I Can't

 Lately, I have been wondering what is the point of everything. I feel like getting in my car and driving till the end, wherever that may be. Screaming without a sound, while color bleeds through my world. There is a not a single person I want to call or be with. I have no hope I will ever be happy because I just don't know what is happiness for me anymore. Everything feels like boiled rice. 

No One Warns You About the Responsibilities

 I am 32. I have a job, a car, a house, and furniture to fill that house. I pay electric, sewage, water, gas, and phone bills. I pay for insurance for me, my car, and my house. I even got my drivers license today. While I am grateful for everything, I know things can be very very bad in this world for someone of my color and gender, it just feels like a weight. You could say, I don't have to have these. And you'd be right. I was doing the sensible thing. Investing, budgeting, building. But for what!  

One day you're 15 and no one trusts you with a rock. And one day, they let you buy a house! I am scared every day that I will lose it all. My title is serious, people my age have kids and pets, and I am supposed to be serious-- a grown up. I don't know when it all ended and I was handed all this paperwork and taxes. 

Part of me wants to live a life of no attachments. Wandering from one city to another. I imagined a life of me in a New York City apartment, sipping tea from my window overlooking the shimmering life. Or, walking down the streets of Prague with my hands in a fuzzy woolen coat. No responsibilities, no cooking, no ties.  

Now, I live in this little village...........with all these things. Everyday is a struggle that I somehow manage to survive. The one thing missing is joy. Or maybe something even greater--purpose. 

Too Sweet

 At 32, I now drink black coffee. Just a few years back, if you gave me black coffee I'd make a puke-y face. My coffee was sugar in liquid form. Four of those tiny creamer packs and six packets of sugar. Twice a day. 

I used to like chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and chocolate sauce on it. Now I prefer vanilla. In fact, I used to eat boxes of sweets in a day. Now, even a chocolate can feel too much sometimes. 

I used to wear all black. Now, I add some color. 

I am stunned just typing this out. 

So much can change so fast, yet much remains the same. I still want a true love. I still want to feel like I belong. I want to want to wake up. I want to forgive myself and love myself no what what I achieved or how much I failed. I want to be happy.

I expected to be happier by 32. I expected that I'd have my shit together by now, yet I am more messier than I have ever been. I still feel like that 18 year old wanting to run but nowhere to run to. Some days, I feel like that 8 year old, standing in my school, feeling utterly alone and helpless all over again. 

Thinking of the future is scary. What if I keep declining? What if the peak is behind me? What if they were all right that I didn't deserve anything? What if my regrets turn into a boulder on my chest and finally crush the air out of me?

It is hard for me to imagine myself at even 35, or 38, or even 42.  

But I am here. I have a body that remembers these 32 years, and a wounded mind that catastrophizes. My life looks good on paper, and still cuts every day. But I’m still here. And I’m learning that surviving isn’t the same as living. I want the second one.

The Seeker

 About 12 years back, I wrote the post on this blog: The Search For Absolution, anchored with the following lines from Henry Miller,

“I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable” 

― Henry Miller, Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

 

 wondering what absolution will be for me. Miller sees himself as the wanderer, a seeker. Impermanence is the very essence of his being. I was seeking relief. A young little kid, I wanted unconditional love and joy. I thought we were the same. 

 

I know now that we were different. I ran halfway around the world. I thought if I just ran far enough, fast enough, I could outrun my pain, as if it were geographically localized. But now I know, it festers within. Miller was content with seeking, without ever finding. My suffering compounded in the search for some absolution. This wanderer, this lonely soul, with a broken heart, grew tired of the chase. 

 

Now, there is nowhere left to run to. A heaviness hangs thick in the air, and the whole world feels so small. With bruised knees, I sit and let this pain wash all over me.

 

 

 

I Have No Words for This One

I honestly don't know whether to laugh, cry, or be angry about this one. 

 I was talking to a mentor, explaining my series of unfortunate incidents. He listens quietly, then says,"you know, helping you is actually frustrating for me. I help others a little, and their problems are solved within hours. For you, I keep trying but your luck is so bad that I don't even want to do it anymore". 

 How does one recover from this?  

I Wanna Go Home

"I wanna go home, go back to small things

I don't belong here........" 

 

A song about wanting to go home found me, and I understood every line without having lived its exact story.

