Getting Grown [Life and Other Things]
Hey, it's already February.
Exactly one year ago today, I was...
Well, I was in Jeddah. I was watching the season finale of Fringe, and was so invested in it. I lived and breathed science fiction and I was so completely convinced that there was no way in the world I would ever go survive without it.
I was so incredibly fit one year ago today. I kicked endurance and strength and core, right in the ass. Interval training, cross-fit, boot camp, circuit, I squatted like a motherfucker and STAYED THERE and my leg muscles shamed the boys to submission. Don't get me wrong, I was convinced that I was a fatass, but I could run at 7m/h for 45 minutes straight and I could go vegetarian for weeks, and I did push ups with my chest touching the floor and my knees off the ground. I didn't have Rest Days, I had Yoga Days, when I melted my heart to the sky and saluted the sun.
I was also learning Spanish with my friends. Si queremos esposas, no debes jugaremos MTG. I can still read Spanish like a pro, but all the words that used to roll off my tongue like a fierce Boriqua, Morena, Columbiana, Mexicana, none of them exist anymore.
I was knee-deep in creative writing. I was surrounded by friends who were obsessed with telling stories. I would spend 6 hours straight in one sitting just discussing writing, doing writing, smoking while writing, fighting about writing, laughing at each other's writing, with friends.
I also loved. I loved everything and everyone. I was in love with all the things around me, and every single one of them broke my heart into tiny pieces. I used to sit in the back, the driver quiet, this little fake princess mourning her poor little golden cage, and I would look up into the sky and inhale one deep breath and cry silent tears of wonder. I had complex love and depression and hate and oppression and everything was clear and nothing made sense.
I could afford to be unemployed, I was broke but never poor, I would spend money on a pair of shoes I didn't really like all that much, and that money could have fed three families.
That was Jeddah.
One year later, I'm out in the real world, and my life has been completely, inevitably, inconclusively, irretrievably and irrevocably turned around 360 degrees.
This is my New Year's post.
I long to tell you the story of my present life, the friends I have here and the lives we live, how we pass time and how time passes us by. The total immersion we have in each other's businesses, and how we've found comfort in the most hopeless of places - in our hearts, our breaking hearts, and our broken souls. How lost we all are, and how found. How found we are in each other. The colors of our skins and the textures of our hair, the hurts we hide and the words we spit out, the wines we drink and the anger with which we so fiercely protect each other and hold each other in our small, insignificant but strong hands.
Perhaps it is Proximity that brought us together, right here, right now, but it is the Solidarity of our Screwed Up Minds that glues us together as one unit, our scars and our war wounds that have made us so, so careful, so considerate, so very, very careful of each other's existence that we hold it like candles, like wine glasses, so close to the chest, that we handle with so much care, because who knows?
Who knows why the caged bird sings?
Now that we've gotten some of the poetry out of the way, here are facts.
1- WALKING
I walk. I walk the streets with Beyonce in my ears and my hip flexors in such good form. I put one foot in front of the other and I just glide over that sidewalk and I walk around in circles and I UNDERSTAND. I understand and I love and I put aside all that bitterness and hate and I hug the universe. Freedom is the most seductive of all. Have you met Freedom? Have you run your hands along Freedom's grooves? Have you placed your palm over Freedom's chest and felt Freedom's heartbeat, 60 beats per minute?
2- I LOVE AND I AM LOVED
If there was ever, in all of life's existence, one thing that has ever protected me, and this house, it is love. I gravitate towards people who know only to love me, to adore the ground I step on, to absorb every word that I utter. I love people who love me. It is non-negotiable, and it is automatic.
3- SCIENCE FICTION
I can never shake it off. It's in my blood. Fiction is the key word, not so much science. It's my constant, and it keeps me grounded. It's what I choose to believe, and it's what tethers me to my surroundings. I am fully entertained by it, wowed, cowed. I quiver in its presence and I hug my knees to my chest and I rock myself back and forth in the name of sci-fi. I am blanketed by its stories in the weekends and slammed into the sidewalks on road trips by its confusing clarity.
-----
I am 30 years old. In 30 more years, I'll be 60. My skin will have wrinkled, my eyes sunken, my eyebrows just tufts of hair that barely makes a statement.
My flesh will have outlived itself, and my voice a whimper.
In 2044, I will have sucked the marrow out of life, and absorbed a different accent, and loved a different man.
Exactly one year ago today, I was...
Well, I was in Jeddah. I was watching the season finale of Fringe, and was so invested in it. I lived and breathed science fiction and I was so completely convinced that there was no way in the world I would ever go survive without it.
