Everlasting Suns

All my life they have been at the center and outer edges of everything that ever mattered. They were the sun from the moment I opened my eyes, and all I loved gravitated around them and existed because they did. My life has two shining bright suns, and through the years I was too busy to notice that as I grew so did they. 

I felt them so strongly with senses other than sight that I never felt the need to truly look. I felt an aura of strength the likes of which I have never felt before or since. I felt love and warmth so big they kept two entire galaxies afloat. I felt smiles, laughter and care. I felt hugs that felt so timeless there was no way they would ever waver or change. I felt two spirits that burn with the entire life force of both sides of my family. They are strong enough to have kept me blind and secure, knowing that something this bright could never age and be anything other than everlasting. 

My blissful blinds came off this past year, and I realized that spirits don't change but bodies do. Limbs can age, cells can slow down, eyes can change color and skin can wrinkle and thin. Suns burn with the same strength but the shells that contain them age and grow on. I was so blinded by how they made me feel that I missed the changing point. I went from being dazzled by two magnificent women who led long, full and inspiring lives to suddenly realizing that they are older than I ever thought they were. 

It scares the living daylight out of me to see them so frail when they are at the heart of my definition of strength. But then I close my eyes and realize that they feel just the same as they ever did. My grandmothers burn just as bright as they have my whole life, and no amount of aging their bodies can do will ever change that. Spirits are everlasting, and sight is overrated. So I will keep my eyes closed and feel my grandmothers. And I will pray to Allah that no matter what my eyes try to tell me today or in the years to come I never stop feeling them everywhere I turn and in everything I do. I have loved them long before I knew what love was, and I will love them longer than forever can dream to reach. They are my everlasting suns, and that is something that time and old age cannot and will not change. 

Strength, Courage and Wisdom

I have always believed that unsaid words have power over us, and that by saying whatever it is that we shy away from out loud we steal away its power. Strength is doing that which is harder, and weakness is succumbing to the simpler path of hiding from unpleasant things and pretending they do not exist. Seeing through a veil of denial to admit a truth you wish you could bury away is at the center of true strength. And what better way to acknowledge what you have denied than to say it and wear it proudly on your sleeve until it can be slain?

Strength is not the lack of emotion, courage is not the lack of fear and wisdom is not the lack of foolishness. If you do not feel then you have not defeated feelings; you cannot battle and outlast that which does not exist. In order for you to be strong you must feel. The more you feel the bigger your opportunity to be strong. If you are able to withstand a mountain's worth of feelings and still go through life unhinged and un-singed then and only then can you call yourself strong. But hiding away from things that exist and pretending you don't feel them in the name of strength is at the heart of weakness.

In the same way courage cannot exist if fear does not. How can you be courageous if you have no foe from within attempting to hold you back? Courage and bravery can only be found in the face of great fear, and if you go around screaming I do not fear anything then you are foolish and a coward who is too afraid to admit that they are afraid. No one fears nothing, but everyone pretends to themselves that they do not.

I can go on and on about my philosophy on opposites and how the presence of one proves the other, but suffice to say that strength, courage and wisdom cannot exist without pain and fear. If you are afraid then you are wise and have known enough life to know that fear is sometimes the epitome of logic, you are brave for acting against your fear and you are strong for being in its presence.

So in the name of saying words aloud in order to steal away their power, and in the name of admitting difficult truths and facing them head on, herein lies my confession. I fell, rose, battled, lost, rose, scarred, bruised, fell, rose and eventually won. I am not as whole as I once was, but I am stronger and with thicker skin. And at the end of all of that, even though in all the true meanings of the word I am fine, a deeper truth remains -I am traumatized.

There. 

Of Writing..

A few years back I reached a point where I could not write. There was no lack of substance, no lack of desire for it and yet try as I might no words would come out. Anything I managed to produce was forced, it was literally pushed letter by letter and none of it sounded anything like my voice. My block was so bad that eventually I gave up trying and for two years I lost my favorite hobby and only escape.

The cycle broke when I stumbled across a blog post called "this shade of green". I read through that piece three electrifying times back to back, and the long dead candle flared to life inside me. I went through the whole blog, reading entries as far back as three years old right after reading that first piece. My candle roared into a fire. It screamed its pent up energy into the void that had stolen its breath and it lived, it became. I was inspired by someone whose words I related to and whose writing reminded me of what I was becoming before the block took hold. I was inspired by beautiful language and complex thoughts put into simple and yet intricate sentences sown into place by threads of coherence that pulled you in long before you realized they had a pull.

