Life is sometimes a series of “ifs and buts”. I was sitting on my toilet seat, in my pink bathrobe, going through my thoughts. I was thinking out loud since I had the opportunity to be alone, away from my family, the temporary outsiders. I let the water run in the sink for a few minutes to make sure I wouldn’t be heard. It occurred to me that all my plans for the next few months were hypothetical “if” scenarios. But these “ifs” are what I depend on, what I look forward to. What do you do when all you have is an “if” or a “maybe”? What do you do when all you can count on is fate, luck, a chance, or a happenstance…

I’m staring into my hot cup of tea, counting the perfectly shaped bubbles that have gathered around it. The bubbles come in different sizes, but nonetheless they are perfectly round. This tea is perfect; it soothes me, calms me, and makes me unreasonably happy. My unfinished letter is sitting on my lap; I’ll finish it as soon as I have my last sip. This night feels undone, like an unfinished puzzle. But I have no other way of ending it. It’s another Saturday night, where nothing is perfect except the bubbles in my cup.

He remembers my birthdays and sends me his love. He’s watched me grow and although we live apart, he was there at every step of the way. He takes care of his little sister and gives her words of encouragement, words she needs to hear.
What would a girl do without her big brother’s love and support?
When I was a little girl, he bought me my dream Barbie dolls. He bought me Disney movies and introduced me to the world of cinema and movies. He held my little hands and showed me off to the world.
He created Bluebirdescape and gave me a place to write. He let the world hear what I have to say. My words of thanks will never be equal to how much he has given me on every day of my life.
Today is his birthday and now it’s my turn to show him off to the world. I want the whole world to know how much I love my big brother.
Happy birthday baradare azizam, my dearest.
Love,
Bluebird
Tavalodet mobarak dadash.
Dooset daram.

She sits next to me and as the bus starts moving, takes out her lip gloss. She twists its end and rolls it on her lips. She does this every morning and now the task is so ordinary and routine that she doesn’t need a mirror anymore. “You want it?” she asks, I smile and say “no”. The bus keeps moving. I only hear the engines; everyone is quiet. Our mornings never change. We wait for our yellow bus at the bus-stop and check the time. The sky is pure black and I’m thinking of my warm bed at home.
These mornings and afternoons have become too cliché, too redundant, too ordinary. We let them pass and think we would never want to look back at them. But there does come a time when looking back becomes a new habit, a need.

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.

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.