Jet-Settled

I was walking to Darling Coffee today, which has more or less become my office (have you TRIED the focaccia?) and I realized I haven't blogged in a while.

I've been thinking about what it means to be settled.  When I thought about my trajectory this fall, I realized I would hardly be in New York straight without traveling.  That threatened me initially because I thought that such a schedule would prevent me from settling in.  But I think I was mistaken. I have settled into New York again, in the ways that I park at this coffee shop, walk half a mile through my neighborhood to window shop and get Burger King, run with my hair down through the bustling canvas that is midtown and share the city existence with my friends.  New York is mine as it always was and in many ways it's traveling that makes me realize that even more.

As many of you know, I work as a hedge fund manager for True Contrarian.  I also run my own fashion business, AK Kerani.  Both of these things do not require going into a formal office and it's up to me to determine my work schedule, as long as I'm completing a large amount of tasks.  The way I see it, I have both flexibility and security - two things that normally do not go together.  My lifestyle is begging me to travel and take advantage of this miracle combination.  It's begging me to uproot myself and go on adventures because I can.  I work from my phone or from my laptop.  As long as my destinations of choice have wifi and a vibrant place to park, I can be anywhere and I should be anywhere.

I told myself recently that my 20s should be messy.  Perhaps they should be, but not in the way I was thinking.  I want to be in love.  I want to have a plan and concrete goals for which I can carefully save up.  I guess what messy means now is more of an attitude.  I can be all over the place, contrarian and confident in decisions that seem shaky without answering to anyone.  I don't have to apologize for the seemingly reckless investments I make.  I can jet set the world and be proud of it.  Because somehow, by following the rocky threads of my life and diving into their contours no matter where they come from, I have become someone of whom I am proud.  Somehow, though to others I might look like I'm flailing, I have it together.  I can't apologize for the way I live my life because all it has brought me is greatness and I don't want that to change.

If "settled" means moving around causing a riot, than that's what it means to me.  To me, "settled" means writing a story, a story that's meaningful.  I may not be completely settled in any one place.  Maybe I never fully will be.  But I am settled within myself and that inner balance is something that can travel with me wherever I go.

The Virtual Life - Le Pain

I've actually never come to Le Pain Quotidien to work.  I didn't even know it wifi or that people work here.  All of my involvements here have been lunch, dinner or coffee dates.  Usually I'm more of a dive shop type girl, but there is something to be said about working to my own choice of music on headphones with a nicer than usual cider in hand.

What I find about my working at coffee shops is that things that took two weeks to get done at home get done in a matter of minutes.  I don't have a particular diagnosis for why that is.  I have the same access to materials at home.  Maybe it's just that I don't want people in coffee shops to creep on what Netflix show I'm watching and therefore avoid television altogether.

That's not to say I don't have distractions.  There's been a lot on my mind today - things that people have said to me in the past that randomly emerged from my subconscious on the subway, my desire to forgo drinking for a few days, how annoyingly fun and necessary it is to have crushes in the fall...

Well let's start with things people have said to me.  It's actually one specific thing.  And I was on the subway when I remembered.  About a year ago - last fall - somebody I cared about told me that I had screwed (not exactly language but bear with me) him up.  I had forgotten about that.  But I guess God felt it was time that I remember.  Of course, that's feedback nobody wants to hear.  It's jarring and it feels like a slap in the face, especially coming from someone whom I really wanted to help and who I feel like I did.  The thing is though, it is a bit of a relief to remember.  The reason for that is that if someone really believes that you screwed them up, they are the type of person who is incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions and that's someone who will always find a reason to blame you over and over again.  I don't have the power to screw anyone up or the ability to hold the weight of that statement.  Sure, my actions do have the power to positively or negatively affect someone, but in the context of a longwinded, complicated relationship, anyone's actions would naturally do both throughout.  As much as I understand why I blocked said statement out of my memory, I do believe that I can handle it now.  If I had the power to really screw someone up, I'd also have the power to save them.  Turns out, I have neither.

As for forgoing drinking for an undetermined amount of time, that's mainly because I've been getting sick the day after a big night out.  However, it's a good cleanse in general and a good reminder not to be too reliant on anything.  Drinking is fun, but it's nice to know that I don't have to - that I can still see friends, be social and be happy while sipping diet coke.  Plus, as a side benefit, I start craving sweets more!

