compensation

yesterday i didnt feel like writing because i had no good news about the problematic lease. i was very depressed. tired by this week of dealing with making sure we have a roof over our heads but more by the energy of nasty emails which didn't respond to any questions we posed but continued to make baseless accusations. struggling to keep my centre. as things to do eased the emotions became harder to deal with as i gave them more space to emerge. 

all three of us are worn out but my husbands office lawyer says that this is just what the owner is trying to do and to keep strong. there is logical reason to keep our spirits up. from initially demanding 14 months rent and the agents commission her demands went down to 6 months and commission finally yesterday she came back to the the offer we had made on monday of her just keeping the money paid so far, three months rent and releasing us from the lease.

i should have been ecstatic right? we should have jumped on it? but i found myself angry and cheated beyond belief and wanting some 'compensation'. i had to examine my reactions slowly for they threatened to engulf me in anxious muscles and a burning rising up from my belly and spreading to the top of my head. i burst into tears and my daughter just withdrew into a little ball on her bed. later our family had its first fight since this crisis began. 

why couldn't i take the offer now? we had made it ourselves just five days ago. 

crisis times often force us to reconnect to our core values. this transaction was about money and i began thinking of what this 'compensation' meant to me.

money. my relationship to it is so complex and very simple. i have seen it come and go in my life. i was born into a very wealthy family but luckily my parents did not believe in splashing money around. we lived in a patriarchal joint family with my uncles families living on the other floors of our four storey home. my cousins always had more possessions than my siblings and i did. at that age i yearned to have more. my mum was brought up in a gandhian household and my dad was just my dad. he believed in enjoying life but did not really need money to do so. picnics on the beach and taking all the kids in the family, about twelve of us, on excursions was his way of enjoying life - besides music and sport. i loved him and i think i have a lot of him in me.

i unfortunately lost him at the age of ten and slowly my uncles who were our financial trustees siphoned off our money. this kind of thing is common in india. we lost most of our money but still had enough to live. if we wanted a holiday or money to study we had to beg for what was ours. at another time i went through a phase when i barely had survival money. my husbands business sunk and he got into debt. we lost our home and it took us about five years of living in other peoples homes before we felt stable again. now after five years of being here in singy we are quite comfortable.

so, money comes and goes. i fear being on the streets but have no real urge to accumulate money for 'security'. working here in singapore is the first time we actually have savings. so losing our deposit is not such a big deal. i just feel that we will make it back sometime. peace of mind once lost is harder to recover though.

but money is not simply money in this case. as i began to think about my reactions i realised that it also is a symbol of ethics, accountability and responsibility. the owner or the agent have not once acknowledged that they were remiss in any way. they have not taken responsibility for anything that has led us to this mental duress. i suppose they have legal advise not to or maybe they are just those people who never reflect on their actions but spend their lives blaming others.but this is where i want a response from them. of course i am unlikely to ever get an apology so a partial refund becomes some sort of apology for me. Not sure if this makes sense to anyone but me. 

Beyond that i realised that i really have a strong need for justice and for using my life experiences not just for me but to bring awareness to unfairness in the world. i do not want anyone else to suffer the way we did. an 'apology' and preventing further suffering also drives me, though i do not yet know how i can use this experience for awareness about such practices here.

i think we did well in this crisis. focusing on what was needed to be done initially and getting it done even as emotions were overwhelming. then as we settled our most basic needs, tiredness peaked and we began talking about our feelings. exhausted and feeling the trauma of a week that feels more like three months but the worst is over. i just wish it were all over.