Relationships

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking By Emily Dickinson_ If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain_ I wasn’t expecting to have a deep conversation about life on my way back home from SFO after a weekend in LA. My Afghani Uber driver was particularly determined to make it in America, notably in the expensive hellhole that is the Bay Area. Despite our age difference, he stumped me with a plea for advice as we approached my driveway: “As a well-educated person, what advice can you offer me?” ...

I was away for five years and four months. Deliberately ghosting scores of cousins, aunts, grandparents, and relatives I didn’t know I had, I finally returned to the land that bore fruit to me and my kin. For that long I stayed away from what I perceived to be holding me back from the inevitable currents of change. For much of my teenage years, that rather selfish attitude underscored my unwillingness to reach out to those who held me eternally dear. ...