And as for fall crushes, you're pretty out of line if you think I'm going to tell you.  :P

The Virtual Life - Darling Coffee

Foccacia at Darling Coffee

Hi Everyone,

I must say, I do think the virtual life is the dream.  Think about it:  securing interviews while lying in bed, the sound of new indie music or Netlfix playing in the background, the ability to meet whoever whenever and perhaps most important to me, the ability to work out in the mornings and never put a cap on my evenings.  It's the dream.  And I have no complaint.

Still, every world has obstacles to navigate.  My main one is not even how I am going to meet people. Being involved in the fashion, music and financial industries all at once, that tends to happen through the glorious internet and being in the luscious hub that is NYC.  It's more - how do I feel like I'm in the swing of things? How do I feel like my life is in motion?  My cozy, artsy room in Washington Heights is a perfect place for inspiration.  But nothing compares to being out on the town with fellow New Yorkers - watching them converse, type, rush into and rush out of their obligations...

Basically, each coffee shop in New York City is a microcosm of the world.

Early this morning, I decided that I would get up and try out a coffee shop near where I live. It's called Darling Coffee and I remember it from the one time I rushed in for breakfast before my cousin's fifth grade graduation.  I fell in love with the pictures on Yelp and of course the fact that it has unlimited free wifi.

The way the shop is set up is that there are several communal tables where computers are "allowed." There are smaller tables where computers aren't,  I guess to dissuade people like me from chilling all day.  Olivia and I settled at one of the larger tables and quickly realized that two other young people about our age were deep in the job search.  When it became obvious that we were listening in, the introduction was quite easy.  It is my belief that no one is really a stranger in NYC.  Whatever people say about us, that we are cold and unfriendly, it's simply not true.  Finding common ground is easy when you're in the same space with the same goals and the same plight.

Gangsta Mo told me that I should blog about all the coffee shops I go to.  It was the idea that made my day.  I'm already getting grounded in the virtual world.  What I'm lacking is grounding in the "real world" - the world of NYC that I belong to.  Writing about the coffee shops I visit not only makes me present in this world but also inspires me to get out and explore.  I'm working but I'm also enhancing my knowledge of the city I love and hopefully building my network along the way.

The virtual life is a dream.  A multi-faceted, laptop lugging, wooden-tabled, coffee roasting dream.

http://www.darlingcoffeenyc.com

Blogging =

Blog = emotional.  That's what I've always thought.  That's what I've always done.  But I'm different now.  I'm older.  And my thoughts aren't as dispensable.  It's not that I've grown secretive.  I've just learned that not all of my deepest feelings must be shared.  There's a timing to everything, and I've learned to appreciate the beauty of selective disclosure.

Blogging = introspective.  Definitely true.  But being introspective can be uncomfortable.  Do we always want to know the deepest contours of our thoughts?  And if we do, can we always accept them? Finding something to write about means finding something true, raw and relatable.  It has to be something that is therapeutic and yet controversial enough to spark conversation and more importantly, thought.

Blogging = novel.  The things we say have to be new enough to surprise people and keep them engaged, but they also have to make sense in the context of people's lives.  When people read, they want to feel as if they as readers are understood by the writer.  The key is not saying something nobody has heard before - it's saying something that people have often pondered and encouraging them to view it in a new way.

Honestly, it's hard for me to blog nowadays, not because I don't enjoy it but because I have changed so much since I last did it.  The memories I have that are associated with blogging take refuge in a very different person.  I'm no longer that person.  I don't wake up in the morning assuming that everyone wants to hear what I have to say.  I wake up assuming that the right people either care or will care soon in the future.  My pictured audience is narrower and the amount I'm willing to share about myself and my personal feelings has vastly decreased.  Over time, by starting up this blog again, I hope I learn to navigate these changes and apply them in a way that works for me.  I'm sure I can.  I just think it will take a while.

Blogging = worth it.  Just like I believe everyone should see a therapist at some point,  I believe everyone should blog.  Blogging is a way of processing your thoughts and sharing that process with others.  It's a public extension of what we do every day.  It's a tangible representation of the human existence.  We all try to make sense of the world.  Most of us try in different way from each other, but the pursuit of understanding is something we all have in common.  That's something that's meant to be cherished and shared.

