4:57AM is so unnaturally quiet that at first, the humming sound was deafening.

I looked around until I spotted the source: the blue-and-white plastic drinking fountain in the corner of the living room. The purchase was a godsend, goading my two rather overweight, underhydrated tuxedo cats to drink far more often; now, the sound of the splashing water spilling over the top of the flower-petal fountain was grating my nerves.

I got up, walked over to the fountain and yanked the cord out of the outlet. The splashing stopped.

5:04am. I drank my last cup of water, ruefully thought about the cup of chai that I had just gulped down minute before. Following caffeine with a large drink of water probably wasn’t ideal, but it would be the last drink of the day. Corporate work necessitates too-often meetings, and I needed to preserve as much hydration as possible to prepare for that afternoon’s jargon exchange.

My cat Fatty rolled onto his back on the couch beside me, tempting me with his large furry belly while his green-eyed gaze met mine. Do it, his eyes taunted. Rub my belly as you wish.

I caved, running my fingers through the soft white fur up towards his chin, scratching under his jaw. He purred, pleased; his window of affection opened only in the wee hours of dawn, and quickly slammed shut by noon.

Twenty minutes inched by. The initial joy over waking up to a mere two alarms at the crack of dawn – a feat unto itself, for me at least — had become stale. Now I sat blankly in the crevice of the sofa, mulling over my options. I could use the next two hours before getting dressed for work to put in extra hours – but that would mean a longer work day, and violated my intrinsic desire to stick it to the man. Cognitive dissonance at its finest, as the combination of capitalism mixed with my late father’s strict work ethic led me to adopt, like many fellow Americans, a work-to-live mentality. Be sure to incorporate that into my epitaph.

6:26am. The skies shifted from a cerulean hue to milky white. The back of the house faces east, slowly casting rays of sunshine from the balcony doors into the living area, until warm yellow colored the room from floor to ceiling. It was dazzling to behold.

The day I died wasn’t particularly remarkable.

I mean, obviously it was sad and all because I died. In a car accident of all things —and get this–and I wasn’t even in the car. But in all other respects, the day was a perfectly lovely, uncharacteristically warm winter afternoon, and I was happily walking in the direction of my parents’ house with a cup of too-thick hot chocolate from Blooming Tuesdays.

The black sedan came roaring from around the corner just as I was taking a second sip and crossing the road that had been silent a split second before. It was being taken for a joyride by a young man, perhaps in his early twenties, and by the time I heard the engine’s roar, it was far too late to run. His car made contact with my body before I knew it, throwing me into the air like a limp doll before slamming back onto the sidewalk. The driver immediately came to a crashing halt, jumping out of the car to look aghast at what was now a crumpled tangle of limbs that happened to bear my name.

Lorde was his name. The irony of being struck down by God himself wasn’t lost on me, and boy was he in over his head. I almost felt bad for him — hysterics consumed him to the point where he was violently trembling while attempting to dial 911 on his cell, one hand nervously shaking my shoulder. Of course, not as bad as I felt for myself as I peered over his shoulder to examine my unresponsive body and confirm: yep, I’m a goner.

As if things weren’t bad enough, I actually knew the guy, my would-be killer. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh — manslaughter-er? What do you call the person who caused your death, even if it was a careless mistake?

Lorde lived three houses down from my family in the red brick cul-de-sac on Peony Road, the one with with ivy growing so high on its walls that it stretched towards the chimney. He resided with his single mom, a quiet wisp of a woman in her late forties with a seemingly endless collection of colorful knitted cardigans.

“It was an accident. I didn’t even see her!” he shrieked into the phone. I sighed, plopping down on the curbside to watch as he paced frantically while explaining the circumstances, running a hand through his hair every few minutes as he shot panicked looks at the blood that was now seeping into the cracks of the concrete.

It didn’t take long for the cops to show up, followed by medics who carted my body away. Word gets around in Nova, our sleepy little town off the coast of Connecticut, and by nightfall at least eight cars were parked in a row outside our house. I was pleasantly surprised by the sight of exactly who chose to show up: since moving to Los Angeles promptly after the last bell rang marked the end of my high school tenure, I had visited back home maybe twice in the last two years, and lost touch with quite a few folks in the process.

Yet, the Putnams, the Gangulys, and even the Ayala family were crowded into our living room. I blushed when I saw Evan Ayala perched on the arm of our worn linen couch, the faded blue and gold stripes and tiny tears showing its age; then remembered he couldn’t see me, and anyway, I was dead now, so it didn’t matter.

Dad was in complete shock. He wore a pair of perfectly round, gold-rimmed glasses with an upturned bridge, frames that we had shopped for together right before I left town, and now the crease between his eyebrows were so deep I was afraid the metal rims would cut into his skin.

“They need to make me look like President Truman,” he had informed me that day with a straight face. I nodded seriously, before quickly scanning the Internet for photos of the former president to figure out what he was talking about. Miraculously, the local (and only) optical store in town carried an annoyingly expensive pair that was a near-identical copy of the ones donned by the 33rd commander-in-chief.

We spotted the glasses basking in its glory in a crystal display case and made a bee-line for them, opening the heavy door plucking them right out of the display. The lone saleswoman bit her lip at that but settled on a scowl instead of chiding us, her expression righting itself moments later as we marched over to the counter, credit card outstretched. I could count on one hand the number of times Dad had made a personal request of any kind, and wasn’t about to turn him down.

I peered into Dad’s eyes now. The shiny lenses were smudged with tears, and his almond shaped hazel eyes, flanked by thick brows and normally crinkled at the corners into a smile, were weighed down with sorrow. He sat upright, his back rigid against the sagging curve of his favorite leather armchair. Banksy, our God knows how old tabby cat, found the remaining available space beside Dad and tucked himself away.

A gaggle of men surrounded him, aging fathers who I referred to as uncles growing up instead of learning their actual names. They avoided the creaking folding chairs that someone had set out for them and instead took to pacing the room, taking turns awkwardly patting Dad on the arm. This left Mom busying herself in the kitchen.

I wandered over and watched as she arranged and rearranged the ornate serving tray we’d had for years, its mirrored surface stacked with paper cups filled with hot tea and ceramic bowls that held air-fried finger foods. Normally a chatterbox, Mom always insisted that it was necessary to fill the silence left by “her three introverts,” as she liked to call me, Dad, and my kid sister, Aster.

Aster was literally short for Asteroid — a fun fact that she was not proud of. In 2008, the year I noticed Mom’s belly growing suspiciously round, a lone man in Arizona detected an inbound asteroid in the skies, which later exploded in Sudan. Dad was disappointed, to put it mildly: ever the space geek, he had been hoping the Earth-bound asteroid would find its way to Connecticut. When it made a U-turn into Africa, he decided to name his newborn child after the Asteroid that wasn’t.

“I just blurted it out at birth – it was an accident,” he chortled whenever the story was raised.

Aster and I were just four years apart, but she may as well have been born with me attached at the hip. I was in love with my baby sister the moment I laid eyes on her dark mass of curls, curious brown eyes, and rosy cheeks. She grew to became an adorable toddler, and a rather loquacious one: a babbling child who asked unsettling adult-like questions — “why does Auntie Selma have sad eyes?” — a striking contrast to her gangling, shy older sibling. At nine years old, I was already a towering five foot three, and awkward to boot as a result of a lingering speech capability. I didn’t start speaking full sentences until I was six years old — the impact of which was existing as a painfully shy teenager-turned-young adult.

In L.A., I was just getting into my stride, having cultivated a tribe of people I had met working part time at a local performing arts venue. They were my people, a motley crew of free spirits and loners and travelers and weirdos, who naturally drew out the tangle of thoughts and feelings that welled deep inside of me until they formed into inspired conversation.

I was finally becoming someone, and now, I thought ruefully, it’s all over.

I rested my palm against Abbu’s forehead. His eyes were shut, as they had been for the past three days, and his skin sizzled like a shard of glass caught under a glaring sun. The ICU nurse had assured me that the fever that made itself known against my hand, rising and falling over the last 12 hours, was being treated.

The constant beeping of monitors in the ICU is a good thing, I thought, until the beeping transformed into an urgent alert, flashing red on and off. It spelled trouble, but it wasn’t always an emergency. This I learned after dashing out to the hallway to check if any staff were rushing to the room, only to find doctors chatting away at their desks and nurses scrolling on their phones. The IV drips, for instance, often beeped red when Abbu would lift his arm, tighten it at the elbow, causing the drip of fluids to slow to a stop. If it were really an emergency, I told myself, they would come.

This isn’t a remark on the quality of care my dad was receiving. In fact, I was a bit taken aback by how patient and informative the care staff was, walking me through the analysis of what he was experiencing, even if the explanations were long-winded and laden with medical terminology. I nodded along, and asked pointed questions, but truthfully, it was challenging to absorb the verbal wall of text in full. I took to jotting down notes on my phone in an effort to keep the medical updates in tact, and of course, to confer with my far more informed peers.

Nothing quite compares to the panic that sets in when you wake up to a series of missed phone calls from the emergency room. On Tuesday morning, I blearily opened my eyes to find my phone ringing. Picking it up just as the incoming call ended, I glanced at the missed calls that dominated the screen and felt my heart in my throat.

There was a voicemail. I read the auto-transcription before listening, and one phrase jumped out: Jacobi Medical Center.

The time was 8:32am. I thought of what had happened just a few hours earlier. I had been roused from a deep sleep late in the night, or early in the day, depending how you looked at it. Stumbling out of bed, I swiped my phone from my desk to see a number I didn’t recognize. A telemarketer, no doubt sent from the depths of hell (or an Indian call center) come to disrupt my REM cycles – or so I thought. Annoyed at the disruption, I put the phone down and crawled back into bed.

