Bella was my first dog.

Our family had pets since I was a little girl, but Bella was the first on my own. Most stubborn in all the land, she was a crotchety old bird even as a puppy. She remained almost potty-trained for most of her days, but was absolutely never apologetic for it. Because of her complete disregard for potty-trainedness, she had to be crate-trained for the moments we were away. And as the years went by, she spent more and more time in that black metal cage…even when we were home, and she didn’t need to…nor was she asked to. At times, when I was unable to find her around the house or in the yard, I knew she would be in the same spot, every time. She was there, in her crate…having crawled her way back in and tucked herself in the corner…with the cage door, wide open.

I never quite understood why she would choose that instead of the freedom of the house, why she would choose the hard plastic flooring haphazardly draped with an old blanket over the comfort of the couch or her bed in the other room, why loneliness would be more calming to her senses than the congratulatory touch for being a good girl.

I am her.

I’m here now, too…tucked in the corner of my own cage…the one I was so certain the fire had taken with it.

I thought years ago…my prescribed burn singed, indiscriminately, charring every edge, nook and cranny of the comfortable life built around me…including the ME I thought I knew.

I lit the match a really, really long time ago. Years before, when I was in high school, actually. The embers have just laid dormant, quietly rumbling with heat from below, and smouldering on the surface until it would be stifled no more. I remember the moment, the match strike, the first time my feet walked through the cement garden of the City. The smell, the bigness of it all, its ability to make me feel most alive and at the same time, so very, very small. I saw a flash of what my life could be, who I could be…if and when I made this City my own.

The flame waited patiently from 2000 until I moved into my very first Upper West Side apartment in 2020. I knew then, I was changed forever; the fire grew and I did what I could to fan those small settled flames, blowing them until they spread and took on a life of their own.

That cage…my cage…she proved to be resistant and viciously stubborn in her refusal to yield to even the hottest of flames. Why wouldn’t she be? I’ve been building her up, reinforcing her bars and barriers from the inside for more than 40 years now. And I’m here, again, I laid the blame on those around me for building that cage, for keeping me inside, and for not letting me break free.

But as I looked closer…I noticed the door.

It’s wide open.

I’m in there, lying comfortably, but also begging to be set free…and yet, no one is even there to guard the opening, no one is asking me or forcing me…to stay in.

I certainly didn’t build this cage all on my own. I was there to hold the bars upright so the “cool girls” from school could construct the first row. They hammered those rods into place when they would make fun of me for living in a mobile home, for having bucked teeth and weird freckles, for being a tag-along and a poser. Each birthday that went by with no friends at my party or especially those birthdays where my family was going through too much and the day went by like any other…those moments added mortar to those barriers. Brick by brick, they were reinforced by the chewed gum of my childhood, through my awkward preteens and into high school…my walls grew higher and firmer with every feeling of being “too much,” “not enough,” or even worse, “not anything to anyone at all.”

And yet…

There were chinks in my armor, too…the good days…here and there, where I would be brave enough to step outside of the cage, take risks for something new, and experience life’s moments of happiness along the way. My first marriage began when I was so young, fresh out of college, and at a time when I had been free from those caged walls for the four years prior. My college years were so full, so free, so very happy.

I thought I had left the cage of my youth for good…those metal bars that kept me small and compliant…the doing and saying and dressing and acting like everyone else around me. The ones that were reinforced by all the rules and expectations handed down at first by that cool group at school and then later on by the church and my youth group. They kept my body in line to protect the minds of boys who looked my way and most importantly, for my future husband to have for his own…those bars kept me small in the role of a submissive woman who should be calm, quiet and perform her duties without complaint…they were the ones insisting that certain types of music, certain clothes and certain movies would only cloud my mind, my judgement and cause me to step out of acceptance.

After college, I felt free; I thought I’d left that mindset of being told what to do. I was going to do me…be me…and I had a husband that, I thought, had chosen me. And that’s all I really needed to truly be me, right? To be chosen?

Even in that first year of marriage, I looked around and recognized the inside patina, comfort, and compliance had grabbed my hands on either side and led me back to my corner. When he cheated on me in that first year, I knew it was my fault…for I had let him see all of me, and it was too much…or not what he thought he’d wanted. So I crawled back in, to be the one he did want, the one he could feel supported by, the submissive one who didn’t question him or what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go.