I was so incredibly fit one year ago today. I kicked endurance and strength and core, right in the ass. Interval training, cross-fit, boot camp, circuit, I squatted like a motherfucker and STAYED THERE and my leg muscles shamed the boys to submission. Don't get me wrong, I was convinced that I was a fatass, but I could run at 7m/h for 45 minutes straight and I could go vegetarian for weeks, and I did push ups with my chest touching the floor and my knees off the ground. I didn't have Rest Days, I had Yoga Days, when I melted my heart to the sky and saluted the sun.
I was also learning Spanish with my friends. Si queremos esposas, no debes jugaremos MTG. I can still read Spanish like a pro, but all the words that used to roll off my tongue like a fierce Boriqua, Morena, Columbiana, Mexicana, none of them exist anymore.
I was knee-deep in creative writing. I was surrounded by friends who were obsessed with telling stories. I would spend 6 hours straight in one sitting just discussing writing, doing writing, smoking while writing, fighting about writing, laughing at each other's writing, with friends.
I also loved. I loved everything and everyone. I was in love with all the things around me, and every single one of them broke my heart into tiny pieces. I used to sit in the back, the driver quiet, this little fake princess mourning her poor little golden cage, and I would look up into the sky and inhale one deep breath and cry silent tears of wonder. I had complex love and depression and hate and oppression and everything was clear and nothing made sense.
I could afford to be unemployed, I was broke but never poor, I would spend money on a pair of shoes I didn't really like all that much, and that money could have fed three families.
That was Jeddah.
One year later, I'm out in the real world, and my life has been completely, inevitably, inconclusively, irretrievably and irrevocably turned around 360 degrees.
This is my New Year's post.
I long to tell you the story of my present life, the friends I have here and the lives we live, how we pass time and how time passes us by. The total immersion we have in each other's businesses, and how we've found comfort in the most hopeless of places - in our hearts, our breaking hearts, and our broken souls. How lost we all are, and how found. How found we are in each other. The colors of our skins and the textures of our hair, the hurts we hide and the words we spit out, the wines we drink and the anger with which we so fiercely protect each other and hold each other in our small, insignificant but strong hands.
Perhaps it is Proximity that brought us together, right here, right now, but it is the Solidarity of our Screwed Up Minds that glues us together as one unit, our scars and our war wounds that have made us so, so careful, so considerate, so very, very careful of each other's existence that we hold it like candles, like wine glasses, so close to the chest, that we handle with so much care, because who knows?
Who knows why the caged bird sings?
Now that we've gotten some of the poetry out of the way, here are facts.
1- WALKING
I walk. I walk the streets with Beyonce in my ears and my hip flexors in such good form. I put one foot in front of the other and I just glide over that sidewalk and I walk around in circles and I UNDERSTAND. I understand and I love and I put aside all that bitterness and hate and I hug the universe. Freedom is the most seductive of all. Have you met Freedom? Have you run your hands along Freedom's grooves? Have you placed your palm over Freedom's chest and felt Freedom's heartbeat, 60 beats per minute?
2- I LOVE AND I AM LOVED
If there was ever, in all of life's existence, one thing that has ever protected me, and this house, it is love. I gravitate towards people who know only to love me, to adore the ground I step on, to absorb every word that I utter. I love people who love me. It is non-negotiable, and it is automatic.
3- SCIENCE FICTION
I can never shake it off. It's in my blood. Fiction is the key word, not so much science. It's my constant, and it keeps me grounded. It's what I choose to believe, and it's what tethers me to my surroundings. I am fully entertained by it, wowed, cowed. I quiver in its presence and I hug my knees to my chest and I rock myself back and forth in the name of sci-fi. I am blanketed by its stories in the weekends and slammed into the sidewalks on road trips by its confusing clarity.
-----
I am 30 years old. In 30 more years, I'll be 60. My skin will have wrinkled, my eyes sunken, my eyebrows just tufts of hair that barely makes a statement.
My flesh will have outlived itself, and my voice a whimper.
In 2044, I will have sucked the marrow out of life, and absorbed a different accent, and loved a different man.
I was wondering what happened to you Nes. I wish you all the best. So sad that Jeddah has lost you. Mirkka
ReplyDeleteHi Diana/Nesreen,
ReplyDeleteI loved this post...your experiences though not the same as mine strike a chord with me...maybe being the same age and in the same place with some of the same interests..
I saw you at Geek Fest in Jeddah and we were in touch during Nanowrimo,
I went to do my Masters when you started the creative writing course would have loved to meet you.
keep writing, living and loving
Mirrka! I feel so bad I never said goodbye to you. Hey, that only means we'll meet again! Maybe in Finland!
ReplyDeleteHey Misha, thank you for reading me! I remember you, Squeek and I tried so hard to rope you in on our writing sessions :) Hope you're doing well.
ReplyDelete