Now, I realized, the number I had dismissed as a telemarketer was the same one that left the voicemail.

As of writing this, Abbu has been hospitalized for five days. He was admitted around 2 in the morning on Tuesday because the staff at Providence Rest, the rehab center where he lived, had found him lethargic and called an ambulance.

Just days earlier, Akash and I had gone to visit him. It was a stiflingly hot Saturday morning, but bright and sunny enough that we decided to take Abbu out to sit outside for chai and a snack.

I knew immediately that something was wrong. During the day, the seniors on the fourth floor – the long term ward, with patients suffering from varying afflictions — were usually in the common room, watching TV or eating lunch. Though Abbu’s dementia was advancing, for the last couple of months he typically had an upbeat disposition, in spite of his inability to carry a complex conversation.

I spotted him sitting in his wheelchair and frowned. His face usually lit up when he saw myself, Akash or Prima arrive. Today, it sagged, and he appeared far less alert than usual.

We perched on a bench outside. My suspicion that something was wrong deepened, when I realized Abbu couldn’t grasp the cup of tea I offered him to drink it himself. Nor could he eat the samosa independently. I stood to help him take tiny sips of until there was nothing left in the cup. He nibbled away at the samosa I cupped in my hand until it disappeared.

It was unlike him. Nonethless, his health conditions had deterioriated drastically in the last year, such that it was difficult to pinpoint was his new normal would be with every visit. Still, I pointed out my concerns to the nurse behind the desk as we dropped him back off, and she promised to alert the doctor. Three days later, here we are.

I’ve spent far too much time in hospitals, neither for work (could you imagine me working in healthcare) nor myself (knock on wood), but for family members over the years. From my grandmother, to my own mother, to Boro Mama, and the many times that my dad has been hospitalized, the walls of Montefiore and more recently Jacobi were not unfamiliar. In fact, I had visited so often that I’ve been privvy to the typical state of mind I adopt in these contexts.

Controlled, measured. Ensuring that we had all the facts, at least in this latest stint. This week, I have been both present and not. I wonder if spending hours by Abbu’s side, while also shutting off painful emotions is a coping mechanism.

It is a hard thing to watch people suffer. It’s even more difficult when the one suffering is your father. Couple that with a cocktail of feelings ranging from anxiety, to guilt, to grief , to mixed emotions representing the volatile relationship we all held with Abbu, to absolute numbness, and you’ve basically summed up the complexity of human beings.

It is times like this, these stints in the hospital, where my mind wanders off and constructs an alternate reality in which I exist as a healthcare worker. Not because I ever wanted to be a doctor or nurse, but as a means of control, to understand, to not be in the dark when the real doctors throw a dictionary of terminology at me that might as well be in Japanese. Evidence of my control issues make themselves known in these situations, when I frantically contact loved ones who possess even a shred of medical knowledge in an attempt to regain the wheel.

As I mentioned, the doctors have been helpful. Interestingly, the staff of residents at the ICU seems to be primarily made up of international doctors: India, Greece, China. Everyone’s bedside manner is impeccable, even when I press further on the information they share.

Mental observations during times like this are fascinating: in spite of the sight of my father bedridden with a tube stuffed down his throat (he was thankfully extubated a couple of days ago), I still feel this odd feeling that I am pestering the staff when I appear at their desks for questions. As though I am bothering or annoying them in some way, even though this is literally their job and I am witnessing my parent in deep distress.

It disturbs to notice this feeling manifesting in such a context. I can’t help but to loathe myself for this shred of hesitation, and thought back to a passage I’d read years ago in Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, where he describes the phenomenon of how some plane crashes have taken place because of some cultures hesitate to question authority, hence a hesitation in regards to communicating urgency. This is something that I’ve found myself doing more than a few times, and it disturbs me on many levels.

From what I gather, Abbu is doing better than he was when he was admitted. He finally opened his eyes a couple of days ago, a positive sign, but the bad news being that a recent CAT scan found brain bleed, which likely indicates why he is having a tough time rousing and communicating. Akash and I were hovering over him on Friday when he finally opened his eyes, at least partially. I asked Abbu to say my name, and after a few seconds, he gasped out: Tania Rahman. I was elated, though he struggled to say Akash’s name when prompted.

Later on, while Ammu was in the room and praying over him, I reminded him of her name and urged him to repeat it back to me.

“Shelly tho bolsi,” he uttered after a few moments. Ammu and I beamed at each other.

Saturday’s CAT scan revealed that while his brain hadn’t stopped bleeding, it had gotten worse. In online reports, the doctors used the word hemorrhaging, which reads far worse than “brain bleed.” I spent the day perched in the corner of his room, reading (for the umpteenth time) an Anita Blake novel while my phone nestled beside Abbu’s ear, humming Quranic verses hummed to abate his fears. An inability to communicate while you’re lying on a hospital bed with needles and tubes invading your body is up there for top worst experiences. If I couldn’t stop the pain, the least I could do was be present to witness it, and offer the comfort of religion.

Each day feels unpredictable, and I’m uncertain as to how to proceed. With caution? In preparation for the worst? Or hopeful for a positive outcome?

I’ll update further as the days progress.

There’s nothing that evokes the feeling deep coziness quite like Sunday morning rain. I woke up that morning, enveloped in my blanket’s warmth, and instinctually reached for my cell phone. A missed call from the hospital.

Dialing back the direct line they had given us, I spoke with the resident doctor, a tall Indian man who couldn’t have been much older than I was. A few days earlier, he had sat with with me in the hospital room and empathetically walked me through what was happening and what to anticipate in the days yet to arrive: a detailed, clinical explanation underscored by kindness.

The tube was back in, he relayed over the phone. I said nothing. He went on to explain that they had found Abbu breathing really hard, and likened it to the emphatic heaving of someone having an anxiety attack. They had called in the morning to let us know, and to receive a directive from us, the healthcare proxies — should they re-intubate? Or DNR? I learned recently – my medical prowess advances significantly during my stints as a hospital visitor — that without contact with the immediate family or healthcare proxy for a patient, the default step is to re-intubate.

“What would he have wanted?”

A question pressed upon us for the last few days. Before the first extubation, the doctors had warned that there was potential for complication upon removal, and urged us to think about our answer. To gather as a family and consider what card to deal to the man who would suffer the consequence of our decision.

It sounds dramatic, but it feels like playing God: to be asked preemptively whether to pull the plug or not? Or prolong his suffering? Having a tube shoved down your throat, up your nose, being constantly prodded with IVs and intaking calories through a drip – was this a life worth living? Was it our call to make?

The physicians call it “Substitute decision-making.” I call it nauseating.

Perhaps my thought process is a touch naive, but I couldn’t bear to be the one to snuff out the possibility of recovery, even if there was a chance, and even if the life wasn’t worth living. A life confined in a wheelchair, an inability to wipe your own backside, cognitive function in severe decline, and the probability of aspirating again and re-living this nightmare at an all-time high. The doctor had understood during our in person discussion, and left me alone with my thoughts.

I looked out into the balcony to watch the torrent of rain, and began to cry.

We arrived to the hospital to find Abbu, frail, eyes shut, thinner than I’d ever seen him. They sedated him following the intubation for fear of him pulling it out, and took the opportunity to insert the nasal tube as well. He’s gotta eat somehow, right?

The afternoon unfolded much like previous days, this time with rain accompanying our dreary thoughts. We all showed up this time, taking turns sitting beside Abbu in his hospital room.

Once or twice, he stirred from his sedative-induced sleep, eyes scrunching, eyebrows furrowed in discomfort. I had taken to pacing around the room, glancing at him every so often and pausing my rounds intermittently to place a hand on his forehead. It had become my signature move for the last week, a mode of comfort to remind him of our presence, to assure him that we were praying. I spoke soothingly into his ear, reminding him of the people in the room: Prity, Prima, Akash, Shelly.

I had no idea if Abbu could hear me or not. During one of my rounds, I hovered over him to find a wetness had appeared at the corner of his eyes that had not been there before. Tears instantly sprang to my own eyes, mirroring his, and I hoped against hope that he was unconscious, lost in dreamland, somewhere far far away. That he didn’t know, couldn’t know, that he could not be aware of what was happening.

The moment she stepped off the plane, it was everywhere: in her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her sun kissed skin. It was as though someone had taken a paintbrush and coated her body in one broad stroke, causing her to squint and making the already unpleasant taste in her mouth palpable.

But the dust wasn’t the only thing making Chadni nauseous. The blend of foreign sights and smells that greeted her as she surveyed the scene at Hazrat Shahjalal Airport in Dhaka were complicit as well, and made the scenario all too real: she was here, really here, in her birthplace for the first time since departing some twenty years ago.

Feeling the solid ground beneath her feet — ground that was thousands of miles away from home — brought forth a fleeting sensation akin to excitement, but it was quickly replaced by the dread that had persisted in the pit of her stomach for the past week.

In Islam, the dead are to be buried within 24 hours. By the time Chadni received word of her father’s death, it was too late to make it in time for the funeral, not when she lived halfway across the world. The decision to return to Bangladesh to pay respects was not an easy one: in the end, she threw caution to the wind and bought roundtrip plane tickets.

As she made her way towards the exit, she was struck with a most peculiar feeling looking at the many faces milling about the wide halls of the airport: every tanned visage mirrored her own, as though any one of them could be a cousin here, an uncle there.

But it couldn’t be. They were all strangers, women wrapped in saris and men in mismatched suits and even lungis, who held no qualms over brazenly staring at the towering young lady who stood alone, with a gleaming golden hoop adorning her septum.

At five foot eleven, she was tall for a girl, let alone a Bengali girl. She was clad in loose-fitting black trousers with cheetah print rear pockets, and a navy t-shirt revealing a thin strip of brown midriff. She might as well have been wearing a sign on her forehead that screamed, I don’t belong here.