I don’t have a home. There is the house I grew up in, where my parents still live. I fought with blood, tears, and the fraying edges of my sanity to get out. Not that they’re horrible people—just a toxic mix of personalities that vacuumed the oxygen out of every room. That place erased my coordinates. Leaving was the only way to survive.

My dad used to say when I was a kid: “Do this when you go to your own house.” “Own house” was supposed to mean my husband’s house. Even in elementary school I knew I needed my own deed, because what if that dude said the same thing? Fuck that. And now, after all of it, my father calls this place “our house.” Suddenly, “we” have a house here. How convenient. 

 

Now I have a house. I bought it with my money. I sign the mortgage. I found it. I painted the rooms. I hung the bathroom doors. I fixed the sink. I hauled 40-pound soil bags to build a vegetable garden with my own hands. I planted a lilac and a blue moon wisteria that now climbs the pergola posts like it knows something I don’t. It is mine (and the bank’s). 

 

But is it home? I don't feel like I belong here. I sit on my green corduroy couch, in front of my blue brick fireplace, and watch the world go by without me. A figure frozen in my own snow globe. This town has felt like a mistake since the day I arrived. I remember choking back tears in Walmart while trying to get a phone line.The silent cries on the sofa I was crashing on six years ago never really stopped. My gut knew I chose the wrong town then.

 

I almost got out too. It wasn't the best exit but it was a solid option. Maybe I could have been happier in that place east. I could have moved and explored further. But I stayed. WHY?! Now, I don't even remember. I guess I am trying to prove something-- that I am, I can, and maybe that I am worthy. No matter how many times I try, it will never be enough. This hollow, sinking feeling in my gut will persist forever. Maybe I am not meant to belong anywhere. 

 

I Could

I could go and find someone. In this world, it is easy to find a temporary fix. The basal needs have to be met. I thought I was a person of intellect, driven by curiosity, satisfied by only pure connection. But this life has brought me to my knees. My mind tells me to run, like a dog kicked in the streets, the fear of humans runs deep. Yet, every cell in my body screams for a connection. 

I could find someone. They won't be the one. I can stop myself from getting too involved. I can run before getting attached. Still, I will be the one hurt by the end, regretting every decision, blaming myself for getting into it in the first place. 

How does one do it? How does one take and not lose? How does one look into another's eyes and just simply look away? Rent warmth for a little time, exchange some meaningless words, and forget. 

I could give up on finding the one. Maybe "the one" is a concept fabricated by lit majors so we keep buying their books. All we do is convince ourselves that we found it to fulfill the basic need for intimacy, contact, or even just more practical needs of money and family. This is why the practical will win.

 

If I Could Go Back

On my 32nd birthday, I received a letter from my past. From myself, when I was 22. I had hope. It is almost surreal to go back and imagine the hopium I was surviving on, the belief I had of a happier and peaceful tomorrow. I did check out the boxes on which I had control: got a job she would respect, got out far away from that house, got my own real money, got my house, and, most importantly, saw new and inspiring places! 

Now, if I could write a letter to my past self, I think it would vary a lot by age. 

28 year old: You are mishandling life. Again, you are missing a clear strategy. We need a strategy for papers we want, for the life we want. I know we don't know what we want, but in the process you're letting things pass you buy. Make a concrete plan. For people, be very selective because the trauma isn't worth it. RUN FAR AWAY FROM THAT DUDE. Your instincts are spot on, he is trash even though it feels like someone you know and find fun. He is like someone you know, the worst ones. Pick the other dude, he seems boring but boring trumps trauma !!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't even emphasize strongly enough how important this is. We need a concrete plan and we can elevate our future life so much more! Get serious, don't look for a quick fix to your loneliness and pain. Be very selective and test people before investing. You have some great opportunities coming your way, don't squander them by getting so hurt by these losers that you can't embrace it. This could really elevate your life only if you pick right. Trust me. Also, don't run, lift weights and build your knees before you do your crazy running. 

25 year old: Take the first one. You, right now, are trading a happier place and a better program for a made up prestige of a university. Take it, even if you feel like you are being handed this one, take it and we'll figure it out. Also, you are wasting energy on that guy. He will never be what you think he can be. Just let it be a friendship, travel, and let go of the expectation. 

20 year old: You have just survived the hardest part of your life. I understand how much you want to run away, how much numb you are because things haven't hit you yet, but the only way is through. Process it now so it doesn't hit all in a wave when you turn 30. You have time, focus on the skills you are building, and don't think you will find anyone to help. The help never comes. You only got you. They will all change their tune once you get where you are going. You always deserved it even though you never got it. 

