Where am I?

This is a quintessential question mostly posed by amnesic or "rescued-from-death" characters in Indian movies. Ah - but what a mother of a question it is!

There have been distinct phases in my life with a "Before" and "After" situation. Those situations or happenings that change your life's path or your identity significantly. Where you find yourself transforming  into another new You.

One of the earliest ones was the time when I was not yet five, and my parents finally moved into their own home with my brother and me. Till then it was a claustrophobic existence in a joint family living in a one room flat. Life was never the same once we moved to our tiny flat as a nuclear family. More "us" time without interference from other relatives!

Then it was the time when I finished my school education and started junior college. It was a completely new world where I made long-lasting friends, immersed myself in music, and recovered my hidden self-esteem. Golden years that suddenly came to a stop once I graduated. And stepped into another life-changing phase after a few years of fancy and footloose free life.

And then I met the love of my life, married him, and before I knew it, I was a mother. If ever there was a more life-altering moment in my life, it was this. It was life-transformational. All of a sudden, I was "responsible" for someone else. My actions could make or break another life. Wonder, love, tenderness, vulnerability, pain, guilt, anxiety, stress, protectiveness, contentment, fulfilment - if ever a mother could be defined, these could be the words. I remember coming across one of my college photographs and crying, "Was that really me?"!

The birth of my younger daughter, followed by our move to the city of Pune was yet another milestone in my life that changed me irrevocably. I lived a life of a full-time mother and home maker, before reclaiming my career. The hesitant, compliant, passive, and tentative me was no more.

And then when I thought we were smooth-sailing, an emotional tsunami rocked our boats and left us shattered. I lost both my parents-in-law to cancer and pulmonary fibrosis. Felt the utter hopelessness, helplessness, and impotence of not being able to stop the suffering, pain, bitterness, frustration, and death of two old souls.

This is yet another "After" phase of my life. A life that has seen death at close quarters. And I can never go back to being what I was.

Reminds me of a Bahadur Shah Zaffar ghazal -
Jahaan pehele the hum, ab woh maqaam paaya nahin jaata
Agar dhoonde nishaan uska nishaan paaya nahin jaata

(Translated based on my limited understanding of Urdu)
I'm unable to go back to the place where I was once
Even when I look for the footprints (signs) where I was, I cannot find them

I know there are more twists and turns at the corner. More diverging roads. More curves and bends. It scares me. Makes me think - Where am I headed? Where will I be?