Her musing was interrupted by a harried-looking mother in an ordinary brown-and-red polka dot sari, with silver-streaked hair and a howling toddler in tow. The woman shoved past Chadni, pausing briefly to shoot a disapproving look at the narrow strip of exposed waist. The dreadful feeling clawing inside her stomach intensified.

She took a deep breath, sucking the air in and waiting until she stepped out into the glare of the setting sun to exhale.

It was time to visit Dadu.

A stout, fragile-looking elderly woman who dwarfed Chadni by nearly a foot cracked open the door. Warm light from behind her spilled over the gangly American who stood awkwardly framing the arched doorway. There was a moment of silence as they stared at one another, until recognition dawned on the old woman’s face and she threw open the door.

“Chadni beti. Tumi cholai ashto.” Her granddaughter had arrived.

With surprising strength, the woman lifted herself on her toes to place small hands firmly upon Chadni’s shoulders. Tears spilled down a face lined with wrinkles as she peered up beaming at her natani’s face for the first time in decades.

“Assalamu alaikum, Dadu.”

Chadni couldn’t help but smile back at the genuine happiness that radiated from her paternal grandmother. She hesitated as Dadu beckoned her inside but brought herself to step forward over the doorstep.

Shortly after the birth of Chadni’s younger sister Laboni in Bangladesh, the two siblings and their mother Ammu had fled to America, cutting all ties to life in their native country.

There was no way to put it lightly: her father Nafiul was a violent man, whose nasty temper cut as deep as the marks he frequently left across Ammu’s face. Nafiul was also a recurrent patron of Mymensingh’s brothel, a seedy dwelling at the outskirts of the city they resided in.

He often stumbled home at dawn with the smell of stale perfume lingering on his clothes. As a child, Chadni would wait until the sky would lighten for the familiar clattering in the hall. Creeping out of the bedroom that she shared with Dadu, Chadni would witness her grandmother locking the front door after her father’s arrival and leading him back into the bedroom to join his wife.

This routine was never spoken about.

Nafiul was at the brothel that night, in the arms of another woman while his wife went into labor with their second child. Dadu was at home looking after Chadni, who had come down with a fever. Ammu was alone when she gave that last push, bringing Laboni into the world with a shriek that rang to the beat of her daughter’s own piercing cries.

His absence during her birth was the final straw: two weeks later, Nafiul lurched back to their home after his usual debauchery — but this time, he found the place barren, with not a trace of his wife and children, and all of their belongings gone.

It was only last year that Dadu had mysteriously found a way to reconnect with them. That evening was seared into Chadni’s memory.

She had been lying on her belly at the condo she shared with Laboni and Ammu, scribbling notes into a journal while keeping one eye on the television. Laboni was curled up in a chair by the kitchen island, nose buried in a novel when the telephone rang.

Neither of them made moves to answer it.

The phone went silent before chirping to life a second time. Sighing, Laboni stretched a hand to grasp the receiver.

“Hello?” she demanded. Chadni paid no attention.

“Chadni.” The elder sister looked up to glimpse Laboni, eyes wide and shining with tears dangerously close to falling. “Chadni, it’s her. Dadu is on the phone.”

Now, the two-room flat on Lane 3 in Old Dhaka, where she, Ammu, Nafiul and Dadu had once lived together was almost exactly as she remembered except for an assortment of mismatched furniture that replaced the typical Bangladeshi wooden furnishings that once stood.

When she was younger, Chadni would line up the wobbly stools that sat by the foyer and leap from one to the other, usually miscalculating the jump and spilling to the ground in a mess of tears.

Dadu had remained with her son after her daughter-in-law fled with the children: she alone was privy to his downward spiral following the disappearance of his family.

“He never stopped visiting that place, you know.”

Dadu spoke mournfully in Bangla, filling in the blanks of the years following their departure. Nafiul had clung to his wretched ways even after their departure.

It jolted Chadni to learn that her father had met his demise after leaving the brothel one night. Dadu had found him the next morning sprawled meters away from the flat’s entrance.

His heart had stopped.

Though the trip was planned for just two weeks, life in Bangladesh settled itself comfortably around Chadni.

Every morning for the duration of her stay, she and her grandmother took to huddling upon plush cushions in the sitting room, swapping details of one another’s lives that they had missed out on.

Their hands would wrap around steaming cups of chai, an activity that had quickly become tradition. Dadu made her tea with a blend of cinnamon, ginger, and black tea leaves, leaving out the traditional alachi. Chadni was touched that her grandmother had remembered her dislike for the spice from all those years ago.

As Dadu recounted the details of a life squandered caring for her adult son, Chadni studied her face and couldn’t help but notice the wistful tone in her voice as she reminisced about the past.

Apart from explaining the circumstances of his death, Dadu had hardly touched on the damage her son had inflicted upon his family. Instead, she plied Chadni with tales of her father’s carefree childhood and the years after they had fled, as if his wife and daughters’ existence was a mere blip in the story of his life.

But Chadni knew they were dancing around a topic that Dadu wanted to bring up. At any hint that came up in conversation, Chadni would deflect and change the subject.

After sipping their chai, they took walks around the congested streets of Old Mymensingh. Chadni, having only spent the first six years of her life in Bangladesh, was stunned to find that her surroundings triggered long-forgotten memories.

There was a local park located by the Brahmaputra River that she remembered visiting as a toddler. They passed the rusted red gates guarding her old elementary school: she could faintly remember the sting of her first-grade teacher’s ruler, striking down on the sweaty palms of students who failed to answer questions correctly.

Striding along the densely populated roads with no regard for separating pedestrians from traffic, she felt the weight of passing rickshaw drivers who stared even more intensely than the people from the airport.

The afternoon before she was set to return home was when they made the trip to the graveyard.

There, Chadni and Dadu stood ankle-deep in weeds that were in desperate need of maintenance, in a cemetery littered with hundreds of graves. Some were unmarked, save for a perimeter of bamboo fencing the dimensions of a human body.

Dadu had finished reciting prayers while Chadni shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably when it finally came.

“Chadni.”

She was silent.

“Chadni, amar jaan,” Dadu tried again. Chadni felt her body stiffen, knowing what was next.

“Jaan, tumi balo mei na? Balo takleh, amar chele ta ke maap koro felo,” Dadu pleaded.

There it was, the truth behind why she pleaded for Chadni to return. Her grandmother wanted forgiveness for her son.

She could not bear to accept the damage that both she and Nafiul had inflicted on Chadni’s family — he with his hotheaded temper and adultery, and she by brushing it aside and ultimately enabling him. Instead, Dadu chose to turn a blind eye, and opted to beg for mercy years later so that her own heart could rest in peace.

Her refusal to deride or even acknowledge Nafiul’s behavior was one of the many reasons that drove Ammu to flee. It was why Chadni had agonized for days over her own decision to make the trip; she knew very well where her grandmother stood on the topic of her son after that phone call last year.

She feared that the fond relationship the two had built over the weeks would color her judgement, but the answer came surprisingly easily.

“No.” She heard her own voice, emotionlessly speaking it into existence. “No.”

The old woman’s knees gave way and the strength that she had shown for weeks crumbled as she collapsed to the ground, soiling her white kameez with grass stains as she howled before her dead son’s grave.

Chadni turned away, staring fixedly at the blank slab of stone that was the only indication that someone who had played some role in her life, long ago, was now buried beneath her.

Though Dadu lay sobbing at her feet, unable to reconcile with her anguish without clemency from her natani, the wailing was drowned out by an echo in Chadni’s mind: the memory of her own mother’s tears, a sorrowful sound that Chadni had become familiar with as a little girl.

She had lain awake listening for many nights in the two-bedroom flat all those years ago, until the sound stifled itself moments before the clattering that announced her father’s return began.

Her own tears began to fall. Though she gazed at her father’s grave, it was Ammu she was thinking of.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -

This short story was submitted as part of a competition organized by Burnt Roti Magazine, a South Asian lifestyle publication. Although it was not selected, I wanted to share it as part of my work on Medium.

“It was hard at first, trying to understand what the doctors were saying about Dad in the hospital,” Shaun remarked.

He leaned forward and picked up a steaming cup of chai from the mismatched arrangement on the coffee table. Ceramic bowls housed numerous Lipton tea bags and a plethora of Splenda packets; it was a do-it-yourself situation.

“They just talk so fast,” he continued. “I had to use an interpreter every time.”

Ma nodded, smiling. “It took us years to catch onto what people were saying. The English medium courses in Bangladesh weren’t nearly enough. Even now, when Americans speak too quickly, it’s difficult to follow.”

She followed suit, delicately lifting a stout mug off of the table and sagged back against the worn gray couch, gently blowing over its surface.

Three decades had passed since she had moved to the US, yet Ma spoke of Americans with an otherness that confirmed that no matter how many years she’d spent in this country — raising children who identified strongly as American over their ancestral roots — she would never come to think of it as home.

Aunt Naz piped in. “The hospital system was the worst part! When I was pregnant with Zed, I nearly had heart failure during every prenatal appointment. I couldn’t follow a word they were saying.”

I hid a smile behind my own cup of tea and glanced at my cousin Zed. Though his eyes were glued to his phone, he wasn’t scrolling, and appeared to be paying rapt attention to the conversation.

It was a striking discussion to listen in on. Zed and I were both born and raised in the United States. Our mothers were best friends, and spoke often of the early trials of navigating a new country without learning its tongue, and with newborn children in tow. It was a challenging experience to say the least, and an ongoing on at that.

