Dear Diary,
Ever since Raj called, I’ve spent sleepless nights wondering whether I should take him up on his offer. There’s a large part of me which knows for certain that this whole ordeal will only end in disappointment, both for me and my children.
Despite this, there’s a small, but nagging voice in my head telling me that it’s cruel to strip Sunil and Deepa of a father figure, especially when the opportunity presents itself with so much ease. In this sense, I have it easier than most single mothers. Where many would have to call, persist and beg the father to simply exchange a few words with their child, I simply have to make a decision.
Do I let this man back into our lives?
This whole Raj thing has created a tsunami of emotions involving my own parents too. It feels childish to think and maybe I haven’t matured as much as I thought, but even the deadbeat father of my children wants to see them; so why haven’t my own parents ever tried to reach out? If they saw the person I have become, would they be proud? Or have they forgotten about me completely?
Sometimes, I feel a slight tinge of jealousy over Sunil and Deepa’s relationship with their father. He might be flighty, but Raj wants to know his children and he’s not ashamed of them. It’s more than my own parents have done for me in a decade.
I never thought I would say this, but right now my safe haven is work. Since we had a switch in management, I’ve been finding myself arriving earlier and leaving later. Like most things for me, my job was something I was able to find solely because I was in the right place at the right time. Marketing and corporate work was never something I saw myself doing. I don’t know if anyone ‘sees themselves’ in an office job, attending meetings. When I was younger, I wanted to be a firefighter, then a hairdresser and when I fell pregnant, all I wanted to do was make it to seventeen.
Aside from being my main source of income, my workplace has become somewhere I feel unburdened by my life as a single mother. I’ve never had the privilege of travelling outside of my country, but interacting with international clients and learning about their cultural values and aesthetics makes me feel like I’ve already travelled across half the world.
Anika.
Note: ‘Dear Diary’ is a fictional weekly easy- reading peice written by Senushi Liyanarachchi.