One time, I opened someone's blog and saw that they had written, "I hope you enjoy this blog.  If you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to let me know."  At the time, I thought that was cute, endearing and even slightly juvenile.  The person I was then hardly ever asked for feedback and advice.  Though I claimed to be writing for others, it's clear to me now that I was writing for myself.  I intend for it now to be a balance.  What I'm writing should be therapeutic to me and enlightening, at best, for others.

If you're reading this, I hope that you do care what I have to say.  It may not be what you want to hear at first.  It may never be what you want to hear.  But at least it will be the truth and at least I won't be ashamed to share it with you.

In Love and In Life,
DK

Closer

I felt like my 14-year-old self in my 22-year-old body.  There was no difference between.  I was fast. I was strong.  I was happy and free.  I moved at will like a spirit bigger than myself.  I had forgotten what it felt like to feel so powerful.

From when I was six years old to 16, I was an ice skater.  My mom would wake me up at 5 am on Wednesdays and Fridays to go to the rink before middle school.  Tuesdays and Wednesdays again, I went at night.  And Sunday, I went in the later morning.  It was a huge part of my life.  It taught me to be coordinated and graceful.  It taught me to draw power from within.  It taught me to pay attention to detail and to be resilient.  And it taught me to enjoy the cold.

I quit when I was a sophomore in high school because I wanted to focus on music, because I was too busy to go with the added emphasis on academics, but mainly because going once a week after years of going five times was too much of a letdown.  It was like being reminded of withdrawal symptoms consistently without being able to fully withdraw and move on.  I was in limbo, in purgatory.  I was afraid to let go, but more afraid to keep participating while seeing my skills slowly wane and wane till I had nothing.  I quit and I didn't look back.  I couldn't watch the Olympics because I missed it too much.  I visited the rink one time - the rink that had been my home for so many years - the rink I had stayed at after hours when my mom was at school.  It was my space and I remembered how it felt to be graceful, at home in my own body, and the rush I felt when I would win.

But it's not always about "winning" now is it?  It's about feeling joyous and powerful in the moment. It's about feeling free and happy and having hope that even now, feeling somewhat broken, that you'll once again be whole.  It's about detaching from all the times you've sold yourself to darker things and lost bit by bit your identity and instead feeling innocent, pure and light.  Because those moments are the ones that make up your life.  Those are the moments you think of when everything feels heavy.  Those are the moments that remind you why you can and should stay present - that even when surrounded by a complicated world, you can be occasionally simple.

It's not about winning.  It's about becoming closer.

Frodo asks at the end of LOTR, "How do you pick up the threads of an old life?  How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand, there is no going back?  There are some things that time cannot mend.  Some hurts that go too deep...that have taken hold."  And I often wonder about this.  I often wish I hadn't experienced so much.  It all felt so important at the time, but experiences take from you as much as they give and often I worry I won't get that energy, motivation, and pure connection back.  But that's not always true.  We can pick up the threads of our old lives.  They cycle back when we need them just like in knitting, when you switch colors and loop the other color up through the sides until it's time again to switch back.  Once you learn something, you never truly unlearn.  Even if you feel you have, just take the chance, set your arms free and remember that you were once strong and powerful and you still are.  Nothing has changed as much as you think it has.  And life is less linear than we believe.  We may miss a version of ourselves and often we need others to help us bring it back, but we are never far enough from it that we can't.

If you are bogged down with the complications of your existence, try picking up again something that you feel you abandoned.  It could be writing, it could be music, it could be skating or something entirely different.  But regardless of what it is, when you revisit an aspect of yourself that you thought you lost, you will forget a bit about the complications.  You will feel light, simple and part of the world.

It was nice not to think about a goal or to think about where a small increment of truth could get me in the future.  My forward-thinking anxiety disappeared and I was able to spin around and fly, suspended in the moment.  It didn't quite matter when that next rope would appear.  Because it's not about winning.  It's not about an end goal or a continuing path or a fate to latch onto.  It's about becoming closer.

Power

survincity.com

There are ghosts that walk this campus - two ghosts that held my heart.  I do not see them or hear them. I can sense them if I try.  And I know they are here.  And that fortune is waiting to bring them into the light.  

