How Do You Define Escapism?
Let me tell you the story of my father’s death and my theory of romanticizing his death.
A father is a roof, they say in our community. So when a roof swirls away with the winds, house is open to floods and rains and scalding heat.
That might be the fear that drove my granny and my mum to fabricate a fallacy that defines the arc of my story. A fallacy, so heart warming, that compelled a 3 year old to romanticize her father’s death.
I was three when I became roof less. Though I was backed by a huge extended family that lived together, my dad’s absence came as a significant element missing from my existence. While my age didn’t permit to figure what!
To refrain me from the pain of orphanhood, my family came up with a fairy tale. A tale that still kept my dad alive. While three years of age was quite an unripe age to understand death, I was said that my dad was traveling for a pilgrimage. Where he will meet Allah and bring all the luxuries of heaven. I was told that he will come back more robust and immortal.
This escapist strategy romanticized my hope for my dad’s return. My cognitive brain worked it’s way with grief by creating illusions of my dad’s return from heaven.
I foggily remember the whispers that brushed my heart, “Time will heal. She will grow up and forget the pain”.
Hell No!
Time never heals.
Healing is something deliberate, independent of any time frame.
Loss of someone close never leaves you, on the contrary it changes you forever. Grief is immortal unlike my dad’s life. But then my grief was masked by escapism. I never wanted to accept the brutal truth that he was gone forever, and their sugar coated stories of his return lauded with gifts and all, strengthened my false hopes.
For almost the age of eight I was covered from the truth. I could then see, these good-natured people gesturing outsiders not to mention anything about my dad’s demise. I basked in the glory of false hope by absorbing the half-understood truth.
This created a steep chasm between reality and fantasy in my mind. At the back of my mind I wanted him to return to me someday and repay for all the lost love and years. While growing up, and seeing my mum still grieving the love of her life, I started believing that death was undeniable.
However their theory was forged out of good intentions, it shaped me into an escapist young teenager. I started believing in manifestations of unusual miracles and Talismans.
I started minting fresh stories about seeing Djins and fairies revolving around me, when I was alone. It superseded me as girl with supernatural powers. I also called the spirits from the paranormal world by the means of planchet.
My early childhood years were disillusioned and disorderly. My capability on decision making was zilch. The escapism also disowned my sense of direction.
In order to ease my pain of loss, my family kept me away from the core realities of my life and being. That lugged my shadow in my adult life also. Giving tremendous impacts in decision making of my life, personally and professionally.
I was cluttered mentally, emotionally and spatially.
Now I see, how lies and wrong information can shape a child into a disillusioned and unclear disorganized adult.
It took long to break the cemented walls of my conditioning, which took long for me to an sensible adult that took the reigns of her life without evading the reality.
