#7 Reflections: A series of crossroads

Writing has always been my fear but there are so many words inside of me, waiting for a page to fall on. So this is my attempt to push past this fear — a reflection a day in writing.

The sun was warm, the breeze gentle as it blows through my hijab. I walked with a bounce in my step, enjoying the sound of human life around me. It was my last day as an official student, the day my ID expired. So I made sure take every step slowly, savouring each moment.

I see a girl walk towards my direction. Her hair is slicked back, her gaze focused and her strides brisk and powerful. As we walk towards eachother, I look past her to see another woman. She walks unsurely, her hair scruffy and unkepmt. I see her gaze move around to different people, unsure whether to approach. I see her hesitatingly walk towards this hair-slicked girl, but then our gazes meet, and I see a shift in her eyes. Her strides become more purposeful as she walks towards me instead.

—

Walking down Oxford Road always brings along a host of dilemmas. From walking down the station stairs to past the rows of shops all the way to the university doors, you’re forced to make critical decisions than can leave you questioning your own sense of morality on a daily basis.

‘Should I give money?, but they use it for wrong things, but isn’t it about intention?, how about food?’…

The standard train of thought one goes through on a daily. We may be in the richest country in the world, in one of the biggest cities, but we’ve reached a point where not coming across someone on a cardboard piece with a cup in front of them is abnormal. Everytime it’s the same train of thoughts, yet everytime it’s a different decision.

And that day was no different.

For a second I see myself through her eyes. A young woman, wrapped in a colourful headscarf and a flowing dress, with a leisurely stride and a smile across her face. The perfect target.

‘Could you spare some change, ma’am?’

—

I see life as a series of crossroads. We usually see these crossroads when we reach the end of a chapter of life, be it high school, university, etc. They’re wide and clear and hard to miss. But apart from those, we encounter life’s crossroads every single day of our lives. Every decision we make is us standing at a crossroad and deciding what path to take, from what’s for lunch to what to do when a homeless lady asks for change. Most of these crossroads, however, require split second decisions. There’s no time to weigh the pros and cons.

Life can become interesting when we choose the less trodden of the two paths, the decision usually outside our comfort zone. I decided to do just that that day, so I stopped and asked her her story.

—

She was forced to leave due to domestic abuse. She married in her teens to a man around 20 years older and tried for many years to stay put until she no longer could. She has a daughter soon to leave for college. You could see the pain she felt for having to leave her daughter behind. And like every mother, she soon forgot about her own story and was gushing to me about how amazing and clever her daughter is and how proud she was of her for just making it to college.

We talked for a while. I was hesitant to ask questions out of fear of being too nosy. But I noticed she enjoyed my questions and welcomed them instead. And as I walked away I realised how stupid that fear was. In a world with so few listeners, there is no need greater than the need to be heard.

—

Could this all have been a sob story? Maybe. I was the perfect target audience for such a story — young, female, well off. But yet still, I saw the flash of surprise on her face when I stopped to talk. I saw the emotions as she talked about her daughter.

She needed money for shelter for that night and I gave it to her. I don’t usually carry cash but that day I was. I took that as a sign for myself. There I was at another crossroad and I decided to take the path that felt right.