I was captive - captive to the versions of myself that they saw.  With one, I was soft, trembling and afraid of speaking out.  With the other, I could speak out through music.  I was allowed to entertain my creativity.  But it died through the logistics of chasing someone who did not want to be found.

I left the shadows to reclaim my soul - to find my utmost power, to feed my music and AK Kerani.  I left because attachment, even love, wasn’t enough to be a full person.  I was dying and I knew it.   If I stayed, I would not only have become a ghost’s captive, I would have become one myself.  

Leaving a toxic situation is not easy.  I saw how hard it was for my mom.  And even my microcosmic versions, pale in comparison, were hard enough for me.  You always hope at the deepest pores of your heart that it will get better.  You convince yourself that the pain and negligence you feel is a small payment compared to the security you get.  But are you really secure?  Or are you just claiming to be so you can fantasize about a future that you better hope you don’t achieve?  Are you really secure? Or are you just so afraid to find it in yourself that even an unstable and tantalizing attachment to someone else seems more attractive?  

These are the hard questions.  But they’re ones I have to ask and answer.  If I don’t, I might still not fight for you, because I’m not sure I actually want to.  But I will break under the memories of that false security that I mistake for undying love.  I will frantically throw myself into superficial situations that seem affirming until the point where I shut off and just hope it’s soon over.  I will run in circles, trying to prove I can quickly move on from your influence when obviously, a temporary spark is no match for years of true partnership, no matter how dysfunctional.  In trying so hard to prove my success in getting over you, I end up reaffirming the fact that I’m still struggling.  If I stand still, if I wait, I quickly realize that I’m perfectly fine.  I have everything I need, even clarity.  And I have moved on.  I don’t need proof in another person.  I have it in my amazingly close friendships, my passion for my business, the way I present myself and a confidence that was dead under your influence.  You didn’t mean for it to, but your love and my need to guard it with my every breath, sucked the life out of me.  

And now I have it back.  And instead of spreading myself so thin between people who cannot possibly capture my intensity, I want to keep it all for myself, my passions and people who over time have been able to capture it.  When the person I love is ready and comes to find me, he will see someone who is not empty and trying to fill a void, but overflowing.  

Our mutual friend the other day said that I have no power over you anymore.  And those words sting like a knife through my gut.  I want to believe you will always love me in some form.  I want to believe that you’ll remember me forever like you said you would.  Tell me, please that I’ll always affect you.  Because I can be sure to God that you will always affect me.  But if you don’t - if you have become more callous than I could even imagine, that is not my loss.  Because I was able to give you all I have and somehow, now have even more than I did when I met you.  My transparency is my strength.  I will always admit you have power, that you left a mark and that you are a part of me.  It will hurt like Frodo’s knife stab on Weathertop even after the ring has been destroyed.  But I will move on.  And I will find a world within myself when I will be free of that pain.  

This is my life.  It doesn’t belong to you.  It never should have.  It doesn’t belong to my past failures or to the guys that want me for release.  It doesn’t belong to a criminal who would have been family.  It belongs to me.  And I will take that power to the grave and beyond.  Because one day, I will want a connection.  One day I will want partnership again.  But now...I want power.   

Terms of Consistency

This place and I have a long history.  One moment, I run through the archway, completely late for class and fully in the present moment.  The next, I turn around, glance around the building's white plastered lobby and it's as if it's summer and I'm 17.

Consistency is a weird concept because sometimes we crave it and sometimes we resent it.  Sometimes I smile nostalgically at the fact that this place and I are uniquely intertwined through much laughter, heartbreak, depression and transformation.  Other times, I cringe.  So many forgone attachments still walk this campus - attachments that reach back as or more far than I can remember.  It's a blessing to be known - to have that barometer of how much I've grown and changed.  But it can also be a curse when I'm trying to move away, to break free and everywhere I walk has imprints of the burns on my heart.

How much do we all want consistency?  My theory remains that everyone searches for it, even if they don't admit it.  We all want security whether it be through a job, place, a hobby or a person.  Even those of us that appear to be reckless and constantly swinging from moment to moment do so because we have some underlying sense of security somewhere, even if it can't be seen.

We all search for security...for consistency...for a soulmate.  But the catch is, we all want it on our own terms.  And if we can't have it on our own terms, most of the time we prefer not to have it at all. Because if we don't have it on our own terms, we fear that the enveloping embrace of security, whatever form it comes in, will hold us back.  We focus not on the benefits, but on the cons, believing that our own terms exist somewhere perfectly in the stratosphere.  We forgo the security we want in favor of pursuing something that doesn't exist.