We were witnessing Aunt Dee, their third and eldest sister, face the experiences that Ma and Aunt Naz had years and years ago after having immigrated to the US recently — but this time with many more resources than her sisters had, institutional knowledge in tow, and an adult son who hoped to sponsor his wife and child to arrive as well. To watch a new generation begin its journey as our own lives continued to unfold was remarkable.

Aunt Dee, her husband, and her son Shaun were residing in the very apartment that my own family and I spent years living in. Rent stabilized apartments were a rarity, so rather than letting them succumb to the exorbitant rent prices that dominated our city, we passed the coveted lease onto their family before moving out.

It was a peculiar feeling, being back in the apartment. The atmosphere was notably cheerful. Rather than the persisting loneliness I often felt growing up within these four walls, the apartment was now bright and welcoming: it felt like home.

Shaun looked at me, grinning. “What do you think?”

I was confused. “About what?”

He nodded towards the corner of the living room. The rest of the apartment was in something of a disarray, but the space he pointed out was empty, save for a large easel that propped up a blank canvas.

“That’ll be the little one’s play area,” he said. “What do you think I should get him?”

Shaun’s excitement was palpable. My heart caught in my throat, and I went momentarily mute as a vision of my two-year-old nephew came to mind.

Because of the state of Shaun’s immigration status, he could not be there for the birth of his son. The child had spent two years, an immensely critical period of childhood, without the physical presence of his father.

I imagined the life he would lead, my nephew, in this new world. A new beginning, one that mirrored my own journey. How astonishing it was to watch the same voyage unfold time and again, each dotted with unique experiences that dictate its trajectory. Watching parent and child undergo the same hard-knock life, but with their prior life experiences playing a role in how they chose to navigate the hardships that came their way.

What sort of life would my nephew lead? To be candid, the conversation inspired a twinge of envy, as I knew my cousin Shaun to be a doting father with a kindly nature. I understood that that loving demeanor would pay dividends in his son’s relationship with life.

The chattering between the sisters had lulled to an end. Ma had been beaming throughout the evening, engaged in conversation and eagerly offering unsolicited advice, but as the room settled into a calm silence, the worn lines on her face became more pronounced. Her resting expression was one of deep sorrow, and I could only imagine the clutter that took up space in her thoughts.

We were at Aunt Dee’s home to make amends for havoc that had recently transpired between Shaun and my stepfather; his unbridled rage, even well into old age, was a consistent theme that marked our experience in the US.

He and Ma had met when my sister and I were just three and five years old, after my biological father had disappeared one night, unable to withstand American life. According to Ma, my father had resisted moving to the US in the first place, and was deeply unhappy here. He lasted three years before returning back to the old country, and cut off all contact with our family.

My grandmother frantically made arrangements to have my mother re-marry my stepfather, who had recently become a widower.

She could not have known that in her haste, she betrothed her youngest daughter to a lifetime of unhappiness.

On a balmy winter night in New York, a young woman named Christina Yuna Lee was murdered in her Chinatown apartment.

Earlier that night, a few friends and I decided to grab dinner in Chinatown. Following a hearty meal, we wandered around the neighborhood, where the streets were lively with stragglers from Lunar New Year celebrations that morning.

The cheerful crowds were pleasant to witness after the long stretch of doom and misery that grew to envelop the city in recent years. Ambling towards the Lower East Side, we passed through Sara D. Roosevelt Park, which was notorious for becoming a homeless haven as the pandemic raged.

“A Bangladeshi delivery worker was killed here a few months ago.”

I relayed the tragic story of Sala Miah, a hard-working immigrant who had paused on a park bench to catch a breath in between trips and senselessly murdered, leaving behind a wife and children. As a fellow Bangladeshi immigrant, the story hit close to home.

Though I am a proud native New Yorker, I am also conscious of the heightened sense of fear and insecurity that has plagued the boroughs lately, and so I mentioned Miah as a precautionary tale intended to keep our guard up.

Only a few hours later, Christina Yuna Lee was brutally killed.

Though Lee’s murder has not been classified as a hate crime, it is no secret that violence, especially against the AAPI community, has soared to alarming heights in New York and other cities as the pandemic rages on. Her death was the latest in a string of violent attacks against Asian Americans. In the last month alone, Michelle Alyssa Go was pushed to her death in the path of a subway by a homeless man, while another woman, Bew Jirajariyawetch, was sexually assaulted and robbed by a man who remains unidentified.

It’s hard not to feel hopeless when learning the circumstances of Lee’s death. Knowing that she had only called her Chinatown apartment home for less than a year. Knowing that she actively worked to support the Asian American community to prevent such crimes from occurring, and the terrible irony in how she had succumbed to the very violence that she had worked to prevent. Knowing that she had taken the precautionary measure of taking an Uber home on a late-night and yet still wasn’t safe. Knowing that she was tailed and that a skulking man, later confirmed to be living in the aforementioned Sara D. Roosevelt Park, forced his way into her own apartment — a place meant to be a safe, private sanctuary — and used her own kitchen knife against her.

It’s difficult to articulate the flood of emotions that grips the spirit upon receiving such news. Terror, at the fact that this was nightmare fuel come to life. Sorrow, at the fear that this poor woman must have felt in her last moments. Shock, that such a terrible thing could occur in the city touted as the greatest in the world. Outrage, that the AAPI community could hardly grieve over one brutal incident before the next one took place. Chills, knowing that the attack had taken place on the very streets where the energy was joyful and lively just that morning. And anger, so much anger at all the systems that continue to fail minorities, the marginalized, the vulnerable.

There is an outpouring of love and pain being expressed on social media, grieving for the way Lee was prematurely yanked from this world. There are beautiful testimonies from colleagues, friends and family attesting to the wonderful person that she was. But there is also a battlecry reverberating louder with each violent attack that mounts in this city and elsewhere in the United States. Why did this happen, and why couldn’t we prevent it? Who to blame? When does it end?

Hold on to your rage. Remember her name.

Rest in power, Christina Yuna Lee.

Like many people who grew up in low-income communities in New York City, I compromised on living space and spent my entire life in tiny apartments where people lived crammed on top of one another for the privilege of residing in the greatest city in the world.

After spending time in spacious dorms during college and later moving into much bigger apartments upon graduation, I experienced first-hand the wonders of what physical space can do for your well-being — not to mention how it can positively impact the relationships you have with roommates, be it friends or family.

My family and I were fortunate enough to be ready to purchase a home in 2021 during arguably the most challenging and expensive real estate market in history, and so I embarked on this journey solo without a clue as to what I was doing.

A year later, I’m at the finish line — and with so many things I’ve learned along the way, I have decided to put together a handy guide so that others in my position can learn from my first-time home buyer journey.

Fair warning: many noob mistakes were made. Apologies in advance for the lengthy blog and for any repetition.

Good luck!

How To Buy a Home (for Dummies)*

(*this title might already be taken, oh well.)

STEP 1: Save.

Duh.

For New York City-based buyers, these are the things you need to aggressively save for:

1. Your down payment (ranging from 3% — 20% of the purchase amount. More on that in step 2)

Determine how much house you can ACTUALLY afford. That means accounting for how much down payment you’re putting in for the house, what your monthly payments will be compared to how much you’re paying in rent currently, utilities, emergency money, and your other expenses and debts.

Be very cautious with your estimates, and always round up – you never know what expenses might pop up. A common misconception is assuming that just because you get approved for a certain amount of loan, it means you can afford it. This is not the case, as everyone’s financial situation is different, and you will be paying additional fees (increased utilities, property taxes, insurance, etc) on top of your new mortgage.

2. A good real estate attorney. In NYC, an attorney is mandatory for buying a home. Don’t skip on getting a solid one, especially for your first home. A decent lawyer will have your back, but they’ll run you anywhere from $2000–$3000. Of course, you can always find lawyers for less, but beware that cutting costs on your biggest proponent can potentially hurt you in the long run.

3. Money for closing costs. Again — for any home you have your eye on, don’t assume you can afford it just based on your current expenses and down payment. Make sure to factor in closing costs, which is around 2–5% of your entire loan in ADDITION to your down payment, and goes towards your attorney, broker, title, insurance, taxes, etc.

4. Have money reserved. At the end of your purchase, when all is said and closed, hopefully you don’t have just $5 left in the bank, although purchasing a home will certainly clear out the average person’s bank account.

5. Get all your finances for the home sorted out long before you close. For instance, if you have a stack of cash sitting around somewhere that you saved over the years and you intend to use it for the purchase, be sure to add it to your bank account in advance. This is because in the final stages of purchase, the lender conducts a thorough background check of your financial history and legal documents– this is called underwriting. Any large deposits that equal to more than 50% of your monthly income will be flagged as suspicious, and you will need to provide a paper trail. However, if the money has been sitting there for months, it will be considered “seasoned” and you won’t need to provide receipts.

STEP 2: Get pre-approved for a loan (or as I like to call it, “why is everyone telling me to ‘shop around’ for a lender????”)

A MORTGAGE is the amount of money that a bank or lender is letting you borrow to purchase a house. When people advise you to start shopping around for a pre-approval, what they mean is that you need to visit the website or call the number of banks that you think might give you a solid mortgage loan offer. When you’re looking at houses, most sellers won’t take you seriously unless you’ve already been pre-approved.

For this step, I would advise getting recommendations from people you know who have recently purchased a home for a good loan officer who can assist you through the process. You can also ask for recommendations for a decent broker who can baby-sit you through it all and probably find you the best rate (that’s what I did.) Brokers don’t work for a specific lender and therefore can scan a variety of options to see what your best option is.

Fortunately, the actual application process to get a pre-approval is fairly consistent for every lender. You start an online or over-the-phone application and submit personal information – your name, address, employer, bank statements, social security number, tax statements, W2s and so on. It can be a repetitive process, but you want to make sure you have enough options to choose from. You can pick any lender just to have a pre-approval in hand so you can start looking at houses, but it doesn’t mean you have to use said lender once you’re under contract for a house.

