You know that first-day-clean-slate-feeling every new school year as a kid? That feeling that no matter what is going to happen, you will have your friends, you will have lunch to look forward to, and new teachers and new adventures to be had during recess. The familiar routine, revived and renewed.
I feel that when I see this empty page on my screen. Waiting for my thoughts. Waiting for my meandering views on whatever comes my way. I can't really explain the calm that envelopes me as I first dip my fingers in, checking the temperature of the water before diving deep. Deep into the terrifying abyss that sometimes is my mind. It feels so good to want to write again.
These past few months, I had been feeling the absence of sense. That apathy is more crippling than anything. Instead of every sensory feeling translated into swarths of words, like birds that yearn for release, they beat against me like a rock-- I was unwavering, unrelenting. Paralyzed. Suddenly, I felt passive rather than active.
Getting physically away, I feel like I am coming up for air. I have been awoken. I have willingly put myself in a difficult, trying situation in my supposed homeland, but I am not at home. I am here to work. I am in a land where I do not speak the language, and though I look outwardly like I may belong, inside I feel like a fish out of water.
Fish out of water try just to survive, not thrive. But they also feel everything. Notice everyone. Feel the chaos as it both hovers and chaotically dances all around. I never thought I would work in India, but life takes you on its own journey. I am living as simply as I ever have in recent memory. I am left alone to my thoughts more than I anticipated, but it is refreshing. Like I am relearning how to breathe. Life does not let you walk away from the hardest battles you will fight, and those will, most times, undoubtedly, be against yourself.
People write off those who are "finding themselves", but losing yourself is all too easy in this world. Losing yourself to circumstances beyond control, to fear, to unlivable expectations. When that absence of feeling is gone, that flood of emotions, sometimes a trickle, sometimes a babbling brook, sometimes a full on tidal wave-- there is no other explanation than being "found". That something which was missing is not anymore, and you are whole once more. So while I do not think Hyderabad has made me whole yet, I think I am getting there.
Today, I ...
smelled: the smell of smoke alongside the streets, from smog, from the burning ashes of garbage, from the workers taking a break in the afternoon heat
saw: "The Amazing Spiderman 2". But also saw three guys having a bromance over mcdonalds sundaes!
tasted: McAloo Tikki burger. Mmmmm!
heard: the hullaballoo that is Hyderabad traffic
felt: inspired. Inspired to think beyond these few months, and imagine what the future has in store for me.
I feel that when I see this empty page on my screen. Waiting for my thoughts. Waiting for my meandering views on whatever comes my way. I can't really explain the calm that envelopes me as I first dip my fingers in, checking the temperature of the water before diving deep. Deep into the terrifying abyss that sometimes is my mind. It feels so good to want to write again.
These past few months, I had been feeling the absence of sense. That apathy is more crippling than anything. Instead of every sensory feeling translated into swarths of words, like birds that yearn for release, they beat against me like a rock-- I was unwavering, unrelenting. Paralyzed. Suddenly, I felt passive rather than active.
Getting physically away, I feel like I am coming up for air. I have been awoken. I have willingly put myself in a difficult, trying situation in my supposed homeland, but I am not at home. I am here to work. I am in a land where I do not speak the language, and though I look outwardly like I may belong, inside I feel like a fish out of water.
Fish out of water try just to survive, not thrive. But they also feel everything. Notice everyone. Feel the chaos as it both hovers and chaotically dances all around. I never thought I would work in India, but life takes you on its own journey. I am living as simply as I ever have in recent memory. I am left alone to my thoughts more than I anticipated, but it is refreshing. Like I am relearning how to breathe. Life does not let you walk away from the hardest battles you will fight, and those will, most times, undoubtedly, be against yourself.
People write off those who are "finding themselves", but losing yourself is all too easy in this world. Losing yourself to circumstances beyond control, to fear, to unlivable expectations. When that absence of feeling is gone, that flood of emotions, sometimes a trickle, sometimes a babbling brook, sometimes a full on tidal wave-- there is no other explanation than being "found". That something which was missing is not anymore, and you are whole once more. So while I do not think Hyderabad has made me whole yet, I think I am getting there.
Today, I ...
smelled: the smell of smoke alongside the streets, from smog, from the burning ashes of garbage, from the workers taking a break in the afternoon heat
saw: "The Amazing Spiderman 2". But also saw three guys having a bromance over mcdonalds sundaes!
tasted: McAloo Tikki burger. Mmmmm!
heard: the hullaballoo that is Hyderabad traffic
felt: inspired. Inspired to think beyond these few months, and imagine what the future has in store for me.
Comments
Post a Comment