15 year old: Shit is about to hit the fan! I am not even joking. Right now, I guess you are in 8th-9th grade, and things feel like finally turning out well. 10th will go fine, no problem. BUT, after that will be the worst 3 years of your damn life. Your world be warped and turned upside down. I don't know if telling her now or warning him would make any difference.  Maybe it won't. But you lost sight of the goal and dissociated. Cut the chord of the damn computer, never join facebook, and get comfortable with misery. Get single minded and focused. You can do this, make a strategy with multiple fallback options. Don't let him put you in that coaching institute to save a few pennies. If this goes the way it went for me, it will weigh on you for your entire life and you will never be rid of it, like a face tattoo. I know it is unfair, yet this is the situation. Those people are not worth your time or energy. Don't bury your head in the sand to avoid the situation. Let it burn, get some real help, and let him say horrible shit to you. It will be worth it in the end. Fight now so you can live later. Otherwise, you'll be a shell existing through years just for nothing. Slowly, everything will erode to a point where you won't even like your own reflection. 

6 to 13 year old: Childhood is not our time, really. You are about to lose some people. There will be peace, relatively, at home afterwards. But your life will be shit. You will be bullied mercilessly in the new school, you won't have any friends, and no one will give you an ounce of grace. You will be accused to things you didn't even think possible. But life is like this for us. No one will leave us alone and no one will appreciate us either. Grow your hair out now, start running to lose the weight, don't eat cookies, and get back to your 3rd grade self. Teach yourself. Find books and read more books. There is nothing to gain from the people around you, they won't amount to anything anyways. Don't internalize the harassment, work on your health and education. That is our only grace. You will have to put in twice as much to get half. That's just how life is for us. Running really does help you in so many ways and you can do it. You don't understand this right now, but you're teetering between intense hopium and great numbness. This will be your life if you don't change now. It will only get exponentially worse. Every single day. Brace for impact, prepare your body and mind. You have the strength of attention span, dedication, and the ability to teach yourself. Get the books and pave a path that will take you out of this shithole. We are nobody's favorite person, and that's OK. It gets so much worse, but then once to get to a better place all those bitches come back love bombing. It's a whiplash that can break the neck, and certainly the brain. The only is through elevating your thought, your skills, and your competency. Own your truth, read, and focus on bettering your brain and body. I know it hurts a lot right now, but we can't change people or wish for some miracle; nothing is coming and no one is going to help. The only way is through dedicated hard work. We might not be gifted through IQ, but are gifted in dedication, perseverance, and the ability to endure shit. You can do this, you don't need these people. Maybe if you succeed, I won't be writing this to you. 

 Me as a fetus: Dear fetus, if you can understand me, die now. Save yourself, pick something else. This is not worth it. 

Colors of You

I live in two-minute mornings—jeans, shirts, jackets. This is how I live: efficient, unadorned, practical. But in my closet hangs evidence of who I'm waiting to be: a little black dress, a glittery top with suede pencil skirt, a flowing amber sundress. These aren't ornaments for someone else's pleasure. They're promises to myself, waiting for the right witness. 

I want to be a person desired. Not reduced to an object, but recognized as a being of beauty. And I want you to be the one who sees it.

I dream of cooking you dinner in the deep red dress, letting you taste my city through the flavors I know best. Of 3am coffee dates in the emerald slip, your fingers tracing its silk hem as we talk until sunrise. Of driving out to catch pink sunsets in coordinated denim, your hand warm on my thigh as the sky ignites. 

This is what I've never known: to love so deeply that transformation feels necessary. To want to bloom not from emptiness, but from fullness. To have someone whose attention makes beauty feel like breathing rather than performance.

The weight of searching for you sits heavy on my chest. I know I'll survive without you. But will I ever feel truly alive until you're here to witness me step into the woman I'm keeping carefully folded away?

 

Distaste for Life

A life of nothingness. 

I always chased meaning, purpose, and joy. Initially, the purpose was to escape the house, to save myself. Once I managed to find a kinder space, I happened upon joy too. But there was no meaning in the work. Just pushing tasks from one screen to another. Took a leap for a higher purpose and meaning, fell flat on my face. Now, I have nothing. I keep sinking deeper into an abyss of numbness. I question everything I do. What is the point of anything? I survived, but I never learned how to live. Now, I see no point in living, yet I keep living. Am I living? I don't think this is living; this is just existing for the sake of it. 