Every time you apply for a new pre-approval, your credit score will get pulled. Don’t worry too much about it – when applying, there’s a 45-day window in which your credit score can get pulled several times without adversely affecting you.

Once you’ve been pre-approved, you should receive an email from the lender with a pre-approval letter attached detailing how much of a loan you’ve been approved for, and what your interest rate is based on the current market.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: just because you’ve been pre-approved for a certain amount, does NOT mean you should be purchasing a home in that amount. Banks typically will loan you a lot of money, but you will need to factor in all the other costs associated with buying and owning a home.

It’s not too difficult to get qualified for a mortgage. However, what you’re really looking for is which lender offers you the best INTEREST RATE. Why does that matter?

Obviously, a bank won’t offer you a hefty loan for free. When you’re making your monthly mortgage payments, your interest rate affects how much you’re paying per month. For lifelong apartment-dwellers like myself, mortgage payments are essentially like paying rent to the lender (plus interest), except that money actually goes into the equity of your home and not into the pockets of your landlord. If you get a low interest rate, it means you’re making lower monthly payments, and thus able to keep more money in the bank. Everybody wins!

Hold on — how do I get a low interest rate, you ask? Well, there are a few factors: your income, your debt-to-income ratio, your FICO score, having a stable work history, and whether you’re using a conventional loan or FHA loan (there are other types of loans, such as a VA loan or USDA loan, but for the purpose of detailing my personal experience, I won’t go into those.)

Another important thing to note: if you are applying for a loan with someone else — a spouse or sibling, for example– both of you need to be on the loan application. That means submitting all the necessary materials – finances, credit score check, W2s, etc–for each person on the mortgage. Both of your employment and financial history will be taken into consideration when you are given a loan offer and interest rate, so be mindful of who you put on the application if one person has a lower credit score or less stable income.

What type of loan should I get?

A conventional loan is a loan where you typically put down around 20% of the house you are purchasing as a down payment. This is indicative that of you as a buyer being less of a risk, hence favoring you for a better interest rate.

Some loan offers allow you to put much less down – as low as 3–5% in some cases. In this event, you as a buyer will be suitable for an FHA loan (US Federal Housing Administration.) This type of loan is typical for first-time homebuyers or people who are not able to put 20% down. You can still buy a house — but to protect itself in case you default on your payments, the lender will charge a monthly PMI (private mortgage insurance.) Think of it as insurance against you in case you can no longer pay your monthly mortgage. So with an FHA loan, you’re putting less money up front, but paying a higher monthly amount because you’ll be paying mortgage + interest + PMI.

You can also apply for a conventional loan with PMI as well, which lets you put slightly less than 20% down payment. In that scenario, say you borrow money at 87% of the home (instead of 80%) — you would have to pay PMI until your loan-to-value is at 78%, without requiring refinancing.

In the past, PMI was usually removed off any loan once the owner paid enough to make up for 20%. These days, if you have an FHA loan, you’d have to refinance in order to take the PMI off. Refinancing involves re-applying for a new loan once you’ve paid off most of the home, which entails a new interest rate but having to pay closing costs a second time.

Therefore, it’s more financially sound for buyers to opt for a conventional loan if you are able to, but that doesn’t mean FHA loans aren’t a good option.

Example: Say you’re purchasing a home for $400,000.

Scenario A: You opt for a conventional loan, which means you’re putting 20% of the home price as a down payment, which equates to $80,000. That means the lender is giving you the remaining balance as a loan.

400,000–80,000=$320,000 in loan amount.

A typical mortgage is paid over a 30-year period, which means over the span of three decades, you will (hopefully) have paid off that $320,000.

But hey, that loan doesn’t come for free! An interest rate is basically a percentage of your total loan that you’re paying to the lender for giving you the loan. One of the primary reasons so many people were scrambling to buy a home during this pandemic is because interest rates were at a historic low.

Let’s say you’re purchasing this $400,000 home in 2020. With your great credit score and D-T-I ratio, you snagged an interest rate of 2.75% Woohoo!

2.75% interest rate is based off of the entire purchase amount. So with all of the above numbers, you can expect to pay around $1306 a month (excluding additional fees, which you will learn about later.)

Scenario B: You really want the home, but aren’t able to put down $20,000. So you apply for an FHA loan, which allows you to put only 5% down. Sweet! Your upfront costs will be much lower, but you’ll pay a higher monthly payment because it includes your mortgage, interest, property taxes etc, but now you have to pay PMI.

It’s a lot to take in, I know. One of the biggest things that throw off first-time homebuyers is that there are so many more hidden costs to owning a home besides initial down payment, closing, and mortgage and utilities.

You’re also on the hook for homeowner’s insurance, which is mandatory.

If you purchase a home that’s part of, say, a gated community, or a condo, there’s likely an HOA (home owner association) fee on top of the homeowner insurance. An HOA is a board that oversees the community and make sure your grass isn’t higher than a certain height, that you don’t paint your house a hideous color that will bring down the property value, and will let you use the community recreation center and pool. HOA fees can set you back a few hundred or even a thousand or more every month.

Don’t forget — there’s no landlord to call when your toilet backs up, your fridge malfunctions or something worse. Oh, and if you’ve been renting this whole time, you’ve most likely been responsible for just your gas and electric utilities. Welcome to your new heat and water bill.

TL;DR: now that you know some of the extra hidden costs when it comes to selecting a loan and weighing your options, make sure you save accordingly and keep a separate savings account for these particular expenses handy.

STEP 3: Find a solid realtor to work with and start looking at homes.

Spending hours on Zillow idly browsing for your dream home is always fun –until it’s time to stop daydreaming and actually endure the house-hunting process.

House hunting during the pandemic has been a particularly cruel and unusual experience. Federal interest rates dropped to historic lows, while housing supply dwindled and led to a skyrocketing demand in homes — and of course, absurdly high home prices.

Enter millennials into the housing market, desperate to buy a home and willing to do what it takes – including forgoing many essential steps to home purchasing such as inspections or buying homes with all-cash to evade potential competition.

Personally, I asked everyone I knew and trusted that had gone through the home-buying process for advice and referrals. I highly recommend you do the same; don’t be an idiot like me and casually begin the process by entering your email address into the first house you like on Zillow or Trulia, lest you wish to be absolutely bombarded with texts, emails, and phone calls from random agents, attorneys and bankers with promises to help you close within weeks.

Still wincing from that experience.

If you’re a complete beginner and have few resources or people to help guide you through the process, start by finding a real estate agent. Realtors are generally regarded with an air of suspicion — that’s because the industry is flooded with agents, many with seemingly little to no experience or who don’t appear genuinely invested in what will likely be the most expensive purchase of your life. If you don’t trust someone to help you along the way, then is it worth it?

Technically speaking, you don’t need a real estate agent to purchase a home. However, if you are a first-time homebuyer, this is definitely someone you should actively pursue. Don’t be afraid to take your time with realtors – they get a pretty penny out of your purchase, after all.

Also, remember that at this point you should already have a few pre-approval letters from lenders. Sellers usually require a pre-approval letter in order to view their home because it affirms that you are a serious buyer.

STEP 4: Make an offer. Or two. Or ten.

So you found a house that caught your eye. You set up an appointment with the listing agent or attended an open house, toured the home, and now your heart is set on it. The home is within your budget and meets most of the criteria for what you were looking for.

You’ve discussed it with your agent and you’re prepared to submit an offer.

But what does submitting an offer entail?

I was under the impression that for something as significant as a home purchase, an offer needed to be written on parchment paper, using a single quill born of phoenix feather and inked with a newborn’s blood, mailed to the sellers by raven at the stroke of midnight.

Um, no. Turns out all you need to do is write an email that details your offer and contingencies. You send the document to your real estate agent and they prepare a deal sheet and forward it to the seller and their agent, along with any other necessary materials.

This is what I wrote in my offer, verbatim:

Hi there,

My family and I are interested in purchasing the property at (redacted)
We would like to extend our offer of (redacted dollars) contingent on a mortgage and appraisal.

We are prepared to put a down payment of 20%, with 5% at contract signing and the balance at closing. We would like an inspection conducted within 7 business days. We are ready to close whenever the homeowners are ready.

Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!

Some things to note:

In order to for your offer to stand out, you usually have to find a way to sweeten the deal. Some people waive contingencies, which are stipulations that a home must pass, such as an inspection and mortgage appraisal, in order for the deal to move forward. If it doesn’t pass – for example, if the home doesn’t appraise for the price you offered– you’re free to walk away without penalty. Note that I mentioned I would be paying 5% of the 20% down payment (called earnest deposit) at contract signing aspect and conduct a home inspection within the week to indicate that this was a serious offer.

There is also a practice called a love letter, which is pretty much self-explanatory: penning a personalized letter to the sellers about why you love their home. In some states, writing love letters is illegal, but if you feel genuinely passionate about a home, sometimes it can truly reflect in a written letter. I wrote one for the sellers of the home we bought because I felt deeply connected to both the home and the community; the neighborhood was very familiar to me, and the home was at the very top of my list.

Now, all you do is wait for the sellers to accept the offer and you’re one step closer to closing, right?

No.

There’s a reason why everyone from your realtor and your broker to your family and friends warn you not to get too attached to a home before getting your offer accepted.