Even we ourselves can't perfectly live up to our own standards - of success, of beauty, of invincibility. How can we expect others to?  How can we expect another person to be a constant, stable ball of support?  How can we expect someone to deal with our darkest demons, fight them when we are pinned to the ground and never lash out or complain?  How can we expect someone to play well with our inner monsters, even if that means forgetting to fight their own?

We can't.  But then why do we?  Why do we say that companionship is only worth it in the case of perfection?  Why are we so quick to choose solitude - to dismiss connection?  What are we afraid of? Is it losing ourselves?  Or is it finding ourselves and having to confront?  Why are we so quick to consider other people as burdens instead of kindred souls that can help?

It's something to think about and something to question in ourselves when we have the option to connect and instinctively turn it down.  Maybe turning down connection is the start of a rite of passage, through which we realize that our own self importance, ego and pride cannot compare to a rare and beautiful bond made with another.  Regardless, there is a balance to be reached between guarding and pursuing our own fulfillment and examining where others may or may not fit in.

I Drew A Line

I was off the interweb yesterday, taking an off day for the first time since the restarting of this blog.  It's bound to happen.  Because sometimes, life happens too intensely to write about it in real time.

Identity.  It's a hard thing to define.  We think we are the way we are and we try to package and compartmentalize it so that we know how to project ourselves to the world.  Sometimes simplifying ourselves in this way works.  That's why I dye my hair so often and why I believe it to be therapeutic. Having a certain dramatic appearance allows me to zero in on a part of myself instead of trying to mentally encompass all the contradictory parts into one.

Maybe all the parts of ourselves aren't supposed to fit into one time frame.  It seems to me that life requires us to explore different parts of ourselves at varying points in our linear timeline.  It is the difference between blonde and black.  You cannot have both at once but you can experience them in succession.  Your core stays constant but you develop the surrounding forces by the ways in which you stretch yourself.

There are some ways in which I've never stretched myself.  When people ask, I usually say the truth - that I never found a compelling enough case.  I just wasn't moved to.  Or maybe that's only half the truth.  Maybe I don't know how.  But it raises the question.  Why is it so hard for us to entertain the idea that we are flexible in mind, body and spirit?  Why is it so hard for us to accept that we may be different than we thought?  Why do we focus more on what the world wants from us than what we want so much that we can rarely even discern our true desires?  And it's like what they say about learning to drive - the more you become comfortable living life without it, the more reluctant you are to learn.

I have found a compelling case - one that inspires and moves me to stretch my boundaries.  I am who I currently think I am, but who I think I am is flexible and constantly ready to grow.  I push myself recklessly into loopholes and caves, knowing that I do have the strength to emerge and that when I do, I will have learned an invaluable lesson.

Some days, as with the one from past, my blogs are short.  But I hope I have left you with something to think about because I definitely have left myself with many things.  I'll end this with a quote from my good friend and inspiration, whom I can talk to in even the most tantalizing of times.

"Sometimes we block our blessings because of fear! But these kind of experiences can actually liberate us." - Sy

Worth Fighting For

My new tattoo! 

So here it is...the end of winter break.  The end of a fulfilling yet tumultuous three and a half weeks.  In a few hours, I will be leaving my home in Texas and jetting back to Chicago, where a new quarter starts - the penultimate quarter of my college experience.

Right before retiring to my room to write this blog, I had finished watching The Two Towers, the penultimate chapter of Lord of the Rings.  A lot of people overlook this middle movie in favor of the first chapter or the last one, which is undoubtedly my favorite.  However, I think the greatest speech in the whole trilogy is Sam's speech at the end of this movie.  And right before starting my last winter quarter at Northwestern, it was exactly what I needed to hear.

"I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are...It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?  But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something, that there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo.  And it's worth fighting for."  

We give up on ourselves so frequently because it's easier in some ways.  It's easier to let go of responsibility and believe things will never get better.  It's easier to stay in a rut because then you don't have to expend the energy to get yourself out.  You don't have to face anything.  You don't have to keep fighting.  You can just blame fate, be bitter and sink into a whole that even though it's dark, it's comfortable.  