If all you do is wake up, work, doomscroll, eat, sleep--- is that living?

If all you remember is suffering for each past year and no hope of it being better---is that living? 

If you run from everyone you know to point of being absolutely lonely--- is that living?

If there is not a single soul on this planet you willingly want to call-- is that living?

If you wish it all ended tomorrow---is that living?

What to make of a life lived in fear, pain, and just misery? I got everything I wanted, yet nothing I needed.  

32

 I didn't think my life could feel worse, but it does. Last week, I turned 32 and WOW! I got robbed, got screamed at by a restaurant owner, the general disrespect, and today I got my worst performance review. A mentor said, "you complain about things when they could be much worse." What does that even mean? 

Why am I living this life? What have I got? More ridicule, more problems, and lost my health. Didn't think it could get this bad. I guess I don't belong in this world anymore.

The Pull Within

A perfect rainy day, with the greens glowing under brooding skies. But there is nothing to keep me warm. 

I love a rainy, cloudy day. An enormous green couch, a soft, feathery comforter to snuggle under; windowsill flowers coming alive in the mist. I should be at peace. My heart should be full. Then why does an overwhelming, haunting ache capture my being? 

I make no claims to understand love—its depths or bounds. Clearly, it is only for the fortunate few. Still, is it too much to ask—for warmth? A shared silence? A momentary intertwining of souls? A heart beating near mine. A breath, deep, felt on my skin. A friend, known and unknown. 

 Make no mistake: I am equally to blame. Nothing simply aparates out of thin air. My fears—like a cage around the heart—hold me in place. The wounds pulse beneath the surface. A scab forms, then breaks. Nothing ever really heals. 

I fall too quickly. I hope too hard. My mind imagines golden futures that will never be. Then I run, as it all falls apart. Too vulnerable for this anymore, I keep the door closed. 

And so, the weekend remains incomplete. 

The warmth—imagined. 

The rain—real. 

The ache—unrelenting.

 A Pull Within

Reason to wake up

I feel like this world is moving, evolving, and I am stuck. Everyone is graduating, leaving this place, yet I am stuck. I am not appreciated here, I am not "prospering" either. Many question my capabilities. I question my capabilities. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Have I tried to leap too far, and somehow ended up hitting my head on the wall? Should I just give up and go home? 

 Every morning I wake up and struggle to get out of bed. It is mostly because I don't think I have a reason to live for, to move and be something. Most of it is just a vacuum that I float in, untethered. I question all my ideas, thoughts, and now even my memories. Are they all wrong? Fake? Meaningless?  Am I just a fraud fooling people? I don't like this life anymore. I don't like myself, I guess I never have. Just a blob of tissues lying static in space and time. 

All the people I used to know are gone now. They are happy in their new places, new jobs, and new lives. The ones left will leave in a few months too. These are smart people who found partners, good jobs, and a purpose. I am dumb fuck who is still floating, trying to grasp on anything that will even remotely be mine, making concessions and falling further. An island with no shore. Every interaction feels like a personal insult, a rejection of my ideals, a sharp commentary on my shortcomings, and I am not sure that I can fix anything anymore. 

I have ultimately lost this fight. I can't fix things again. 

The Vastness

 "For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love" - Carl Sagan

One early dawn, I found myself standing in front of Lake Louise in Banff National Park. Bluest of the blue waters I had ever seen stood dark, with moonlight dancing on its surface. The peaks shook me. Words fail me when I try to describe what I really feel standing in places like this, especially in darkness. A pull that causes the me to be afraid of myself. I might just walk in. 

Dr Sagan in talking about the cosmic vastness, I wonder, felt it too, maybe? Or it might just be a bug of my own faulty brain. Kundera defined vertigo as our own desire of jumping from the height causing the fear and not the height itself. My fear is also alike. I have felt it driving through the mountains of South India, that morning on Lake Louise, and even in the Smokes. It is awe, respect, and also amazement at what all they have seen over centuries and millennia. A true reflection of my own insignificance in the grand scheme of things. An hour spent marveling at its beauty is not even a blip in its lifetime. As tourists, we visit these places, and maybe pickup a souvenir. But some places, such as Lake Louise, take a piece of you and there is no replacing it.

