Magic

Well, I suppose it’s the grown up thing to finally admit that magic doesn’t exist. So I guess I’ll have to admit that I’ll never get to Hogwarts, or fall into Wonderland, or tumble into Narnia crawling through closet doors… And sadder than my admitting it, is the fact that I don’t care. It’s a resigned admission. Magic isn’t real. Life is real. Life is hard. Magic. Is. Not. Real. 

But…

there really is nothing more magical than those stories that keep children awake all night, trembling with excitement, little eyes racing down the text, little hands shaking to turn the page, those stories read by flashlight, past bedtime, tangled under a stifling pile of blankets so that Mom won’t suspect and chastise you for breaking the rules.

I remember, in first grade, at age seven, finally having gotten a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and not being able to put it down till I finished. I remember shoving a towel under my door crack to hide the fact that I was up at two in the morning on a school night, desperate to know what happened next. And I remember, after each chapter, becoming more and more depressed that it was nearing the end, the stack of pages grasped between my left thumb and fingers were waning as the pages I’d read grew thicker and thicker. And I remember, right when I finished, clutching the closed book to my chest, desperately aware of the fact at that moment, there was nothing more important to me than getting my hands on the next one. I remember hugging it to my heart as though if I pressed against it hard enough, I would somehow fall inside and live in that magical world that left me wonderstruck for the rest of my life. God, books used to electrify me. 

Watching the opening ceremony tonight, I was really very touched, in a really oddly emotional way, by that gorgeous, gorgeous tribute to children’s literature. I screamed when I saw JK Rowling, and as Captain Hook and Cruella Deville and Voldemort blossomed out over the children’s beds, nightmares that were soon to be banished by hundreds of adorable Mary Poppinses, I couldn’t stop smiling. I am so grateful for children’s literature and I am so glad that such a wonderful tribute was paid.

But I also couldn’t help but feel a little….well, a lot….melancholy? Bittersweet? Sad, even…that I have long since left behind sitting in a closet with a flashlight staying up all night desperately wondering if Harry ever found the Sorcerer’s Stone, if Jo married Laurie, if Aslan defeated the White Witch.

It’s been so long since I’ve been overwhelmed by a fantasy world so desperately that I’ve forsaken meals just to finish a book, it’s been so long since I’ve become obsessed with something that isn’t real or useful, something fantastic or whimsical. 

Part of that is because it’s really difficult to be an adult and to be affected by whimsy like a child, having been exposed to this all but whimsical world, the other part is that as you grow up, there comes a definite calcification of your sense of wonder, you become less prone to shock, to whim, to awe.

You become hard and you stop imagining because you become rational.

You start dismissing the impossible because you stop having time for fantasy.

You stop dreaming big because you’re too afraid of failure. ‘

You stop believing you can do or be anything you want, and start settling for what is easy, what is safe.

You go to bed when you’re supposed to.

You eat healthy.

You follow the rules.

You become jaded.

Your heart breaks.

You break hearts.

You lose people.

Things change.

You stop believing that the world is beautiful.

You stop believing in laughter. 

You stop believing in magic. 

But even if you don’t believe in magic now, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a time that you did. Because there was…

Because the year you turned eleven you strained your eyes against the sky for any sign of an owl with a letter in her beak.

Because you crawled through kitchen cabinets and under bathroom sinks hoping that you might brush against a fir branch covered in snow and turn to meet a friendly faun.

Because once upon a time, anything was possible.

Everything was possible. You could be president. You could go to the moon. You could change the world. You could fall in love. 

But now impossibility is the biggest possibility.

And goodness what I wouldn’t give just to have that sense of wonder back. What I wouldn’t give to believe that all of my dreams could come true.

But, I guess this is growing up. 

It fucking sucks.

…except here’s the thing.

I know, I know, the moment I pick up a copy of Harry Potter, or Narnia or the fairy tales my mom used to read me, I’ll go tumbling back into that enchanted child that I used to be, because somewhere inside me, she still exists.  For now. 

I hope I never lose her. That magic, even an inkling, is inside me. And I think, well, I hope, that I keep it forever.

