May 2024 was a big month for me. The first half of the month: I went home for my best friend’s toddler’s 2 year festivities, another dear friend’s wedding, some quality time with my parents playing pickleball, and friend catchups that feel few and far between these days. There is something SO delicious about a nearly summer evening with your friends cracking cold ones, digging into a Mexican feast, and hobnobbing on all the drama that’s gone by the last few months.
And I highly recommend everyone attend a toddler’s birthday without one of your own. It’s an anthropological scene of the first order– kids are so smart, so naturally funny, and so uninhibited in a way that reminds everyone to play more. At age 2, so many had their parents as supervisional aides, brokering connections between toddlers, and the hesitation and hovering was both a recall to my own parents once upon a time (and sometimes now, let’s be honest!) and a harbinger of what’s to come. Simultaneously, I was yearning for my own and also very thankful to be only responsible really for me, myself, and I. But to be able to share in these milestones, even if they are “everyday”– that’s what I lose out on by being miles away and am so game to indulge in whenever I am back in town.
The wedding was another highlight as these two were the first of my friends to pass through Portland last year and let me serve in one of my most favorite roles: tourguide! Seeing their union over two days of a Sangeet and Ceremony was magical and electrifying. They wrapped their community around them in an envelope of love, trust, and pure witness. The speeches were some of my favorites at any wedding, and the honesty of it all was astonishing. A desi wedding where everyone knew what exactly was happening and why? Novel, in the best way. It was very special to reunite with long lost high school classmates too and catch up on almost fifteen years.
About 6 weeks prior to this trip, I saw a call for proposals for a conference in DC. A South Asian American political conference. In years past, I have attended conferences outside my work industry to learn more and grow. I have gone to a podcast convention, numerous events at the JFK Library and Ted Kennedy Institute, and last year I attended Slashie Summit. But something about the call for proposals stuck out to me… was this an opportunity for me to add a topic to a space that may benefit from it?
As luck would have it, 2 other nonprofit leaders had the same idea: what resonance and resources are there at the intersection of Desis, political capital, and caregiving?
My dear friend Naureen and I worked tirelessly one weekend evening to parse out the requirements and write up an outline that we thought would be very helpful to an audience of laypersons like us. Thankfully, India American Impact combined proposals and requested 3 of the 6 panelists to speak on a new panel called: Desi Care, Desi Loss:Cultural Caregiving in the South Asian Diaspora. Compassion and Choices’ Jaspreet Chaudary & Paurvi Bhatt of the Rosalyn Carter Institute were my sisters in solidarity on this panel. Over the course of a few weeks, we prepared together to share our stories and find ways to help our audience have the tools and resources they’d need to navigate this in their own lives.
However, the whole time I am preparing, I am nervous and shaky. You see, this is the first time I have ever really named and owned my family role in a public forum. It usually goes unacknowledged, unspoken, and sometimes follows me in the room unseen. It shows up in the workplace at inopportune times. It is why I currently live thousands of miles away from my family– to learn how to keep a household running and thriving so I can help them one day.
I am the sibling of someone who requires care. He’s brilliant, he’s talented, he’s my best friend. But he’s my elder brother, and since the age of 13, he’s faced difficulties and throughout the years has not been held to the traditional standards of adult life.
Telling this story, though I have written it over and over and parsed out every decision throughout my adolescence on the page and blog screen, telling it aloud in person to people who selected to be in that room and know what I went through was at once momentous and the most scared I’ve ever been in my life.
If I think about why, it’s because I’ve tried to get an A throughout life, and especially in being a good sibling. If there was a way to get it perfect, I would have tried. I molded myself as a Neuroscientist, contorting my skills into whatever was necessary to the detriment of my natural bend toward the arts, and delaying the eventual melding of my natural skills with my cause. With the support of Paurvi and Jaspreet, I somehow got through my words, and even acknowledged this in my section. We do not need to be perfect in our caregiving.
As I wrote in this Instagram caption , Washington, DC has always eluded me though I have yearned to live there. This trip solidified the natural affinity I have for it, getting lost in a museum, taking myself to brunch, happening upon events with Congressional representatives and the constant feeling like “Someone’s making a difference!” The city has that penchant for corny sentiment and patriotism that I feel even on the country’s worst days. The life we have here is a far throw away from what we would have had back “home” in Chennai or Bombay. The lens I have for what is possible is vast and the blend of duty and individualism that colors my story is a testament to the culture we have created as Desi Americans.
Something I had not mentioned in my presentation was that I am actually working on a guidebook on this topic to extend my experience to other teens and young adults who have gone or are going through what I had gone through with a family member who needs care. I want to share the To Do’s, Must-Avoids,and the Lessons I had hard won in this convoluted journey back to myself.
Though I did not become that Neuroscientist, the life experience I have accrued through exploring career options, not compromising my want to give back to my family and my community, and still engaging with many different industries and communities has given me unique expertise to write about how to find and tune your zone of genius and how to continue to leave the door open to finding that amidst struggle in your family.
If you have a similar experience and are interested in contributing with this project through interviews or being a beta-reader of select chapters, please reach out to me! And if you know of any young siblings especially, please put me in contact if you can. I want to coach and guide these young people and ensure they have the whole world open to them as they enter adulthood.
The end of May had its own learnings, but I may save those for another reflection soon. Life has been “lifing” hard – meaning all aspects have been firing on all cylinders in rotation. Some weeks its career, some weeks “relationship exploration”, some weeks family. I wouldn’t trade this momentum for anything, as last year it felt like I was stalling and learning a ton but in one place spiritually. This year, it has felt like I can act upon what I have learned in meaningful ways and advocate for what I want and go after it. It’s gratifying, and I do not take it lightly.
There are years of planting and years of harvest. This feels like a year of tending– growing shoots up a trellis to bloom soon. What kind of year has it been for you?
XOXO,
Maithreyi
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