Here is a list of potential roadblocks that could get in the way:

• Bidding wars. This is when a listing agent deliberately prices a house on Zillow for way less than it should be to incite a bidding war among interested buyers.
• Competitive market. With insanely low rates and a shortage of existing homes or new builds, competition is more fierce than ever.
• Cash offers. As they say, cash is King (or Queen), and many sellers prefer cash offers to mortgages.
• Waived contingencies. A contingency is a stipulation that a buyer makes in their offer in order to move forward with the purchase. It’s basically saying that the offer comes with strings attached and is contingent on a mortgage, appraisal and inspection (these are the basics.) But because the buying landscape is so competitive these days, a lot of buyers will waive their contingencies in order to make for a more appealing offer and faster closing process for sellers. I do NOT recommend doing this: you may be more likely to get your offer accepted, but you could run into significant issues down the road and be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• Overbidding. Unlike in the case of an underpriced home, in today’s market a home doesn’t even need to be underpriced for a ridiculous bidding situation. In the past couple of years, many people will begin their offer at the listing price or higher, if the home or location is desirable enough.

If you’ve managed to bypass all of the above obstacles and got your offer accepted on a home you feel strongly about, congratulations! In today’s competitive market, getting an offer accepted on a decent home is no easy task, so you’re one step closer to purchasing.

STEP 5: Post-offer acceptance.

But wait, there’s more!

Not to be a party pooper, but from contract signing to closing day, a lot can go wrong that collapses the deal. I wouldn’t celebrate just yet.

During my home-buying experience, I was very superstitious about the whole journey. Although many of my friends were aware that my family and I were in the market house-hunting and preparing to make offers, I did not discuss the nitty gritty of the process to anyone until after closing.

Here are the next steps to take after your offer is accepted:

1. Home Inspection. A home inspection is typically a mandatory action after an offer is accepted. I say typically because until the last couple of years, it was absolutely critical that you get an inspection done, lest your home have some serious hidden issues and you’re stuck paying for it after the fact. Now, because of the ridiculously competitive market and short supply of homes, buyers are opting to waive the inspection. I definitely do not recommend doing this if you can avoid it.

An inspection investigates the home for any major issues – foundation, outlets, roof, HVAC, exterior, etc. You can get inspector referrals from anyone you know who has purchased a home, from your realtor if you trust them, or read reviews online on Yelp or other service websites. I would ask a few different inspectors for quotes on their fees – it shouldn’t cost you more than $750. After a few days, you’ll receive a full report detailing all issues, both minor and major.

If anything really significant arises — for example, they found mold in the basement, or the boiler needs to be replaced– you have the option to request that the sellers repair all the big ticket items, negotiate the price of the home down, or simply pull out of the offer altogether. Remember that in my offer, I included an inspection contingency, which means that if major household issues were found, I could withdraw my offer at no penalty.

2. Secure an attorney. As I mentioned, in New York, a real estate attorney is mandatory to close the deal. This is the person who will draw up the purchasing contract, pore over the fine print to make sure you, the buyer, aren’t being screwed, and is basically your biggest advocate throughout the buying process. You can ask the attorney all your questions and concerns, and they will be present on closing day. Similar to an inspector, it is best to hire an attorney as soon as possible. Get referrals from homeowners you know, from your realtor, or online. Do your research on an individual before an offer is accepted, so you can send outreach emails explaining your situation and asking for fee quotes as soon as possible. A good attorney is expensive, but they will be worth your money, especially for your first home purchase.

3. Lock your loan terms and mortgage interest rate with a lender. This one caught me totally off guard in my process. Remember early in the process, when you were first shopping for mortgage pre-approvals and got your letter outlining the terms of a loan you were qualified for with a bunch of different banks? Once your offer is accepted, now is the time to decide which lender you are going with and lock. your. rate. This one is super important because the historic low interest rates is one of the driving factors of the buying frenzy during the pandemic, and you want to ensure you get a part of that, assuming that you qualify.

Rates change every day, so if you get a really good interest rate offer one day, it’s not guaranteed to be your loan rate later on unless you lock it. There’s also the option of paying points, which is essentially buying the cost of bringing the rate down. So for example, if you get approved for a 3.125 rate but you really want a 2.99, you can pay to bring it down to that, but it will run you hundreds to thousands of dollars.

STEP 6: Contract signing, process and negotiations.

If you’ve gotten this far, it means that your offer has been accepted, your attorney has sent you a deal sheet outline your terms to approve – e.g. your offer and your contingencies – and you’ve signed a contract. At contract signing, you review the legal terms with your attorney, sign a bunch of documents along with anyone else who is on the mortgage application or house title, and review the estimated closing costs.

Remember when I mentioned earlier how a home purchase can easily be derailed by hidden or unanticipated fees? Purchasing a home in New York City is a special kind of hell: that’s because it is one of the most expensive markets in the country, with its own unique (and in my opinion, unnecessarily obtuse) rules and regulations.

In step 1, I discussed the savings aspect — you should be secure in your finances before moving forward with buying a home, for obvious reasons.

But besides a sizable down payment, your money will be going towards a number of other fees otherwise known as closing costs.

WHAT CLOSING COSTS ENTAIL:

The down payment of your home (again, as little 3% for FHA loans, and at least 20% for conventional loans)

The title insurance/lender policy, which protects the lender against any issues on the house made by the current owner that didn’t come up during title search ($3,000–$4,000)

Recording fees/city and government taxes ($10,000–$12,000)

The inspection fee (typically around $600-$800)

The attorney/legal fees (anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000)

The appraisal fee ($700-$800)

Home insurance (must sign up for insurance before closing day) ($1,500–$3,000, depending on factors such as square footage, location, single-family vs multifamily, near flood zone, etc.)

Title search — investigates the home for previous violations, outstanding tickets, liens, so that you’re not on the hook for it ($700 — $800)

Mortgage tax (around 2% of the total cost of home)

A mansion tax (only if your home is being purchased for $1million or more — another hideous law from hell that only exists in NYC — a percentage of total home cost)

Title closer – the person who comes to closing on behalf of the title company ($200–$300)

Bank attorney fee — your mortgage company’s attorney who will be at closing ($1,000–$3,000)

Real estate taxes for the following quarter (variable)

Bank fees, broker fees, etc (variable)

Loan origination fee (variable)

I might be missing a few, but this list should cover the gist of it.

Bottom line: during your savings period, be sure to anticipate holding down enough additional cash to amount to 1–6% of your purchase price to cover closing costs.

Make sure all your money is seasoned long before your purchase — meaning your lender can trace where it came from. As I mentioned earlier, if you’ve got a bunch of cash stashed somewhere or if you’re receiving large amounts of money in gift cash from family, be sure it is sitting in your bank account for at least two months or deposited along with a gift letter (which will be provided by your bank or broker.) Otherwise, underwriting is going to be very tedious.

A few no-no’s during the entire contract-to-close process:

• DO NOT MAKE ANY LARGE PURCHASES
• DO NOT OPEN NEW LINES OF CREDIT
• DO NOT CHANGE JOBS

Doing any of these will raise red flags to your bank and hinder your home purchase.

After contract signing, you’re another step closer to becoming a homeowner.

In my offer letter, I committed to sending over 5% deposit of my offer and conducting a home inspection within seven days. Now that I signed the contract, I am legally obligated to follow through. This deposit will go into a place called an escrow account.

An escrow is a savings account handled by your mortgage company. It’s where your deposit money for the house is stored safely in the event that something goes wrong and the sellers can’t run off with it. It holds your monthly mortgage payments, annual property taxes, and home insurance, and pays it incrementally on your behalf.

Contract signing is serious business. It binds both sellers and buyers to a legal commitment, and there are penalties to breaking it. For instance, if a seller suddenly receives an offer on their home that’s way higher than yours, they can’t just walk away from the deal and accept the new offer – not unless they want to deal with potential legal complications or pay hefty fees.

The same applies to you, the buyer. The only way in which you can break the contract is if your contingencies are not met. My offer was contingent on an inspection, appraisal, and mortgage, so if any of these failed to pass – for instance, if my lender refused to let me borrow full amount necessary for the purchase, or if the house turned up serious issues during the inspection – then I am free to walk away. But if I suddenly change my mind or get cold feet about purchasing, I could lose the 5% deposit and face other legal issues, too.

If your inspection report turns up any issues you’d like addressed, you need to flag them with your attorney so they can discuss it with the seller’s attorney. At this point, your attorney and the seller’s attorney should be the only mode of communication. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it is advised since they are the ones advocating for you from a legal perspective.

If the sellers refuse to address the issues, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to remain in contract or end it. In many instances, inspection issues are cosmetic or can easily be fixed, but if it’s something serious to do with the roof, foundation, etc, then you should push to get it fixed. Your attorney will negotiate on your behalf and include all terms in the contract. If all looks good, then full steam ahead.

OK — so you’ve signed the contract, the house passed inspection, and you’ve locked your rate (I recommend locking for 90 days.) Your broker, if you chose to use one, and your attorney should be in contact as well. Your broker will have also sent you a number of documents to sign, such as the broker agreement, rate lock agreement, etc.)

The next steps are title search (initiated by your attorney) in which a title company investigates the home’s history to see if there are any outstanding issues – such as if there are tickets from the city the current owners haven’t paid, or violations against the house. If any issues are flagged, the title company will flag to the sellers, who must then address and resolve the issues.

Until any title issues are cleared, the home cannot close. In my case, the sellers of the home I was purchasing had a couple of outstanding violations that needed to be fixed. However, because New York City’s housing agencies were backed up because of the influx of purchases during the pandemic, it took a long time to address — well beyond my rate lock. I ended up needing to extend the rate lock in order to secure the low rate, otherwise I would have been forced to accept the current market’s rate which, while still historically low, was not as low as my locked rate.

Extending your rate lock is not fun, because in order to keep the low rate, you have to pay to extend it – a percentage of your home cost, PER DAY. In some instances, the bank will waive extension fees, but not all the time. This is why I recommend locking for the maximum number of days – you never know what will cause a holdup for closing.