Two and a half years ago a stranger's words ignited a part of me I had given up on, and I wrote for the first time in years. My words rushed through my fingertips with the pent up energy of years of soulless letters. I wrote and the relief was immediate and intense. I started my blog then. Not under a pseudonym this time, not somewhere to write my thoughts but a place where I would pour my feelings -heart, soul and all into. I wrote until the current flowed freely and it took no force to will metaphysical into solid letters and stitch a small reflection of my inside onto a page. It was both exhilarating and frightening to expose myself, but though the two battled I was always cheering for the exhilaration to win.

My flame dimmed as life attacked, and soon it was just a candle fighting an ocean of darkness. The candle lost, and the void took hold once more. I have been trying to force my letters to carry my soul but they refuse. I have not written, truly written, in more than five months. I am overwhelmed with the need to articulate on a daily basis but the words just won't flow. My writing no longer carries pieces of my soul, I can't paint images that empty the negatives inside me and so they stay where they can fight the positives. I am out of sorts, but the void is too strong and I have no oxygen and no spark of inspiration is strong enough to bring my candle back to life.

I wrote because I had something else to write about but I could not force it out. I wrote this instead. I miss writing. 

Pain is Pain

When we're in pain, it's easy to shrink in on ourselves and think that the people around us, the ones trying to listen and help, don't feel as we do. It's part of the pain to make us feel like we aren't understood, like we're alone suffering in its clutches and no one can possibly know what it's like. So we push people away and hide with our pain, it clinging to us and us clinging to it.

But if we can break free of that circle, if we can find the strength to look beyond what our suffering wants us to see. Then we'll realize that hurt is hurt, pain is pain and that everyone out there has tried its bitter taste one way or another. We are never alone in pain, just as we are never alone in living and breathing.

Some people might forget the exact flavor, they might be insensitive, they might lack compassion.. But underneath all those personality traits everybody knows. We all do. You are not alone. Don't let the pain lie to you. You are understood, and we know how you feel. 

Puppet

It's like my heartbeat. The sound. That voice. It's just like my pulse. Just as constant. Just as persistent. Just as loud. It thuds in my chest, it pounds in my mind, it stretches throughout my body and presses me.

No. No, I won't. I'm stronger. I can win. I won't succumb. It can pound all it wants. I won't go there. I am not a puppet. The voice doesn't control me. It's a part of me. It screams from within my own body. It battles its will against mine from inside my own skull. The voice is mine. I own it. It is my slave. I can shut it up.

Silence.

There. There. I knew I could win. I knew I was strong. I made it stop thudding. I made it pull out of my skin. I can breathe! I'm so happy. I didn't fall. I didn't succumb. I won. I have peace. My will won.

Now that I won, that I proved I can master my own self.. Perhaps I deserve a reward? I lasted longer than ever before. Surely.. Surely I deserve a break?

I sound convincing. So convincing that I inch closer to my favorite friend and my worst enemy. I move towards it, my heart loud and elated. My whole being feels lighter just knowing that it will fill my veins in mere seconds. I'm going to.. NO! No, no, no! It's a trap. The voice spoke like my own voice. It nearly tricked me like it always does.

I stop in my tracks. I stop and it hurts. I feel it now. The ache. The unquenched desire burning through my flesh. It feels like the lack of air. It feels like heaviness. It feels like gravity. It feels stronger. It feels like crying sand. It feels like swallowing jagged rocks. God, I can't. I need to. I have to.

No, no, no, no. I moan it out loud. I clutch my head and will myself to find the will to fight. It can't win. You can't let it win. You're stronger. It hurts. No, it doesn't. I can't breathe. Yes, you can. Fight. Fight, damn it, fight.

I pull in a lungful of air. I pull it in despite the hands squeezing my lungs. But there's no oxygen. Oh my god. I can't. I can. I'm losing. I'm winning. I'm sweating need. I'm shaking need. It's all I need. The world turns into a void. Nothing can break through the wall of lack pressing in on me. There's no joy. There's no.. There's nothing. I can't feel. I can't feel anything. I am need.

NO! I'll fight. I don't have to. I'm stronger. Please, God, please let me be stronger. I want to be stronger. I want to stop. I have to stop. I'm weeping. I'm shaking. I'm dying.

.. Why? The voice whispers seductively. Why do this to yourself? Is it really so bad? It's wonderful. It feels like a jolt of pure joy. It brings the lack into focus and fills it with shape. This is who you are. This is who you are.

