to do it someday but the day has not arrived as yet. If you are someone who wants to avoid my kind of situation then be honest with yourself and don’t do anything for the sake of others, listen to your heart.