I cherish my college experience greatly.  But it's been hard.  When I daydreamed about college before going, the dreams were a lot like my experience has recently become.  In the dreams, I was carefree and happy.  I was surrounded by friends.  I was desired by tons of people.  And I felt whole, happy, vivacious and attractive.  In those dreams I was shaping the world because I had never known a version of myself that wouldn't or even couldn't.  I had never known a version of myself that had lost my creative energy, my self-confidence or the belief that I was not only attractive but overall worthy.  For the first two years of college, I stopped believing in the good.  Perhaps I believed it existed in the world but I didn't think it existed for me.  Why?  Well I didn't have any logical reason to believe it didn't.  I just wanted to think that way so that I wouldn't have to fight.  If I believed that I didn't deserve good, I wouldn't have to face myself, fight away the pain and go after it.  

But somewhere a little after the halfway point of my college career, this whole outlook began to change.  I was flushed with the presence of a few amazing people, some of whom I'd already known and others who I was getting to know.  Together we formed a band, not quite with music, but with a different kind of rhythm - one I needed to revitalize all my organs.  My connection with these people nursed me back to health.  I still have my moments of failure, feeling like I need to turn around and give it all up.  But I've progressed on a curvy but consistently upward sloping trajectory.  I'm getting stronger.  And though I know I do have a great deal of inner resilience, I have them to thank.  

I'm going back to a rich life, one that these people and I have created together.  I'm going back to a vibrant trampoline, one on which we will all jump and bounce and fly sky high, with the safety net of our friendships to catch us not if, but when we fall.  I'm going back to win it all - not just the world outside of me in Chicago, but the world within me.  Because I'm not quite ready to know the end.  But when I get there, I want to feel like I made it happen.  

To all of you returning to school with me this weekend, I hope you come back with your spirits high and your souls alive - even with the cold weather threatening to bring us down.  There is no cold we can't push through.   There is no dark we can't shine light into.  There's just life and a curve that we can never quite understand while it's happening, but that we can look upon after with a greater and hopeful understanding.  

The Rings We Bear

Frodo at the Grey Havens

It's that time of the year...that time of the year when I sit down and ceremonially watch Lord of the Rings.

To be honest, I shouldn't say "that time of year."  I should say "one of the times of year."  I watch Lord of the Rings constantly and endlessly.  One could say I grew up in Middle Earth.  My dad started reading Tolkien to me when I was five years old, the first movie came out when I was 10 and I was hooked ever since.  I learned the languages and memorized the scripts.  I related most to the character Arwen and her love for Aragorn.  I let it seep into me at a core level.  As I grew older, the movies started meaning different things to me, or more like I would focus on different parts at different times.  Sometimes it would be Sam and his devotion to Frodo that would touch me most.  Sometimes it would be Eowyn's bravery in battle facing the Nazgul King.  And eventually, I was hit by the sheer rawness of Frodo's story and how it describes perfectly the human condition.  We all start out innocent in our own little bubbles like Frodo in the Shire...and then we go through a journey - partly with people and partly within ourselves.  We struggle and we face obstacles we never thought we would.  Life gives us much.  But it also takes pieces of us away that we never learned to value until they were gone.

Frodo, like all of us, bears a great burden.  He has a heavy quest.  And though others stand by him, know his mission and risk their lives to help him achieve it, his burden is the closest to him.  He is fearsomely attached to it and he alone carries the full understanding of it.  How many of us often feel like we bear the weight of the world on our shoulders?  I know I do.  Sometimes I lie on my bed, think about all I've been through and can't handle it.  How could I love so deeply and then walk away?  How can I reconcile that in my heart?  How in one year could not only my parents separate, but a loved one I cherished and looked up to pass away only a few short weeks after another death in the family?  I was depressed and tired at the time and it felt like a heavy burden that others wanted to understand and really were there for me, but it was so hard to explain.  Why did I lash out?  Because the hurt was consuming me.  I couldn't think straight.  In some ways I felt like Arwen still, but I began to relate, as we all eventually do, to Frodo.  Because it's my belief that Tolkien intended Frodo's struggle to represent the internal struggle of humanity.

