Enfranchised

There is a word I used a few years ago to describe how I felt at one of the lowest points in my life. Disenfranchised. Stripped of standing, of things I'd once taken for granted, of the version of myself I had worked to build. I meant it when I said it, and I don't think I even understood at the time how deep it went.

She came into my life while I was still in the middle of all of that. She was clear about what she wanted from the beginning, and I was not in a place to meet her there - not because she wasn't worth it, but because I was too damaged inside to accept what she was offering. I kept her at a distance she'd done nothing to earn. She stayed anyway.

Through the move back to the United States. Through the years when the business was being built from nothing and the outcome was genuinely uncertain. Through the times when I was still finding my footing and not particularly good company. She stayed, and she believed in me before I was capable of believing in myself. I have thought about that many times, because it is not a common thing.

We were married this January. The celebration was quieter than she deserved - circumstances made a proper gathering impossible, and she bore that with a grace I'll always be grateful for. She deserved better, and I intend to spend the years ahead making up for it.

What she gave me, in staying, was the thing I didn't know I needed most: a reason to believe that what I was building was worth building.

I don't feel disenfranchised anymore. I feel enfranchised again. And it is because of her.

Nishan Kohli is Co-Founder and CEO of BIMstream.