It is life.

 I was reading the book War Child by Emmanuel Jal, when it hit me, I too grew up in a war-torn country, but, how different my personal experiences were, and luckily I wasn't the one carrying a gun bigger than me.

Then, my first thought was how I have never let my circumstances ranging from growing up in a civil-war torn nation, facing a personal tragedy at a young age, my race, my gender, being a first-generation immigrant, or anything along those lines define me or my narrative. It has always been about how I am as a person, and what my achievements have been irrespective of the circumstances. I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with formulating your narrative based on your life experiences, just saying I never thought of myself as having been defined by my circumstances, and hence, for me, the narrative never needed those back-stories.

Looking back at everything, I finally have come to the realization that without me even realizing it, my situation did shape me. I lost my sister to an accident when I was five, and sadly enough, I witnessed it. My family never spoke of it, so, I have very little memory of her. She was 8, would have turned 9 the next day, had she not been killed by a drunk driver. Then, there was the civil war. First, it started with the story of one person being killed, soon we lost count, and every day we heard the news of death until we began normalizing it. I remember when I was in the seventh grade, I was up early at around 3 A.M. studying for my school exam (I know crazy to think a 7th grader woke up so early) when there was a knock on the door. These were army personnel, carrying out their regular patrolling, looking for the revolutionaries in common people's closets (Of course that's where everyone hid the rebels). The war ended after almost 10 years, and by then I was almost ready to graduate junior high. It didn't end just like that, we did see people take onto the streets, gunshots, and more people killed, when the monarch finally called quits and the revolutionaries took hold.

My next memory is of working at a non-profit in Nepal while I was still in law school. I started reviewing and reading case files on the victims of the civil war, interviewing them, they had been killed, tortured, maimed, raped, and whatnot. It gave me nightmares for a very long time. It also made me appreciate my own life so much more, I had been privileged to have been from the capital, thank god, I was not a child soldier! I was alive.

Fast forward final year of law school, I was almost graduating when the massive earthquake hit Nepal in 2015. I was on the third floor of my parents' house in Kathmandu preparing for my finals. I was convinced I would die. But, luckily I survived that too. Immediately following that earthquake, after I was done with my law school finals and while I was still writing my thesis, I took up a fellowship researching about communities that had been hard-hit by the earthquake. It was devastating, people had lost families and homes to the earthquake, and surprisingly they were still hopeful, still resilient. Once again I felt that I was so lucky that I had survived the earthquake that cost 8000+ lives and that I still had a home and a family.

Then, I moved to the Netherlands to pursue my master's. Little did I know I had seasonal depression. I found myself struggling to get out of bed, to even be myself. And there I was at the university I had so wanted to go to, in the program I so wanted to pursue, with a full scholarship and I could not even function normally. I did graduate, but, I did suffer a lot. I was definitely not at my best, my grades were not as great as I had hoped for. The social aspect of things is another set of stories for another time. I was constantly reminded I was brown, the scholarship I received was just because I was a Nepali. Each time my achievements and my hard work were flushed down the drain, just like that.

I then moved to New York with another scholarship to learn a little bit more about the energy market in the US. I was working 20-hours a week, taking almost six classes a semester, juggling work and school and job search, and the constant pressure that the American visa is. I was on the verge of burnout. Luckily, I graduated with honors this time. It did have a calming effect on my distressed self. Then the LL.M. student advisor advised me not to sit for the bar exam, as according to her, I am a non-native English speaker (Btw, I started learning English at 2) and I did not do my JD from the US, and that I will possibly fail. Given my state of mind then, I bought that. I deferred taking the bar then. I found myself struggling to find a job in a country that is not my home, where I was not licensed, and the market is still extremely hostile towards internationally trained lawyers. I was lucky I found positions at the NY state government agency and at the same time I got an offer to go back and work in Amsterdam in clean energy. I jumped at the offer and left.

Amsterdam was quite an experience. I enjoyed my work. I was alone, away from my family and close ones, so, I had plenty of time on my hands. I was constantly working, reading, and learning new things. It was all pleasant until I survived a collision. I was physically unharmed, but, turned out the memory of my sister dying right in front of my eyes hadn't really gone away, I had just suppressed it well. Then I was starting to feel a little better when I was attacked and robbed in Amsterdam almost a month before I left. Thank God those boys just took my phone and spared my life!

I moved back to Toronto and then to New York. I started studying for the bar exam. My circumstance once again was far from ideal, but, to my own surprise, I passed the bar. It has taken me all these weeks to believe it! After all, it turns out despite my non-native English and my non-US-JD, all I needed was 2.5 months of studying for 7-8 hours/day.

And now, I sit here, completely dependant on someone else for a roof over my head and food on my table, and look at my life. All I can think of is, I have always had life play hardball at me and I have always made it. Of course, this pandemic is one in a 100-year event-rare, I am in no way discounting it, but, so was my sister dying, the civil war, the earthquake, the odds against which I am where I am today. After all, our adversity does shape us, though, it's up to us whether or not we let it define us.