While Dr Sagan recommends love to face this fear and awe of the vastness, I am rather inexperienced on that front. I don't think I felt true love yet, at least not the kind that could stand with me on such lakeshores and hold my hand in anticipation of my feelings. I am not sure anymore if such love even exists. 

If you know of such love, dear reader, I suggest you hold onto it. Don't let it go for it must the rarest of feelings in the whole cosmos.

Overwhelmed

I have to leave this Friday to attend a thing in Canada, and I am dreading it. Taking a friend with me. She has planned a whole thing of going to 3 national parks and stuff. I don't know why I am dreading it. Suddenly, I feel like I don't want to go. Nothing brings joy anymore.

I have been thinking about how this friend is kinda two-faced. I don't trust such people. I feel like everything is sucky and I am the suckiest. I have been cursing myself for not mastering driving yet. I could've gone alone. Should have gone alone. I want to leave for a week and just disappear in some mountain cabin. I want to throw away my phone and live with no internet access. I dont know what can fix this.

Will I ever be happy?

Living in a Void

 I think there is something wrong with me, in how I conduct myself, that people betray me without consideration. People I gave so much to are now completely over it as they took all they needed. 

 A friend I basically spent a whole year, meeting almost everyday, not only forgot me for a better part of 5 years but also had the audacity to call me at 3AM to ask a question about geostationary orbits! Someone make it make sense. 

A woman for whom I destroyed my knees carrying her shit up and down 3 flights of stairs for 40+ rounds now does not even have to time to get a coffee with me. Her office is 5 mins walk from mine. 

The line is endless...

Now I fear connection. Life seems like a glass bubble. Everyone on the outside thrives, yet I only hear muffled noises of joy.

As the decades seem to fly by, I wonder if I will ever get what I truly wanted -- A person who was just mine. I have waited my whole life to be the priority of someone. Since my childhood, I felt the weight of every passing second, hoping that the one I was waiting for would be the one person I needed. It has now been 31 years, and I am still waiting. Maybe I am asking too much, and maybe that connection only exists in the faded pages of the books I inhaled. Sometimes, I also wonder if I am just unworthy of such a gift. I have no prized beauty or grace, I am a stubby girl who fits nowhere and with no one. All I do is try, and try, and fail. The void inside me grows as I question the very essence of this existence. How did is all go so wrong? Maybe I asked for too much, and lost it all. Or maybe it is just inherited. The women in my family just suffered all their lives. It could simply be an ancestral baggage I carry till I die.

 I want to give up hope completely. I cannot bring myself to read literature anymore. I cannot paint anymore, I cannot draw anymore. Fear is all I feel these days. One step forward, ten steps back. Yet, something inside me still fights. I laugh sometimes at meaningless things. All of this to say, all of me is tired and destroyed, and I don't know how long I have left.

 

 

Basic Vanilla

People have been calling me vanilla now! 

I don't drink alcohol as alcoholism runs in my family. It's just inviting the devil on a red carpet. I have never tried drugs or even any of the gentle stuff such as weed, because I am too scared of my own personality. I have no idea what I will say or do and to whom. It may irreparably destroy my life (maybe hyperbole here, but you get the point. It will invite unnecessary drama). My hobbies these days are walking, growing plants, and painting. While I am learning swimming and weight training, I am currently sucking at both. I have no man I am interested in, past or present, alive or fictional. So now I am labeled vanilla. Maybe they are right, but it hurts. It is insulting. Do I have to partake in vices just to be exciting?

What hurts me more is the fact that just because I am a woman, everyone thinks they can tell me that I "need" a boyfriend. The implication here being I need to be laid to fix myself (??????!!!!!!!!!!!!). I am sick of hearing this. I have been especially betrayed when this "friend" of mine said this to me last night. Fuck this! How can you call me a friend and use these adjectives? If you think so low of me, why you are here! I am not going down this route again. I have had it with men telling me this shit and I am done.   

I can do it by myself. I can buy my own car, my own house, my own plants, and support my own life. I can control numbers and manage my failing career somehow. But what I cannot do is control people. Fuck people. You trust someone and this is how they judge. What is this questions of "this is your problem, you don't think anyone is right if you can't see it yourself!" It hurts but I guess I found this out early enough. 

The fundamental flaw of our existence is the very fact that you cannot know what another is truly thinking. No actions, no words, nothing is reliable. A person can be with you for decades and still might think absolutely low of you. I don't want to show you my scars. I just want to be left the fuck alone. I never thought life would turn out to be this way. 

