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It's my 7 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

#Wow! #7years?! #oof

As I lay sick on the couch, coughing, sneezing and burning up with a fever, I couldn't stop myself from slowly drifting away with heavy eyes into a dreamland as I usually do.

Only this dreamland is too familiar, I was no longer on the couch in my living room but on the firm gaddi of the diwan in my parents house. I feel the bright sunlight filtering through the muslin curtains my mother likes to hang on the doors in summer, the chandelier above me slowly jostling in the warm air blowing in through the open windows and doors. The crystals twinkling like diamonds creating the most delicate reflections on the high roof. I hear the ecstatic song of the birds outside The gazals my father likes to play as background noise, the wind chimes in the balcony upstairs barely audible. As I lay there eye's closed, I feel their presence around me. My father sitting across in the diwaan khana and reading his newspapers. My dadijaan asleep in her room, snoring away quietly. My Amma moving her frail fingers across her beloved tasbeeh. I can smell the different aromas and scents of oud, musk, wet dirt from the freshly watered plants and baghaar. I feel my mother's hand in my hair, asking me if I need chai. I ask her to just sit with me. And she adjusts herself near my head with a plate full of beans she's de-vining for the cook. She starts to speak something , I don't hear her words...I only listen to their sound. The most beautiful, peaceful sound in my world. I'm immediately relaxed, I feel safe, familiar and calm. There's no stress, no worry. There's no rush, no hurry. She calls my name I look up at her and I see my own face looking down at me, smiling.

I open my eyes and I'm no longer in the dreamland, I look around searching for my daughter, she's right there playing with her father, giggling and shrieking with joy and amusement. She has my mother's smile, my smile. A smile I'll protect with everything I have. I'll make sure she too has a dreamland to drift off to.