I managed to step out from behind those bars from time to time; it was outside where I found true freedom, discovering more and more about myself in those quiet alone times. I discovered my love for food, for cooking…it was a process I could get lost in…I would pore over cookbooks and recipes as if they held the secrets to keeping me freed for good. I started writing again, journaling and blogging…and with each word, I found release…naming things and claiming them. I found strength hidden in those lines. I took hip hop dance classes and did yoga and run club with friends; I even played adult-league kickball…pushing my body beyond its limits, testing her resilience to bounce back.

I did…I had real moments of freedom where I thought I had abandoned that cage for good. Yet somehow, some way, people and circumstances in my orbit would convince me back into that corner. When our church crumbled under the weight of its own infidelity or when my attempts to have a baby failed, and I fell quietly into a pit of infertility…grieving somewhere no one was looking. It was there, in those moments, the corner would give me refuge and safety. Bar by bar, brick by brick, in there I was a good girl, a good wife, good enough, submissive enough, pretty enough, pure enough, faithful enough, pleasing enough…all for the sake of those around me. I’d scan rooms, search faces, and put on whatever version of myself would be the most accepted, the most digestible for them. I held the walls from the inside while they piled on their expectations, their needs, their standards from the outside. I had to…the worst thing I could do would be to disappoint them, or make them uncomfortable.

Light would shine and find its way in…persistent and bright, it would lure me out…for a bit. Hosting themed pop-up dinner parties in the community, doing small cooking segments on the local news channel, winning a grant to do a National Geographic photography workshop in San Francisco. Even then, I was quickly reminded how selfish it would be to stay in the light for too long…that light wasn’t really meant for me anyway. Why would it be?

The year I stepped out again, uprooting my family to a completely different city, taking one of the biggest risks of my life, stepping onto the line with no formal training but the will and the gumption to give it my all and do the best I could. And I did...I worked my butt off, climbing from line cook to sous to Head Chef in less than 2 years…or the time I was featured in the NY mutha-trucking Times for being one of the crazy-ass people to move TO New York City in the HEIGHT of the pandemic. Or the time I held our tiny baby daughter in my arms as the social worker told us our adoption was final, and she was legally ours.

Even in those peak life moments…when I felt the light SO bright, I was quickly reminded that by staying there too long or reveling in its warmth on my skin, or worse yet, even enjoying it a little too much…I was told to get back in…reminded often of how much work I still had to do, that there’s always someone better, more creative, more patient, more beautiful, more successful, more motherly than me.

It was around the time I became sous chef, busting my ass to learn more, that the flames started to really grow and this time, they consumed. They became unruly…I couldn’t keep them or myself small any longer; I just watched. I watched them scorch the life I had grown comfortable in…they took with them my 17+ year marriage that didn’t fit anymore, they took my apartment, they split my home and my schedule with my daughter in two, they took my safety net and along with it, everything I thought I knew about loyalty, love, friendship, family, sacrifice. They didn’t quite burn it all down to ashes…some pieces and parts were instead refined, taking on a new shape. In some places, the flames cleared the whole land so that new growth could peek through.

The bricks and bars that were put there long ago…the ones that told me I was too weak to leave, too scared to do it on my own…those became ashes with the turn of the key to my own apartment, with the stroke of my pen on the divorce papers and shared custody agreement, and even with the click of the mouse as I sent my resignation letter to the restaurant explaining why I had to choose my daughter over my dream job. I really…truly…thought the flames had finally freed me…from all of it.

Why wouldn’t I? For nearly two whole years, I stayed clear of that cage. I’d stopped monitoring…stopped editing…stopped managing myself for others. I’d adopted a very healthy “it is what it is, I am who I am, take it or leave it” attitude…or like my mama always says “like it or lump it” (I still don’t know what that actually means…).

I did what I wanted, I lived how I wanted, I went where I wanted, I asked questions and took risks. I climbed 3-4 times a week, I walked everywhere in the city and took chances on places I’d never been, I grabbed coffee with friends weekly, I did yoga every morning, stretching and breathing out all of the self-doubt and fear and anything else that threatened to keep me small. I experienced things I’d never been brave enough or even had the opportunity to before…like dating and even having a sex life.

I knew at some point, I wanted to find a partner again; the loneliness was real and consuming…almost enough to send me back in before I’d even had a chance to breathe. It was the loneliest I had ever felt, and yet…I was also the happiest, the most confident, the most content, the most secure in myself I had ever been.

I met my partner that next year, and Yas was introduced to the most secure and assured version of myself I had ever been. I thought the cage was long gone behind me…but as we got engaged the following year and then married later that fall, I looked around, and the shadows started to come more into focus, beam by beam, rod by rod; the familiar metal once again surrounded me, and I was devastated.

