January 2018, one of the Fridays.
Braving the winds of Lethbridge, Alberta, I somehow managed to enter my home. True to its reputation, Lethbridge winters had been really throwing mood tantrums. A lovely, balmy morning turned into a snowstorm in no time that day. I took off my shoes and headed straight to my bedroom to changed into loose clothes. Unlike most other days, I chose to draw a hot water bath to warm up my bones chilled by the blast of winds from the Rockies. While the bathtub filled with water, I checked my watch – it was almost half-past eight. This was my usual time to get home from the lab. I was working as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Lethbridge. I had a satisfying work-life, which made me want to stay more at work. It was just hunger and sleep that brought me home. Moreover, it was Friday – a day that was usually super hectic as I would try to catch up on all the unfinished works of the week before we headed for the weekend. I hated coming for work over the weekends when no one is in the building.
In Canada, I was a foreigner and sharing my 3-bedroom house with two other roommates, one of which was working multiple shifts to pay for his tuition and gym fees. We occasionally met in the kitchen, where he would often come to cook his chicken portions. The other roommate was a loner. We rarely saw him, except in the middle of the night, when he would arrive home after his shift as a pizza delivery boy. We knew almost nothing about him except that his room had a twin-sized bed, a study desk with lots of books that overflowed onto the floor, and stacks of pizza boxes. He rarely cooked, but when he did, his pans and plates would sit in the kitchen sink for days until somebody else would wash them or wake him up from his perpetual slumber to clean it.
My bathtub was full. After achieving the precise temperature that would neither scald me nor cool down to uncomfortable levels in the next ten minutes, I entered the water and stayed there like a water buffalo.
After having my body warmed up, it was my time for dinner ritual – log into Netflix, open the door of the refrigerator and stare in it to decide what to eat. Since I usually did not have leftovers and hated ready-to-eat food, the next part of the ritual was to open my kitchen cabinet and look at my stock of rice, lentils, and spices while deciding what to cook. It was Friday, I was tired, hungry and could not wait until I prepared food. So, I went back to the refrigerator, took some 4% fat milk into my cute, red bowl, reached out for cinnamon flavoured cereal squares and raisin bran flakes. I grabbed a handful of both, threw them into the milk and watched Netflix web series while enjoying the crunch of my dinner. I actually hated it, especially the part of having my dinner alone. I had actually cried with tears in my eyes while having my first dinner alone 4 years earlier when I had first arrived in Canada as a PhD student,. Hence, the Netflix.
It was almost 9:30 when my phone rang. It was another part of my dinner ritual where my parents would call me from India and ask about my wellbeing. Since we talked everyday, our calls did not last even 3 minutes within which we would ask if everything was fine on both the ends. My parents would always ask me if I had my dinner and what did I eat. That day was no different. I told them that I was doing good, just finished my dinner and had cooked rice and lentils. My parents would be satisfied by knowing that I had learned to cook and was eating well. Actually, I had learned to cook but hated preparing food for just one person. Therefore, most days were just brekfast cereals, leftovers, or pizza for dinner.
Work was fun with people around me and coming home just bit me in my heart. I was lonely.
P.S.: “This is a segment from a multi-part story inspired from my own life – a journey that my wife encouraged me to write down as a blog”
Dreaming biologist 