And you do, too.

For both of our sakes.

Even after the hard knocks and the rainy days, I hope that magic will always be ours……long after Voldemort is dead, long after Narnia is gone…

…long after I grow up. 

Daddy

There’s nothing more painful than hearing your father cry.

Because for your whole life, he was the one who held it together—he carried you, he fixed you, he took care of anything that needed taking care of—he bandaged the skinned knees, paid the late bills, the library book fines, drove you to your last minute appointments when your car wouldn’t start

And you’ve always taken for granted his perpetual strength, you never asked where it came from, or doubted its existence—because when you need him, he’s there, always. He would be there, no matter what.

He became the lacings that tightened your life and wrapped around you like twine that would never break or give.  He was always the most solid thing in your life, the person on whom you could lean without any fear of falling when everyone else had left.  The person who would never falter or break… Always there, a constant, a rock, steady, permanent.

But when he breaks, what do you do? When it’s midnight on Mother’s Day and he calls crying so hard he can’t get the words out properly, you can’t turn to the one person who always makes everything right because he’s the one who needs to be righted. Now it’s him. Now he’s the one who needs you. And there’s nothing you can say or do or give him that will make anything better.

So you hold the phone to your ears and cry with him. And the tears stream down your face, not for the mother that he has just lost, but for the father that you never wanted to see like this, unraveled and crumbling.

And you’re being selfish, because everyone else keeps hugging you, offering prayers and apologies because they think you’re sad you’ve lost your Grandmother.

But you’re crying because you can’t handle seeing your father this way.

You can’t handle the realization that, for your whole life, “adulthood” meant being under control, meant rationality, meant not ever being hurt like how he is hurting, but now you know that it never ends, and it reminds you that one day, like your dad who lost his mother, you’ll lose your father one day, and your mother, and everyone you’ve ever loved, you’ll watch them all fade away. You’re crying because you  think that the “overreacting” stops when you’re young, and that one day, you’ll just be mature, wise, and all of everything that makes life what it is—love and death and pain—all of that will just wash over you when it happens. Feeling is for the children. But now, more than ever, your father is a child, he won’t leave his bed, he won’t stop crying, and he won’t eat or sleep or talk. He’s broken in a way that you would give everything you’ve ever had away just to make it stop. But you can’t.

So you just watch.  And wait.

And you keep going, and hope he comes too. And you put one foot in front of the other, and move away from all of this. 

Hey, girls! Shut up!

THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR THE YOUNG WOMEN OF COLLEGIATE AMERICA:

Maybe it’s because Valentine’s Day just galloped by on its vomitrocious high horse, or maybe it’s just cabin fever from all this cold weather, but I feel like I’ve been listening to a lot of my girl friends (even my guy friends) whine (more than usual) about their “love” lives. (It’s important for you to make air quotes while reading that, if you did not, please go back and re-read it with the appropriate gestures. –Thanks, Mgmt.)

The weird/most annoying part of all of these complaints is how many of their problems with “love” are such blatant non-problems:

Exhibit A) “We said we wouldn’t do anything for Valentine’s Day, but he really didn’t do anything.” Ok, so you said you wanted one thing and it happened in real life, and now you’re mad? Maybe, like, I don’t know, say what you mean? That seems pretty valid, right? “But he should just know!” Stop crying, no he shouldn’t. Say what you mean. Shut up.

Exhibit B) “I can’t tell if he likes me. I think he does. But I just can’t tell.” If he liked you, you would know. If he wanted to be with you, he’d be with you. Shut up.

Exhibit C) “I really like this guy I met at a bar.” um….just shut up.

As it happens every night in Athens, taxi-loads of vaguely attractive drunken young ladies in body-con mini-skirts, baggy, cropped shirts and cowboy boots are driven into that mile radius haven of 96 bars where they fall into the arms of hundreds of vaguely attractive drunken young men in polo shirts and boat shoes waving around $10 “Blackout Buckets*.” Magical!!!!!! Love!!!! Romance!!!!!!