We had just single-handedly pulled off the most epic wedding in the Catskills with 100 of our closest friends and family; we were riding that high for weeks after. I had literally worked my ass off for 6 months to blend together our two lives, our traditions, our cultures and religions, and families for the most beautiful Southern & Bangladeshi wedding.

Between working, trying to grow the Freckled Fork brand, the post-wedding exhaustion, and navigating Millie’s school and dance schedules, I slowly drifted…away from my weekly climbing schedule, sleeping in and missing my morning yoga more and more. I found all the excuses in the world to stay home, to escape the NY winter. I simply didn’t have the energy or time to do any of the things I loved, the things that had helped set me free.

I only intended to take a break for a week or two.

It had been seven months since the wedding, and I was there, completely undone…unraveling all the progress I had made during my years alone. I was supposed to be experiencing peak life moments, completely in love and enjoying the honeymoon period of my new marriage, my new life together with my new partner.

Instead, the metal bars had once again closed in around me; I had hit an emotional, physical, and most certainly, a mental bottom. I realized…it had been 7 months since I’d climbed, since I’d walked the city; since I stopped getting coffees with friends, and even stopped my self-care routines of alternating massages and facials. I had abandoned my exploration of the city, and literally stopped doing all the things that had rescued me years before when my prescribed burn took my life in a new direction…all the things that had given me new meaning beyond what I did or who I was.

The strange thing was…this time, there was no one around me to reinforce those walls or keep guard at the cage door. Yas never asked me to stop; he never implied or ever once suggested I abandon any of those things. I’d convinced myself that my busyness was the culprit…all of the things I was carrying, I was simply overwhelmed…and, honestly, I let that excuse run longer than it ever should have.

I had slowly, quietly slipped back into my old cage…the one that was singed and scorched, but apparently not quite destroyed all those years ago. I got smaller and smaller, and before I knew it, my fingers were gripping the metal bars as I crawled my way back into the tragic comfort of that stupid cage.

No one asked me to go in…but there I was, and the door was wide open.

That old pull had me again…the one where I was again measuring myself against something external, always needing someone or something to reflect me back to myself before I actually felt real.

Yas is a beautiful partner for me; he is steady and strange and neurodivergent in ways that somehow make sense, and have made him better at loving me than most have ever managed to. He sees things before I say them out loud; he shares feedback (some unwelcome, but most appreciated) and over time, I’ve found myself arguing with him just because it’s easier to digest than the fact that he might be seeing me more clearly than I see myself. I’ve let myself shrink inside of this good, steady partnership…for none other than my own old reasons, and somewhere along the way…I decided it was time to start taking up less space.

I’ve mended these rods and these barriers from the inside, unintentionally and unaware. As our first year of marriage proved to be anything but a honeymoon, I was handed a late-ADHD diagnosis; I slipped back into my childhood anxiety, making excuses, justifications, and managing myself for the consumption of others around me…only this time, I had a clinical defense to hide behind. It’s been rewarding in so many ways, and still so hard, and in my need for comfort, I’ve crawled back into my corner, reinforcing the barriers and walls with the same patterned cement from my childhood, the same amount of energy to over-explain myself, over-analyze and manage how I present myself…to Yas, to friends, to family, to work…to everyone on the outside.

I want to be free from this cage, and this time I know…I understand that it’s me who has to pull myself out, out from behind these barriers of my own making. But this time, I’m not alone, I have a partner who is trying his very best to love me the way I need, a therapist who is helping me to heal these wounds and dismantle these bars once and for all, my family and friends that I don’t have to pretend for and that finally see right through my weak “it’s fine”, I have my daughter who is actively forgiving me for the chaos of her childhood…and who needs my help to keep her own cage from being forged, to help her keep her own barriers from being built up.

It’s slow going, messier than I expected, but as I peek around those familiar patina’d bars, I know I’m not starting from the beginning. I’m ready to let go and this time…I know the path. I’ve been here before, I’ve stepped out, and this time, I’m going to allow myself to feel all of it, even the parts that sting. I’m excavating and grieving the past, breaking it all down…layer by layer so that I can finally work on what’s actually underneath. I know she’s in there; I know she needs to hear that she’s truly okay as she is…unmanaged, unedited, untethered.

Bella stayed in her corner until the end, but me?

I started climbing again.
And this time, I know the way out.

What the Fire Left