Do You Think of Me?

I wonder, often, if they think of me? Or am I just somebody that's forgotten in the faces they once knew. Do they even remember my name?

I find it disturbing that we know people for years and suddenly they are gone. Not dead, but just gone from your life. Like a summer that ended too soon, before you could even say goodbye, it was over. The last words were the last words, and you can't change any of it. Someone who seemed so significant was reduced to just an afterthought. 

Call me sentimental, I think this is a great tragedy of life.

I remember everything, but I never said anything. All those who meant everything momentarily, I still remember vividly all the good times and bad. For some, I know I left, but I hope they know that I tried to hold on as long as I could. When they threw jabs, used me, berated me, and shattered my heart into a million pieces, I still hung onto the thought of them. All these ghosts are still mine, and maybe it is time to let them go, yet I don't know how. Each of them took a piece that I'll never get back. And I wonder if they know. Do I ever cross your mind? What do you even remember? What was the point of it all?

There is wisdom in forgetting: no burdens to carry, and I cannot blame them for it. It wouldn't matter

A Week Left

 In about a week, I turn 31 *barf*

Imagine pulling a sweater apart. At first, the strands will fight you, but soon they disintegrate. Each hank, that once kept you warm, now falling apart into a cloud of particles. 

That is exactly how I feel. Disintegrated. 

I am sick of hearing myself talk about it. I am sick of complaining and nothing changing. I hate my own reflection so much that I covered up the mirror on my wall. I hate it all, and I hate being here. Everything is a huge pile of disappointment. In this fragmented existence, what is the meaning of ambition? Or even connection? I have nothing to offer anyone, much less a partner. I keep trying to put it altogether but I keep failing. 

With days, weeks, and decades passing me by, what is the point of continuing. I bought a car over the weekend. I just felt like crying and I don't even know why. I might have to buy a home and I am dreading it. 

-------------Side note---------------------------

FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER! FUCK THIS PAPER!

I hate this paper so much now. More than the paper, I hate myself that I cannot complete it. I hate it and I hate breathing! fuck this!

-----------End Side note--------------------------

Dear Reader,

If I get more unhinged in the future posts, please know that I wasn't so from the start. I was a kind, happy, bright kid. But the world fucked me over multiple times. Fuck all those people who destroyed me. Fuck the decisions I made. Fuck the responsibilities I must dredge to survive. And overall, fuck having to survive the most!

From the desk of an exhausted 30-year old going on 31,

Forgive me,

Yours Truly

The Life I Wanted to Live

 As I teen who grew up watching Hollywood rom-coms, I dreamed to be like the girls in the big city. I grew up in a big city, but my space in it was tiny. A 6'x6' room was my world for the most part. With caged wings, I just boded time till it was my turn to be free. It took 24 years, but I was finally free. The flight wasn't long then but a massive weight was lifted off me. For the very first time, I felt like I was something. But soon that proved to be a temporary stay, and I flew much farther to my current state in life. 

As a teen, I thought that I will live with a passion for life. Much like the dreams of the 90s, I will travel all over the world, my whole life in a suitcase, chasing all that this world has to offer. I dreamed of fancy dresses and even fancier parties, all to make up for the lack of them in life thus far. A tiny studio in New York City, a classic apartment in Paris or London, will be my abodes. Never one to crave material things, I wanted the experience of somehow feeling like I belonged. 

Dear Reader, I am disappointed to report that none of my dreams have materialized thus far. I will turn 31 this year, and I live in a college town of the US. It's all farm and fields here, no brownstones of NYC in sight anywhere. I have a what most people want, a sort of stable (piecewise stable to be accurate) job in a low crime area. I do not feel like wearing shirts here, let alone fancy dresses. imbibing the Gen Z spirit, I roam around in cargo-pants and cartoon t-shirts. I was fortunate enough to travel to NYC and Paris in 2022, but that was just a blip. I wanted joy, adventure, and purpose. I have nothing. 

All this to say, that life had its own plans, and I just floated along. I question myself almost everyday if this is what I want to be doing? Is this making me happy? Maybe I am so used to surviving that that is all I know. I purposely choose challenges over joy, in the hope that overcoming them will bring me greater joy. They never have. All I feel is numb, isolated, and alone. 

When I close my eyes, I think of myself as an island under the endless sky, slowly drifting away from the known shores. No bridges left, no sailor in sight. What is the point of all of this?