Who is mine?

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Moving away to a different country was the last thing I wanted to do. My life was going great here  with all my friends and school. I loved my friends here. I had been in the same school from grade one. I was not the talkative kind and really enjoyed listening to other people's stories. I guess I was lucky to find the perfect friends to be with.

"I am so happy for you!" Aishwarya my best friend had excitedly shouted over the phone when I told her, I was moving away but I could sense her sadness. She was clearly unhappy about my departure. I wanted to desperately tell her that I won't be staying for long or that I would be back very soon. It seemed wrong to say those things somehow. It was not true and both of us knew it.

"Sneha, you have to tell me all about your adventures there, okay?" Aishwarya was very exited like she always is. Her enthusiasm made me smile, but made me realize I'll miss her even more for that, "I would be sulking at home most probably and crying."

"You will love it. Anyhow, I am always here to talk if you need me," she said in a comforting voice. Aishwarya was the best and I was going to lose her eventually. It was a sad realization, one that I was not ready to acknowledge, not yet.

"I know, whom else if not you."

I was sure that I would have started crying my heart out if I continued that conversation any longer. So, I had told her I had some work to do and hung up.

Coming back to the present, my room here in Michigan was large and it had so many things in it, yet nothing that belonged to me. My mom had gone to great lengths to make me feel welcomed. She had brought a lot many things from back home, but everything felt different somehow. As if the things were just there because I needed them, not because I wanted them.

"Sneha!"

It was dad calling me downstairs, most probably for dinner. I was still not used to this change in dinner timings. In India we would have dinner around nine or nine-thirty, having it now at seven was not only early but strange. Moving to America was seriously a cultural shock. The houses were so different, so was the food. My mom had been working here for the past seventeen years and it was only three months ago that the government had approved our documents. My initial reaction on my fathers declaration was immense joy, I was jumping around like a kid. It was getting a bit boring with just him and me at home in India. Having mom around also meant that I could finally get to catch up with her and know her better, she had been gone for seventeen years. It dawned on me much later that we had to move here permanently and that meant leaving my school and friends. I was having all kinds of mixed feelings. I was happy and sad at the same time..

That said, Michigan was not such a bad place to begin with. I was relieved to see all the greenery and the trees that surrounded our place. It reminded me of home. The houses around our block were all neatly placed. Ma had been giving me all these little details about the house that we were going to stay in on our drive back home from the airport.  I was so surprised at all the new things that I saw, I could not register half the things she said. It felt good in a way to be able to see so much that was new and familiar at the same time. Our house was quite large compared to the one in India. Ma had already brought everything that was required for me in my room. It felt great to be able to have so much. I felt a sense of freedom fill me and I loved it.

Snapping myself back to the present, I ran down the stairs to grab a seat after hearing my dad call for dinner. Ma had ordered Chinese. I was a failure with chopsticks and had to take the fork. The noodles tasted so different from the 'Two-Minute Maggie' noodles back home. 'Home', I realised, was the wrong word to use now, this was my home. It was going to stay that way.