Pure Magic

I never felt poor growing up. I never felt that constant, overwhelming feeling of drowning in my predetermined existence. Coming from a single-parent family, that would seem like a feat. But my mother - like all mothers made up of pure magic - made sure my brother, sister, and I never went without our basic needs. Not just that, our (nearly) every want. She never made us feel like there was something we couldn't have. Like things were out of our grasp because money had been tight. Because money would forever be tight, now that our father was out of the picture. She was effortless. A portrait of poise and strength. But, truth be told, our father always seemed like he was more of a problem than a solution to financial woes. Any woes, truthfully. To this day, he's stumbled and fallen along the way to "stability". He's been unable to keep steady employment or a steady household. But none of that registered while I was little. My mother protected us from him. Maybe because she knew that he didn't know how. He would never really know how to.

She raised us to be strong, decent human beings. To pass out kindness like it was our only form of currency. To be forgiving and understanding in all things. To strive to be better than your circumstances. To never let things like money or fear or worry or situation keep us from doing things that mattered the most to us. She taught us to love and never hate. To always see the positives in our life. She's the one who taught me to put others before myself (something I really struggled with in my teenage years, and probably a little even now). And to help out others when they need help, even (especially) when they're too scared to ask.

 I look at her in awe. I look at her and think, 'how can such a small creature like her love so big? How can love like that cost nothing to her?' I feel like I'm nothing like her most of the time. She's a saint and I'm wrong in so many ways. But that never mattered to her. I know it never will matter to he. My pride and stubbornness cloud my vision. But I never stop trying to be like her. Being a grown up is hard, and I never realized that growing up. Maybe because she always made is look so easy. She made it seem like it was nothing. She never showed traces of loneliness or sadness or weariness even though I know she felt all of those things and more. Because everyone does. Because you can't not feel like the world is going to crush you at times, when you're raising three kids alone. And sometimes, I forget that she feels things. Supermom feels feelings, guys!

 Part of being older is seeing things that you never noticed before. And now I can see. I can see it in the way she sighs. I can see it in the distant look she gets when things are quiet. In how she shakes and constantly checks her phone when she hears my brother is having a rough go of things. I can see it in the way she cracks her neck when she's really, really stressed about something. In how you can tell, you can just tell, she's silently praying, fiercely hoping, that none of us will ever have to go through what she did. That's when I know. That's when I know being Supermom isn't easy. It's hard and there's no one there to pat you on the back and encourage you when things seem impossible. Nothing in her world was effortless or simple. But she always tried. And she never once failed us. She never failed me. She gathered her composure and put on a happy face for us. She constantly battled the will to give up and fall apart, like everyone expected her to do and she did it for us. To protect us from a life she was forced into living. Because my father let her down. Because my father let us all down. And now, countless years later, she doesn't hold anything against him (even though no one would exactly blame her if she did). Because my mom, my mom that's made up of pure magic, is a saint. She's everything I want to be when I grow up.

Things to come...

Thinking about the future is scary. I will elaborate on this soon.

Overthrow it. Paralyze it. Destroy it.

Things have been good. I am good. Apart from the fuzziness and chaos that is life, I am good in it all.

I’ve been having a lot of nightmares, lately. Legitimate ones. Tragic events that are very likely to happen, or the possibility of them happening is there. I don’t know what to do with them. I hate them because they scare me. I wake up at 2… 3… 4… 5… with all of these terrible things happening all at once and I sit in my bed trying to regroup and decipher what is real and what isn’t. It’s exhausting, quite honestly. Sleep is exhausting. I hate dreaming for this exact reason. It takes me out of reality and places me between vivid scenarios that aren’t far-fetched enough to doubt. They’re life-like to the point of turning into actual memories in my mind. Memories that never actually happened to me, but have wedged their way in between car rides with my Tata and songs from my childhood. They’re in between all of the ruckus and quiet moments. Transforming themselves into something too real to ignore. I don’t want that to happen with these nightmares. I don’t want to be afraid of people because of things they’ve done to me in my dreams. My grasp on reality is being smothered to death by the fury of my imagination.

Amidst all of this, I see a break on my horizon. I see it because it is something I’ve already decided to do. I like to retain some anonymity in all this. I remain as vague as humanly possible for me because too much information is not my thing. Alluding to events is my thing. I scarcely speak of any of these things with people because an open forum is easier to share with. There is no judgment here. No questions. It just is. I have always liked that because it’s the only way to communicate what is going on inside my head. My thoughts are so fleeting and numbered that I can never get them out in a way that’ll make sense to others. I feel as though someone needs to go in there and rinse me down. Take it all away. Lobotomize me. Break.

Loneliness Postponed

It’s hard for me to separate what I want and the reality of the world.

It can’t be that way. It’s simply a delusion. A delusion I’ve chosen to indulge in for the past few months. I don’t know why I become so involved in the things I cannot ever have. The people who cannot love me back. I see that now. Though, I fear it’s a little too late. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt. I thought I understood it all. But I was wrong and naïve to its possible extent. And all I feel is pain. Pain from what could have been, had circumstances been different. Had distance not been an issue. It’s a difficult pang of longing because it was never something I had in the first place. Instead, I’m left with the “what if?” of it all. The question I am doomed to contemplate forever. Perhaps time with lessen its weigh on my heart. Maybe I’ll be able to move on and look elsewhere for my needs. But part of me doesn’t want to. Part of me is afraid to let go. Let go of what, though? I never had him. Not really. I had the idea of him. The possibility of it all. The desire to be nearer to him than any other.

I got carried away. Despite incessantly reminding myself not to. I knew it’d turn out this way. In the back of my mind, I knew it all along. I just wasn’t prepared for it all. I never am.

Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic -- if it is pulled out I shall die.

Chocolate Dreams

I hardly know where I stand; how I’m perceived; what I believe in; who I am becoming. But the journey to those answers feels astonishing.

As adults, we’re expected to know things. We’re expected to have a steady job, healthy relationships, and ambitious hopes for the future. We’re supposed to exude confidence and maturity in the things we do, yet express modesty and easefulness in doing them. That’s the status-quo. That’s what we see in our parents and our parent’s parents. To live up to a high standard of existence. Yet, I struggle with all those things, and more. Though the government may legally consider me an “adult,” I lack many qualities adults are expected to have. I feel young. I feel unsure. I feel unprepared.

I received a letter from my dear cousin, recently, that set me at ease. In the letter he said:
I am in my mid-adult years and barely realizing that I do not know exactly what I look like. All these years have I taken for granted the image I portray through the façade of a smoke-screen and distorted mirror. My vision has been limited to only see its reflection through the bias of deception, manipulation, and fear. But I can now begin to see untainted. And as I peer at myself, I am drawn especially to the eyes. Careful examination surfaces fear yet bravery; failure yet victory; confusion yet knowing; regret yet contentment; anxiety yet peace. This duality has encouraged and fueled a battle that has become my ultimate struggle.

See, the things I feel are not singularly mine. My fears are everyone’s fears. My battle is everyone’s battle. My hopes are everyone’s hopes. We desire because we’re human, and we’re human because we desire.

Something bigger than us. A life of happiness and joy. Loving, healthy relationships. Our dream job. A simple home. These are our destinations. These are our wants. If we’re not chasing after them ourselves, no one will. Perhaps that's incredibly naive of me to think, let alone say, but I think it's better than the alternative. When we stop desiring things, we stop existing. When we stop searching, we no longer gain anything.

Mistrust, Rejection, Insult

Paraphrased. But still something I need to remind myself of when I'm in a rut.

I am a human being, and I have a human being's wants: I must not linger where there is nothing to supply them.