No. I won't.. Even as I say it my legs betray me. Even as I try to drop it, my hands succumbs. The voice drags me under. I fall. I feel. I finally feel. Joy and relief course through me. I am filled with it as I weep my despair. The world turns bright. The pressure recedes from my ears. I can hear. God, I can breathe. There's air. There's air. I wish there wasn't. I wish I was strong. I wish I wasn't a puppet. But I am. I am my own slave. I wish that I was not.

- Empathy series..

Asocial

Trying to explain how being asocial works to the social is like trying to describe colors to the blind. See, to them talking to people and socializing comes naturally as breathing. To them asocial means shy, self-conscious and lacking in confidence. Explaining what it's truly like to be asocial is like trying to bridge two worlds with nothing but words. But let me try anyway, let me give it a shot.

I am asocial. I am not shy in the least, and there isn't a self-conscious bone in my body. Anyone that has seen me truly speak can tell that I am confident and perfectly comfortable in my own skin. What marks me as asocial? What makes me brand myself this way? I am incapable of initiating casual conversations, of conducting small talk and of achieving any human form of passing greeting. In theory, I know what small talk is like, but in practice my brain blanks out and I realize the futility of exchanging simple pleasantries. I have no need, and no speck of desire to engage strangers in meaningless chatter.

My conversations are the exact opposite of small talk. I don't look to make friends, or to get to know people unless they truly interest me. I don't fake enthusiasm, and I am only ever enthusiastic for worldly discussions. Passing by individuals I feel no need to utter a single word. I enjoy silence and the company of the inside of my head more than any random chit chat. Socializing utilizes active expenditure of my energy, wherein I spend a huge mental effort trying to maintain a conversation I have no desire in maintaining and finding words to string together and utter in a form similar to social humans'.

My brain draws arbitrary conclusions regarding which people I find comfortable and can loosen the knot of "closing in on myself" around. For reasons that are beyond my knowing I find myself able to have a menial conversation with specific persons with relative ease. And when I say relative ease I mean instead of using the mental energy equivalent of lifting a load equal to my body weight, it's more like I am lifting a quarter of my body weight. For those same unidentifiable reasons, I find myself incapable of finding a single word in my full-to-the-brim mind to say to a select few.

I hope this draws an image that my social friends can understand. I understand what it's like to be you; I see the ease with which you talk to complete strangers and how fast you make new friends. I watch you talk to someone you just met the same way you talk to your best friends, and I see your jokes and the laughter that bubbles easily out of your lips. I know these are all effortless to you -as effortless as staying quiet, alone and separate is to me. Forcing you to hold your tongue around people would be ten times easier than forcing me to socialize. I hope that gives you something to think about the next time you blame me for being me. 

Twenty-Five

Twenty-four was better than twenty three. It was full of downs, but it had its share of ups. I cried for all the right reasons, and for some of the wrong ones as well. It was interesting, tormenting, character building and full.

I've always felt old. Down in my blood and in the makings of my soul I feel old. My twenty-five feels closer to fifty-two twice over. I have felt this way for years, but today is the day I let go of that thought. The number I am at is not old. It is full of youth, it is the prime of my life and if I feel old now, what will become of me when my number agrees? So gifts, then -for my twenty fifth birthday, I first give myself the gift of life. And I mean life at my own age for the first time in twenty five years. I give myself the gift of living my age, and appreciating how young I am.

My second gift is a promise. I promise that twenty-five will be my best year yet. I promise to hold on to hope with my teeth if I must. I promise to find it even when it hides, and I promise to keep hold of it even when reality tries to steal it away. I promise myself a new outlook, and a perspective that believes in reasons that have yet to show.

And finally, for my birthday, I give myself the gift of good advice. Go easy on yourself, on your ambitions and your demands of your life. You planned to be so much more than what you are at this age, but just because you didn't meet your goals doesn't mean you've failed. Perhaps your goal was faulty, the timeline was off and your plans were shortsighted. Think beyond the scope of what you pictured back when. See with the eyes of an adult that knows more of life today than she did even yesterday. Your end goal is so great and farfetched that you can't reach it in any way you think you can. When your dream is unreal, the path you take will surely leave plans and reality behind.

Trust in yourself, in your deepest dream and in Allah. You're driving blindly, but he can see -let him lead the way. And while you're at it, I strongly suggest you enjoy the ride. Life is not the stations we stop at, life is the drive.

Happy Birthday..