But Frodo couldn't have gotten anywhere with Sam.  Many people believe that Frodo and Sam's relationship has romantic undertones.  And it very well could.  But the way I see it, their relationship could be used to represent any strong relationship, romantic or not.  Because to me, their relationship represents the ideal close relationship.  Frodo and Sam get bitter.  They don't always understand one another.  They have moments where they turn around and give up.  They also have their own missions and personal quests to accomplish.  But consistently, they are bonded through the common goal of living, through saving the world and through loyalty.  I am so lucky to have had many Sams in my life and also to have been Sam for many others.  I have had friends who have stood by me through my best and worst times - who have been able to see my core even when I am drastically changing.  I have had people walk beside me and even while knowing I have a burden, not ask too much, not take on too much - just be there.  Because they didn't make it about them.  I have loved some people so much that sometimes the mere thought of them wells up emotion inside of me and infuriates me, but I've done the hard thing for them when push comes to shove.  I've put them first.  I've shoved aside whatever complications I have so that I could be there - so that they could be there.  So that we could be as we are supposed to be.  Lord of the Rings may be epic and scaled up, but true friendship and true bonds are just as epic.  Because life...though we don't see it all the time, is an immense journey, as complicated and full of intensity as any legendary story.

Some people I have met have a hard time recognizing that they need people.  Others have a hard time realizing that they have an alliance with just themselves that no one else will ever have.  I'm somewhere in the middle and probably everyone else, though they may fall towards one end on the surface, is too. I don't often give others enough credit for their loyalty and I do have issues trusting that people can and will truly love the real me without my pushing, trying or constantly proving myself.  However, I also am not quite sure how to handle my struggles within in a way that makes me feel loyal to myself.  At the end of Lord of the Rings, Frodo knows that he has to go to the Grey Havens even if it means leaving some of his most treasured people behind.  I don't know what I need.  Or what is best for me.  I do try to figure it out and am getting closer.  But even self-awareness comes at a price.  Once you realize something deep, it's hard to shake it off, even if it means letting go of things that you really don't want to lose.

Part of the reason I love Lord of the Rings so much now is because it depicts true companionship and camaraderie while also focusing in on each of the characters' personal journeys.  Sam supports Frodo, but he also learns to view himself as a hero as great as any of the people to whom he initially bowed down.  Eowyn is loyal to her father and brother, but she also rises up against her kingdom's expectations to become a hero in battle.  Merry and Pippin both grow from jovial children to vital players on the battlefield. And of course Aragorn has a close and touching alliance with both Legolas and Gimli, but he alone has the weighty decision of whether or not to take up his fate as King of Gondor.  All these plots, including and mainly Frodo's, show the important balance between letting others in on our journeys through life while recognizing the significance of our own personal callings.  What of ourselves do we sacrifice for others?  And what of others' feelings do we set aside for ourselves?  It's hard to tell in each situation and I tend to swing back and forth between extremes like a pendulum.  But I do hope that going forward, I can explore the balance further and help others do the same.

Tolkien says quite clearly: "Not all those who wander are lost."  But I'll take it even further, saying that to wander is our condition.  We will always wander and we will always change.  The best part is that we really don't have to wander alone.

Not Clenching Sand

Dil Chahta Hai, 2001

Good evening.

The topic today is something that really needs to be written more about - by me and everyone.  It's about displacing feeling.  We all have feelings, no matter how we choose to express them or repress them.  And it's really hard to delegate them to the right places.

If you haven't noticed, I have a lot of feelings.  I always have, which is the main reason why it is so easy and necessary for me to find a topic to post about every day.  Since I restarted the blog, I've had a period of each day where I am overcome with a strange sadness and flush of feeling.  At first I was concerned, but then I remembered it as the welcome trigger I used to receive once upon a time every day in 2010:  It's time to blog.

It's been a while since I have used such an outlet to compartmentalize my feelings.  For years, my feelings have not been dealt with within or through a functional personal outlet.  They've been displaced, fully and frantically, on another person.

 A month or so ago, before winter break, I was given a curious glance by someone who had been very important to me.  It was one of those glances that most likely came without thinking - a moment of the past that for one second decided to surface but fell back down instantly with no present value to report. In my unstable state between swinging ropes, I decided, as is typical, to latch onto this glance and give it present value.  What if he's open to trying again?  What if my insensitive stunts right after our split could be overlooked?  What if I made a mistake when I made the one call I didn't want to - the one call I needed to make to take back my life?

