I think the best way to describe
what this journey felt like is that
I'm on a train.
A train so large
it's bigger than the Polar Express.

The train carries everyone I know,
everyone I love,
everyone I've met
in my thirty-three years of life.

People get off
at different stops.
Some get back on.
Some don't.
But the train keeps moving,
and somehow,
some way,
we are all connected
by the train.

Until one day,
I noticed my world
that had once felt so big
was suddenly so small.
The train that once housed millions
now only had four.

But the truth was,
there were only three people
in that cart.

Because I had gotten off
five stops ago.

Five years.
Five years of standing there
at a standstill,
wondering,
How could I have done this?
Why didn't I speak up?
How could I fix this now?
Was there any hope?

Five years of watching
the train disappear
without knowing
if it would ever return.
And then,
somehow,
I snapped back into the cart.

I looked around.
The small cart
we first boarded at the end of the train
was now somehow
a much larger cart
at the front.

And through every stop,
three people remained.
Always.
My family.

And although we got off
for different stops,
we were always together,
connected by our train.

And we always kept moving.

So I thought:
because my body was there,
no one would notice
that my soul,
my mind,
my heart
had been left behind.

I thought I had disappeared
somewhere between the stops.

But then I realized,
the train had taken a detour.

For me.

A train that had started
at one point in time,
meant to travel straight ahead,
had somehow
circled back.

And in that moment,
I realized
how many times
our magnificent train
had circled back
to pick up
the passengers
who mattered the most
and new ones
I didn't even know I needed.

And every time,
the train found its way
back onto its track forward.

I realized I never got left behind
at the platform.

I only needed
to be found.

And just like no one
gets left behind
when they simply get off
at their stop,
neither was I.

Because some people
get off.

Some people
keep moving.

Some people
take different trains.

And some people,
your people,
always find their way back on.

And maybe that's what love is.

Not that nobody ever leaves.
But that when the journey
takes you somewhere
you never meant to go,
the people who love you
will sometimes
take the long way around
just to find you.

Kshatriya.
The warrior class.
A part of which I am.
Defender.
The path I chose to take.

But I never thought life
would take me on a detour
through a fucking war zone.

Maybe that's why
I always felt for those
who were threatened.

Maybe that's why
I could never look away
when someone else was hurting.

I was taught to fight
for what was right.
To protect.
To defend.
To stand between
the vulnerable
and the thing that threatened them.

But no one taught me
what to do
when the battlefield
was my own home.

When the person
I was supposed to trust
became the person
I needed protection from.

I had a sword
but didn't know
I was allowed to draw it.

I knew justice
but somehow
couldn't give it to myself.

So I stayed.
I endured.
I became quiet.

And I mistook survival
for surrender.

But a warrior
is not defined
by how long she can bleed.

She is defined
by the moment
she decides
she will no longer
offer herself
to the battlefield.

And maybe my family
gave me more than
a warrior's heart.

They taught me compassion.
Understanding.
Resilience.

They taught me
to see the humanity
in other people.
To forgive.
To keep going.
To love.

And when I was broken,
they did not ask
why I wasn't stronger.

They were simply grateful
that I was alive.
That I was okay.
That I had made it home.

So maybe being a Kshatriya
was never about
fighting every battle.

Maybe it was about
knowing which battles
were worth fighting.

And learning
that sometimes
the person
you have to defend
is yourself.

I thought the warrior
in me had failed.
But she hadn't.

She had carried me
through the war.

She had carried me
through the silence.

She had carried me
through every night
I thought I couldn't survive.

And now,
she isn't picking up
her sword to destroy.

She's picking it up
to protect
what comes next.

My life.
My dreams.
My family.
My future.
Me.

Because the warrior
was never meant
to die on the battlefield.

She was meant
to come home.