It's an immensely sad thing to see your parents age, grow frailer, lose the youthful elements. But it is sadder to be a daughter (to your parents) in our society. And it is the saddest to be a married daughter who lives away from her parents. You can worry about them from the distance but there is nothing you can do about it. This feeling of helplessness grows onto you every passing day but you have to carry on with your new life. They made the same sacrifices for you — maybe more — as for any of your male counterparts but you lose the right to care about them the same way as any of your male counterparts can, the day you are given into someone else's custody. And there is nothing you can do about it. Nor can they. You can be the most strong independent woman all you want but this you can't escape. You have to live the rest of your life with this guilt. You couldn't be enough. You can't be. Then you get to have a daughter of your own someday and it's the same pain all over again but with a shift in roles and characters. And it goes on and on and on. What a sad thing to be a woman!

 I have been the most speechless on the occasions when my heart was moved the most, touched at its deepest, caressed on the corners I had long forgotten existed. On those occasions, I try to summon the courage to recall every fancy, deep, complex word in my meagre vocabulary but every single one of them seems absurd compared to the intensity of what I am feeling in that moment, so my lips refuse to move and that's when I inadvertently give in to the only form of expression my heart and brain agree on: tears. I have not known a better way yet, I don't think I ever will.