THE PAUSE by Ashima Syal | A Short Fictional Story

As women, we breathe the sigh of relief in taking that little pause for ourselves. Let us look at all the small windows of our lives. Those collectivities, where we take that pause for ourselves, motherhood, is an intricate journey, the process of being resonated as a mother, gives every mother a sense of power. The power to nurture a life. It's the red rivulet that keeps us women strong, though age is just a number, but some battles of age cannot be won, but every battle, makes you look inward. And this inward-looking journey is that pause, a pause to reflect what it means to be a mother and bring life. Forty to Forty - five years of my life, I was living with red rivulet, like all other women, I made peace with it even though in return I had to toss tirelessly in my sheets, I was greeted by cramps which felt like tremors of earthquake in the abdomen, it made sure that I go through endless hunger pangs, but even in the course of all the chaotic chaos, the moment I looked at my daughter, I felt this rivulet should never give up on me.

It's my 45 th Birthday today, like every birthday arrives, with its own set of surprises, this birthday made me pause as the red rivulet. This realization overwhelmed me, so much was written all over my body, that I did not know how I would ever be able to pen it down. I was feeling a void; this void was unexplainable. I was terribly missing my menstrual journey of all these years. In this pause of mine, I was actually remembering all the time my red rivulet made me realize my worth as a mother. I was missing being angry, I missed crying. The flashbacks of a week full of cheat meals. Even the rage that the red droplets bought with it, all seemed significant. Though, in this pause there was peace, but absence prevailed over peace. But blending in with the peace that any pause in every woman’s lives brings, we cherish it with acceptance, and this is our power of resilience. Behind every woman, who now finds peace with her body, there is a baggage of pain she was strong enough to conquer, for she chose to bloom in the calm of resilience.

Ashima Syal, an Author and an Assistant Professsor by profession. Ashima has authored two books of Poetry titled Canopy and the Fragrant Fable. Her Poetry has been featured in the Kumaon Literary Festival 2019 and the Mumbai Tata Lit Live. Ashima finds peace in her pen, and has nurtured young minds into blooming in the art of writing by conducting Creative Writing Workshops. Ashima' s work has been featured in well known international journals such as Setu.