Lonely. I can see the lights around my building, flickering, welcoming me back. But, I don’t want to be back. I want the road to keep going. I want the music to keep playing. I don’t want to be home. Why can’t it keep going, why can’t it take me far away, away from reality, away from uncertainties and intangible dreams? But, this road ends at one point. I’ve hit a dead-end and I have to step out of the car.
i drank a chocolate milkshake last night. i was wearing my cousin’s Virginia Tech hat with my scarf wrapped around my neck. With each sip I felt like i was in heaven.
“Whoever made this shake should be given a Noble Prize!” i said and they laughed at me.
At certain occasions it hits me that i’ve come to know who i am. the fact that i admit it surprises some people. But i do. it took years for me to figure out who i want to be. and i think i finally know. once you know yourself, you feel like you own the world. i don’t know if i own it yet, but i do feel that i belong to it. to this life. to this place.
In English class we have to find the realities of what we write. If we write about a childhood memory, we have to find a deeper meaning, a realization.
I think everything we do, every minute we spend, has its own reality. We don’t think about them, but they’re there.
The library closed so we went downstairs to find a spot. We decided to go to English class to see if Mr. Booz was in his room. It was 4 p.m. and he had left already.
We sat on the stairs instead. As we proof-read our papers, Nur and I laughed about something that happened in Government class. Soon Swati joined us. That day we spent three hours editing, laughing, joking, and acting silly. We were three friends, simply living in the moment. As we walked through the empty hallways towards the main entrance, we couldn’t stop laughing.
A day later I asked Nur jokingly, “So what was the reality of yesterday?”
She looked at me and casually said, “The reality is that we’ve grown to laugh in between finishing assignments and making grades. We’ve learned to take the hard things a little easier. We’ve learned that no matter how stressed we are, no matter how tough it is being a teenager, it’s possible to laugh once in a while, to be wild and crazy.”
Every fact, every story, and every memory can have a meaning if you look deep down. The childhood memories that we rarely think about are full of facts, full of little details. It’s up to us to look for their reality.
Home. Our safety, our family, our fights, our good-night kisses and good-mornings. We all have our own definition of home. For my best friend Shubi, home is her house in New Delhi, India. Home is the memories of her grandpa taking her to school. It’s the room she slept in. It’s where she fought with her older brother.
What we first grow to love can never be replaced. Whether it’s our first love, our first pet or the first home we grew up in. Replacing them is almost impossible, but learning to make new ones is not.
I refused to call America home for a long time. Maybe it wasn’t a refusal, maybe it was. I always think of Tehran and say that is my home. Now, America has given me another definition and I’ve grown to own it.
Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” was right when she said there is no place like home. My home in Tehran can never be replaced with any other one. My childhood memories can never be replaced with any others. Replacing isn’t what I’m trying to do. Accepting and owning the new, that’s what I’ve done.
I have started a relationship with a chat screen. It’s a temporary one. One of these days it will be over. My friend Shubi invited me to a site and now we’ve found guys who never did and never will exist in our lives. One lives in Britain. One in India. Our roads will never connect to theirs. It’s that simple.
I don’t regret this imaginary, yet beautiful illusion that I have created for myself. Shubi doesn’t either. We wished the “relationship” could somehow be real, no matter how unrealistic.
Sometimes even the most sensible person, as Nur put it, can be a little senseless. I don’t believe illusions are wrong. I don’t think making yourself believe you’re worth it is wrong. Happiness, no matter how temporary, shouldn’t be titled “wrong”.
The weather reporters said we will have a lot of sun today. Except the sky was pure grey. As I walked from my bus stop, the wind felt like a slap on my face.
As I sit here with an empty cereal bowl next to me, I’m thinking about what I’m looking forward to. Am I looking forward to tomorrow?
Sometimes, it’s the days we look forward to that make us happy, that urge us to keep going, to keep trying. If it isn’t sunny today, then perhaps we can look forward to a warm breakfast the next morning, or a hot cup of tea as the rain washes the bad memories away.
By the time we reached Old Town, Alexandria, it was 10 minutes to 12 a.m. People of all ages gathered under the bridge, by the side walks or by their cars. Some were already drunk, shouting at each other from opposite sides of the road. Whatever spot they found, that’s where they stayed. As we searched for a parking space, we heard the fire works. There was no place to park. It was 12 and we said Happy New Year to each other in the car. We finally parked the car and were able to see some of the fire works from behind some houses.
Out in the streets, the adults looked for bars, the only places open at that time. R and I gave up the thought of having a warm Starbucks drink.
We drove home, listening to the live D.J at Fur Night Club. It was a lonely, yet beautiful New Year’s Eve.