While title search is being conducted, your next step as the buyer is ordering an appraisal. An appraisal is a report conducted on the bank’s behalf to make sure the house is worth what you’re purchasing it for, a fee that typically costs around $750. Once paid, the bank will send an appraiser to look at the house and pull information on comparable homes (called comps) in the area.

Comps are other homes in the neighborhood that you are purchasing in, that are similar to your home in terms of number of bedrooms, bathrooms, structure, etc, that have sold in the last 6 months or so. The sold prices of these homes determine the market value, so if a comp recently sold for significantly less than what you’ve offered for your home, it could be a sign that you may be overpaying.

For example, if you’ve offered $600,000 for a 4-bedroom, 2-bath home, and you are putting 20% in down payment, it amounts to $120,000 – which means the bank intends to loan you $480,000 in mortgage. An appraiser will investigate to make sure the home is worth that amount by visiting the home and conducting an audit of similar homes in the area to see if they sold for similar prices.

If the appraiser sees that similar 4-bedroom, 2 baths have sold for much less, they may decide that the home is actually worth $550,000, for example, and not $600,000, and they will list this value on their report. This means that the home did not appraise, and the bank will only loan you enough money to cover their approved appraisal value.

At this point, you can either ask the sellers if they are willing to lower the home price to the appraisal value, or move forward with your offer and find a way to secure enough funds to pay the difference that the bank won’t lend you. If the sellers agree to drop the price to the appraised value, your attorney will send a contract amendment that accounts for the difference.

Your final option is to walk away from the deal with no penalties, since an appraisal contingency was built into your offer.

In my case, my offer for the home was actually $10,000 higher than what the home appraised for, which meant I offered more money than what the house was worth (got a little overzealous there.) Once I received my lower appraisal from the lender, my options were as follows:

a) Pay the difference of the $10,000 at closing because the bank won’t lend me more money than what the home is worth.

b) Get a conventional mortgage with PMI, which would require me to pay an additional fee on top of my monthly mortgage until the debt-to-loan value reached 78%, at which time the PMI would automatically be removed.

c) Have my attorney request that the sellers drop the purchase price to the appraisal value.

d) Walk away from the deal and get my 5% deposit returned (but I’d lose all the other money I’d spent thus far, such as partial attorney fee and inspection.)

I went with option C, and I was fortunate enough that the sellers agreed to drop the price to the appraised value. Trust me, there were tons of houses on the market, some in less-than-stellar condition, that sold for way over the asking price, so I honestly lucked out here.

Once the title is cleared and appraisal is completed, the next step is purchasing home insurance policy, which is mandatory in order to close.

Home insurance is necessary to protect you from anything that can damage your home — roofing issues, a fire, or water damage, for example. It can range from $1000 to $3000 or more, depending on a number of factors like the size of your home, whether it is a single family or multifamily (2 or more units) home, the type of roof and material that it was built it, whether it requires additional flood insurance.

The last and perhaps most anxiety-inducing step? The underwriting process.

When you first apply for a mortgage pre-approval, lenders will pull your credit score and offer you a loan based on factors like your income, the amount of equity you have, your taxes, etc. During the underwriting process, your entire financial history is thoroughly investigated to ensure that you have all the funds necessary to follow through on your purchase, and that any suspicious deposits are accounted for. This is why it is important to season your money well before the final purchase: any large deposits that sit in your bank for longer than two months will not be flagged by the lender.

If you happen to have large sums of money deposited recently that can’t be attributed to your listed income or another legal source, then the bank will ask for documentation on where it came from. Be prepared to provide that information, or suffer the wrath of the bank and possibly lose the deal.

STEP 7: Closing.

Closing day is the big one.

If you’re cleared to close, it means you’ve successfully passed the underwriting process, locked your rate and mortgage, and secured homeowner’s insurance. The sellers have resolved any title issues and inspection problems, the home has been appraised, and you’ve settled any outstanding queries with the sellers.

At this stage, your attorney should provide you with a closing date.

Closing is the day in which the deal to purchase the home is finalized, and you become the legal owner of your new home. It typically takes place at either the sellers’ attorney’s office, or the buyers’ attorney’s office. The people in attendance for closing should be you and your attorney, the sellers and their attorney, the bank attorney, and someone from the title company. You can opt to have your real estate agent and your broker there, but it is not mandatory.

The day before closing is when you must conduct a final walkthrough of the home. This is in conjunction with your realtor, and it is your last opportunity for a general inspection of the home to make sure that everything is functioning and there hasn’t been any significant damages since your official inspection was conducted. If there are any issues — e.g. the boiler is malfunctioning or something that was working during inspection is no longer working–notify your attorney immediately.

Finally, closing: the day you’ve been feverishly anticipating for God knows how long.

Here’s what you need to bring to closing:

1. Unexpired form of identification. Your driver’s license, state ID or passport all work. Bring two IDs just in case.
2. Bank checks/Cashier’s Checks. This is to pay your remaining closing costs.

Now is the time to pay the rest of your down payment — in my case, the remaining 15%– in addition to the other closing costs I mentioned earlier.

If the bulk of the money you’re using for closing is in an online bank or an institution without a physical location such as Ally Bank, make sure to wire enough of that money to the aforementioned local bank. Closing costs are typically paid via a cashier’s check — you can obtain the latter quickly in person if the cash is liquid at a physical bank — but can take a few days if you do it online.

Sometimes you won’t receive the finalized amounts or names of payees that are due for closing until the very last minute (this was the case for me) so don’t be like me and spend the day before closing panicking because you didn’t know your online bank’s cashier’s check rules. Your attorney will confirm the final numbers with you beforehand.

3. A pen. Prepare to sign your name at least a thousand times.

4. A folder. You will likely walk away with a handful of the physical documents, so place it in a folder for safekeeping. Your attorney will send you digital copies for your filing as well.

The actual closing process shouldn’t take too much time, no more than a couple of hours tops. Throughout closing, the attorneys will make sure that everyone involved is aware of the contract terms, who is responsible for what, how much is owed, and all that jazz. Be sure to ask your attorney any and all questions during closing!

Finally, after all is said and done, the sellers will hand over the keys to your brand-new home.

Congratulations! You are officially a homeowner.

Hopefully this blog wasn’t too long or confusing.

Please note that this covers my experience only, and I’ve tried to convey it to the best of my ability and memory. Feel free to comment with any questions, comments or point out anything you think is vague or inaccurate or would like clarification on.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

He took a long drag of his cigarette, then proceeded to crush it between his fingers.

The butt, still glowing alarmingly red, disappeared into the side of his index finger. The one with the faded “J” tattooed years ago. The ember from the final hit disappeared, but left no mark on the worn ink.

“J” stood for Judy. He had met her on the steps of that very building that they still lived in, thirty years later. In this part of the Bronx, they were the only white people left. Asians, Indians, Mexicans, you name it — the newcomers filled up the apartments, with tiny children spilling out of their doors, impish creatures who kicked balls in the hallway and ran up and down the stairs playing tag, never mind which neighbors could no longer take their accustomed afternoon naps.

Judy liked them. They never had children of their own; hell, they were never legally married, despite knowing no one else intimately. But on the first of October of every year, she sat down and got to work.

Hundreds of plastic baggies would litter the kitchen table, each imprinted with tiny white ghosts, bats with beady green eyes, pumpkins with toothy grins. Judy separated each bag “by the boys and the ladies,” as she called them.

Girls deserve to have the best candy, she would remark decisively. A treat from their apartment far surpassed any other on Halloween, she made sure of that. No cheapskates at 109B; they only had the good stuff.

It was how he made a living in the rent-stabilized apartment in this lonely part of the borough, too.

He only had the good stuff.

Writing Prompt: Tell the tale of a life-changing interaction between a captivating driver and unsuspecting passenger. Please excuse any unfinished stories, as I pick back up whenever inspiration strikes.

— — — — — — — — — —

“Taxi?”

I stared in wonder at the yellow taxi that had materialized seemingly out of thin air. Just moments ago, the absence of cabs in the vicinity led me to plop down on the curb, eager to shrug off the heavy duffel bag stuffed with clothing for an overnight trip and anticipating at least a thirty minute wait.

Only an hour before, the possibility of finding a ride seemed slim to none given that my Uber app had flashed a NO DRIVERS AVAILABLE alert for a solid ten minutes — the first time I had encountered such a message. In the city, getting a hold of a ride-share was a simple task, with cars showing up mere seconds after calling a car.

Groaning, I had made my way over to the tiny, nondescript building flanked by an unlit sign that read “Taxi Station.” The building was situated to the right of the train platform I had just departed. Numerous parking spaces sat empty outside the entrance, a foreboding sign.

“Hello?”

The inside of the building was even more desolate: an empty waiting area furnished with a single threadbare Scandinavian chair sitting in the corner. The space somehow managed to be even hotter than the outside world, where the area was experiencing the first heatwave of the summer, the kind that made you yearn for just one day of the frigid winter that had just passed, the sun appearing hellbent on burning any person who dared wander outside to a crisp.

“Can I help you?”

I spun around. Behind me, the back wall that was flanked by what I’d assumed was a dark mirror was speaking. It took a moment to make out the woman sitting on the other side, peering back at me.

“Ah, yes,” I replied bemusedly. I opened my mouth, ready to unleash my frustration over the lack of transportation onto her when the woman raised a finger and immediately turned around to take a phone call.

A teapot couldn’t have emitted more steam than my ears in that moment. I stood scowling for a good ten minutes, checking the rideshare apps on my phone in desperation.

“Sorry about that.” The woman had returned and was peering out at me from behind the window again.

I swallowed hard, then put on my most winning smile.

“Hi there. I’m trying to call an Uber, but it looks like there are none available. I couldn’t find any public transportation around either. Can I call a cab from here?”