My good friend and major confidante, who can really be best described as the brother I never had, was not pleased with this revisitation.  Rightfully so.  As happy as I had been back when I made the harsh call to once again be an individual, I was about to forego it for one glance - a preserved spark of a fire that wouldn't and shouldn't be rekindled.  I was prepared to reignite pain for myself and many others, convincing myself it was the will of my destiny.  Though I knew the feelings and their true impact would never die on both ends because sparks of light from that big a fire never would, I was willing to take advantage of that fact and rewrite its present value.  The question is why?

Like my friend said, because I was displacing feeling.  I was displacing the feeling I had not yet learned to control within myself or through functional outlets onto an easy source of energy.  Hurling myself into the shadow of others for so long, I was not comfortable containing all that I have and feel within.  I preferred to ignore some of it and place the overwhelming rest into a person who could affirm me both emotionally and physically.  But that only led to crisis and toxicity.  As they were overflowing, I was empty.  As they were gasping for a breath, I had no air.  They were drowning and I was parched. There was no balance.  And contrary to what I thought, no refuge for me.

Well guess what:  I still haven't learned.  I'm still so afraid of being alone - so afraid that I can't watch an idealistic movie about love without feeling disheartened and exhausted after.  I can't go a day without at some point lying on my back in bed praying that I'll meet my soulmate sooner than ever.  Though I no longer fear that I am incapable of feeling safe and warm with a person other than those in the past, I don't know when or how I will feel that again.  I realized that I prefer illusions.  In so many ways, I prefer to be somewhat dead inside while having a person with whom I can envision forever, even if I know that forever would suck the life and spirit out of me.  It's scary to me not to feel in love, because I honestly can't remember the last time I didn't.  I can't remember a time when I wasn't pouring the essence of my heart and soul into the idea of someone else.  Even if I wasn't with anyone officially, I strongly wanted to be and was fighting for it.

Maybe I am not giving myself enough credit right now.  Maybe the reason that I feel this way is because I am not displacing feeling on anyone even though do have options to.  I could, but it doesn't feel right.  I could, but I'm choosing not to.  Because I know that when love happens, it will happen slowly and gradually.  It will happen slowly but surely.  I won't have to displace all my feeling for it to be strong.  It just will be.  And naturally over time, I will feel safe and warm.

But despite the reassurance that I have stepped forward in a big way, I am still frightened.  Because I don't necessarily need to know when or how I will connect with a person with whom I can share such feeling with.  I just want to know that I will.  And I can't.  Because I have connected with people and it has ended.  I have been forced by reality time and time again to sever attachments on which I relied, in which I invested.  I want to know I will have something that will last and that I will find magic.  But I can't know that.  I guess all I do know is that I will never fully find it unless I stop being so afraid.

In the Indian movie I just watched, Dil Chahta Hai, every character gets a happy ending with an idealistic soulmate.  But there are moments within the movie that I found not only poignant, but helpful. One of the leads takes up some sand on the beach and clenches it, telling the person he's sitting with that the more she squeezes the sand in her fist, the quicker it will slip away.  I feel that I am clinging very harshly to the need for a person to share my everything with when it is clear beyond clear that I just might need it too much.  It's fine with me if at the end of the day, I prefer to be with someone else. I am quite sure that will be the case.  But I need to at least know what it's like not to be, in theory or in actuality.  I need to know that I am comfortable waiting for the right love instead of placing the vague idea of love on someone who isn't meant for those affections.

I don't like being alone.  Because when I am, I remember older loves and overanalyze them.  I contemplate new love too quickly and then freak myself out.  But my gut feeling is that those reactions are because I have not reached peace with myself quite yet.  I'm still adjusting to existing while not displacing feeling.  And it's an adjustment that needs to be made.  Because love, attachment and connection are things I want more than anything to happen again.  But displacing feeling is something I do not want to and moreover cannot have happen again.

When I love next time, I will love hard.  When I love next time, I will invest myself.  But I will not force myself to fall in love because I'm scared I never naturally will.  And I will not look back to older loves that I walked away from for a reason.  I will wait until a connection grows so strong that it is bursting for more.  And when that moment arrives, I will not only feel safe and warm.  I will feel proud, individual and ready to take on a new adventure.