Even before finishing my sentence, I watched the woman slowly shaking her head, smiling sadly.

“Honey, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a ride around here. This was before the world went to shit — drivers just weren’t getting enough ridership to make money, so they gave it up.” She tilted her head, watching my expression of dismay.

“So…I can’t order a cab at all?”

She shrugged. “I can dial up one of our drivers on call, but you’ll likely have to wait for quite awhile.”

I groaned inwardly. “Okay. Thanks.”

I felt the woman’s eyes boring into my back as I slung my duffel bag over my shoulder and departed the ramshackle building.

Dejected, I stood at the edge of the parking lot, mulling over my options as I gazed across the empty lot. A minute later, I spotted a lone vehicle on the opposite end.

The car, a bright yellow SUV, looked suspiciously like a taxi.

My heart soared.

I quickly sprinted across the lot towards it, my duffel bag swinging to and fro, desperate to reach it before the driver took off.

The engine began revving when I was a few meters away. I sped up, determined to catch it.

“Hey!” I waved my hand frantically.

The car had started up and began moving, but the person behind the wheel paused as I approached. Glancing at the hood, I saw the familiar medallion badge emblazoned in the center, trademarking the token New York City taxi.

Bending over slightly, I cautiously rapped my knuckles on the window. The driver’s window slowly rolled down, revealing a man in his late forties.

“Taxi?” he inquired.

“Hi there!” I chirped. “Are you an Uber by any chance? I’ve been trying to find a ride for awhile.”

The man chuckled. “No, I’m not an Uber. This is my cab though.”

I looked closely at the man’s face. I had gotten his age wrong: he appeared closer to his late fifties, with a weathered face adorned in round glasses — think John Lennon-style — with salt and pepper hair, and a hint of a paunch hidden beneath a striped button-down shirt.

He had what my mother called “kind eyes”: dark pools of brown, inviting you to take a seat and open your heart up.

I had a knack for identifying people’s nationalities. An extrovert by nature, I’d collected enough surface-level knowledge about various countries and came to rely on my internal database as a conversation starter once I confidently determined out where an individual was from.

However, the man looking back at me was ambiguous at best. At first glance he looked white, perhaps Eastern European. But the longer I gazed, the more uncertain I became. He could have been North African, Latino, Pakistani.

His big, bushy mustache twitched, hiding a smile, and that’s when I realized I had been staring at him in lengthy silence.

I blushed. “Sorry! Are you taking passengers by any chance? I really need a ride to my hotel.”

I wondered if I had given too much information: this stranger now knew that I was traveling alone, in desperate need of transportation, and potentially staying by myself, too.

But the sliding door in the back was already sliding open, welcoming me.

“Yes, of course,” he replied.

The man stepped out of the taxi, motioning to help me with my bag. He wasn’t very tall, maybe had a couple of inches on me. Beyond the slight pudge of his belly, he was quite thin. However, he easily lifted the luggage and carefully arranged it in the empty trunk.

I hopped in the car, gave him the address, and we drove off.

“So how long have you been driving a cab?”

Subtlety wasn’t my finest trait, but I was curious about this man. He possessed a warm aura. There are some people in the world that invite instant comfort, and somehow I felt that my nameless driver was easy to open up to.

I glanced around my new environment. The inside of the van was spotless, pristine even; not a hint dust below my feet, and the black leather seats smelled freshly cleaned. The vehichle’s dashboard was another story: it was the only area of the vehicle that could be called cluttered, messy even.

I observed the ornaments that took up the space: a box of Kleenex. A smattering of glitter mingled with the dust – from where?

A pewter figurine in the shape of a bull, with two ruby-red gems where the eyes should be. A tiny, black-and-white photograph, showing two smiling children with their arms around each other. I squinted, trying to make out their visage, and that’s when the man cleared his throat.

“Twenty years.”

I jumped. “Huh?”

He looked at me through the rearview mirror with sparkling eyes. “Twenty years, my friend. Two decades. That’s how long I’ve been driving cab.”

Two decades. I had barely been a part of this world for that long.

“You must have seen some pretty intense things over the years,” I pressed on, eager to listen to him regale stories about out-of-line customers while trying to make it clear that I was normal. Nothing to worry about with little ol’ me.

He didn’t speak, and I began worrying that I had said the wrong thing.

“Once.” He spoke finally.

“Oh?” I replied. “Twenty years of driving strangers, and just the one stands out? Must have been quite the passenger.”

He nodded his head slowly, the action mimicking the gentle pause of his cab as we halted for two people jaywalking across the street: a woman holding a toddler by the hand, waving her hand at him apologetically.

He inclined his head at her with a smile as I watched.

A few minutes went by without a reply, so I gave up and stared out the window. We hit some traffic and had been idling for some time, so I began to people-watch.

A man wearing an orange beanie that must have shrunk in the wash. It was much too small for his head: red curls peeked out beneath it, matted to his forehead.

A young woman with another girl, probably teenagers, fiercely making out on a bench. An older woman who looked to be in her sixties, watching from a few yards away with a disapproving look on her face.

A storefront, with a big yellow sign decorating the display windows. SALE. The announcement was so large, I couldn’t see through the glass behind it, unsure of what the product was.

A guy strolling down the street, speaker in hand raised high above his head and blaring loud music. He must have been well-known in the neighborhood, because no one paid him any mind and a few people nodded at him.

“She was about your age.”

The cab driver spoke so abruptly that I was startled once again, this time banging my head against the window.

He repeated himself without waiting for a response. “She was about your age. Tall. Nice girl. This was about seven years back, but I never forgot her.” I noticed his eyes lingering on the bull-shaped figure hanging from the mirror as he spoke.

“What was so special about her?” I inquired.

He looked sad. “She was running away from someone, something. I picked her up at the train station, just like a few minutes ago. She never told me her name, so I couldn’t help. I couldn’t help.”

He said the last sentence through gritted teeth, and over his shoulder I could see his hands gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turned white.

That was when I noticed the large, silver ring on wrapped around his middle finger.

My heart sank. I knew that snake symbol. Suddenly, the prospect of waiting another hour for a different Uber didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

Lately, I’m finding myself on the precipice of a tipping point.

Ask me how I feel on a given day, and you’ll notice my response tends to change by the hour. One can only assume that this capricious attitude is natural considering the long-term suppression of every emotion under the sun during The Lost Year ™.

On the one hand, it’s impressive how some of our best work is only produced under pressure. It’s certainly not ideal, but in hindsight, a wonder to witness not only the wide array of projects and creative abilities, but knowing the mental conditions that coexisted while each of these things manifested.

As they say, “pressure can either burst pipes or make diamonds.”

I’ve been on a personal journey for a couple of years now. Self-help, identity exploration, shadow work, stoicism, whatever the colloquialism may be. The greatest shift and the one I’m most proud of, is not visible to the naked eye. It is the transition towards a growth mindset, a more resilient self, and its most significant impact can only be known either in confrontation of strenuous situations, a repeat matter, or after the fact.

At the risk of talking in circles, what I mean to say is, one can only notice the difference in oneself over time, in character and judgment, when faced with situations that might have previously unhinged you, or in the face of foreign yet equally terrifying matters in which the “right” thing to do is a gamble (read: productivity in the face of a global pandemic.)

I’ve practiced becoming aware of and observing my thought patterns as they march along their well-worn footpaths (in spite of my feeble admonitions to redirect their course of action) and my ruminating tendencies to the point of hyperconsciousness; at my worst, I found myself constantly nitpicking every single action I took. You can imagine how agonizing it is to overanalyze each of your minute behaviors.

Why did I eat this donut after a workout? What does this say about me? Was I right all along, in that I can never change who I am? Why does my brain insist on clinging to this so-called ‘identity’, who it thinks I am, even though this perception is only the sum total of my life experiences? Why do I believe I can change? Why am I watching this Netflix show with subtitles? Why can’t I just keep up without them? Why did I yell at my sister yesterday? I thought I was supposed to be in control of my emotions? Am I really a calm person? Am I lying to myself? Do I even know who I am?

Who.

Am.

I?

Well. Stream of consciousness aside, this journey of mine has not been an easy one. But like most things that you set out to learn for the first time, it takes a period of trial and error before you are able to feel somewhat confident that you’re headed in the right direction.

I raise this concept because I’ve been wondering what to do with anger, a natural emotion. We all feel it, and we’re well aware of what happens when a cacophony of stifled emotions bursts at the seams. The results are usually not pretty, but much like a good cry, the sense of physical relief that your body experiences once the emotions are released is kinda worth it.

As someone who is not typically prone to fits of rage or angry outbursts, I’ve been wondering what to do with myself when it comes to healthy channels for relief. Some say it’s exercise, and while a quick jog certainly can do wonders to reset your mind or at least alleviate the burden of a painful emotion, I find that still it remains. Perhaps a bit quieter than it was a little earlier, but awaiting its return to full glory.

I have a problem with internalizing my emotions. A huge problem, really; one that long preceded this pandemic, in which internalizing our feelings is normal because hell, we’re all in this together (a shred of sarcasm here.) I’ve come to realize that the ways in which I’ve dealt with particularly trying experiences in the last year are not necessarily healthy, at least not from a personal standpoint. In several instances, I found myself rationalizing my choice of response to situations outside of my control; hey, at least I’m not yelling. At least I can control my emotions.

This is true on the external, for the most part at least, and prevents the need for damage control. But since every action bears a consequence, it begs the question: what sort of destruction is this suppression of feeling doing to the delicate linings of mind, body and soul?

Of course, this is worst case scenario thinking, a mindset that I am all-too familiar with. Perhaps there is some broader lesson in all this that I have yet to learn; if that is the case, I eagerly await the wisdom that only time and experience can bequeath.