*Sidenote: Blackout Bucket? Seriously? This is two notches short of  “Hey girl, can I buy you a tall, cold glass of Roofies ;) ?”

Anyway,  that is one big issue I have with college love. You can’t find it at 2 AM on Thirsty Thursday with someone who’s been buying you dollar shots that are 80% Powerade, 20% ethanol. You can’t expect that particular shindig to exceed the 12-hour limits of ‘one night stand-ness.’ Don’t text that guy you met at a frat party EVER AGAIN. Real conversations don’t happen in those environments. Come on, tricks, get it together!  If you want something to be real, maybe try sobriety, daylight, and face-to-face conversation? When did that become too much to ask for? If it’s that hard for you to connect with someone without the a-a-a-a-alcohol, then you seriously need to put on your big girl panties and get over your insecurities. Shut up. Guys at bars aren’t looking for girlfriends. Girls at bars shouldn’t be looking for boyfriends.

Which brings me to my next point: if you’re looking, you won’t find it. Don’t be that girl, or guy, who’s hell-bent on finding ‘the one,’ Ted Mosby. Because if you are like that, you’re life will be a huge awkward meltdown. You’re going to think any boy/girl who talks to you is interested, and you’ll be offended when they’re not, and you’ll ruin a bunch of potentially great friendships. You’ll also start seeing all males as potential boyfriends, and you’ll do this annoying thing that one of my friends does where she just molds herself into whatever she thinks said boy wants her to be. Like that’s doomed from the beginning. You can’t not be who you are, and make a guy like someone you’re not and expect that to work. Chill out, don’t worry about it, do your homework, hang out with your friends, read books, watch movies, do your thing, and some guy who digs that will fall into your path and it’ll be awesome. Don’t worry about it so much, ladies. You’re not likely to die alone. Even the dimwads on The Bachelor will find someone probably, and that show is the biggest bullshit stain on human history! Seriously, all of the great advances in technology were set back to the Paleolithic era when The Bachelor became a thing.

Like, everyone always pretends that The Bachelor is all about true love and fairy tale romance, and  that’s how they skirt around the fact that it’s actual bad-shit crazy primetime polygamy full of drunk crying and horrific makeouts. Like at least every girl spends 90% of her time on the show slobbering on about how this her chance at a fairy tale, true love, and her Prince Charming is currently HAVING SEX WITH A MODEL ON A TROPICAL BEACH IN FRONT OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ON NETWORK TELEVISION. Seriously, America, what are you thinking?!?!?!?!?! How can anyone take anything seriously if this stuff exists?

And people are all, “Oh man, The Notebook, you guys, The Notebook. Guys, guys, GUYS. SERIOUSLY! THE NOTEBOOK! NICHOLAS SPARKS.” I hate to break it to you, ladies, but that movie lasts like 122 minutes. Your relationship is not going to be 122 minutes. Maybe the first 122 minutes are crazy amazing like a movie, but what about the next day, and the next week, and the next month? You’re life is not a montage of scenes from a movie of you guys walking on beach, holding hands, eating ice cream, drinking one shake with two straws, feeding animals at a petting zoo, getting caught in the rain, blah blah blah. All of that stuff happens over a long period of time with lots of breaks from each other in between. Girls need their footie pajamas, and space, and chocolate in bed, and cuddles with their cats just as much as guys need their bro time and video games and Skyrim and football. So, shut up, Nicholas Sparks.

Shut up, Drew Brees.

Finally, when you’re talking to your guy but he’s not looking at your eyes you should automatically think to yourself “There’s someone with bigger boobs behind me, isn’t there?”

If your guy is looking behind you while you’re talking to him, there probably is someone hotter behind you. Sorry, you can’t always be the hottest person in the room and you can’t control what he looks at and if you try to, God, you’re crazy. If you’re allowed to drool over Ryan Gosling, he’s allowed to drool over real life hot girls. Honestly, the likelihood of you getting with Ry-Gos any time soon is equal to him getting with that girl, and if he gets with that real life hot girl, then you have got way bigger problems. So calm down, shut up.

Girls stop expecting guys to not look at other girls, stop expecting them to know what you want and how you feel all the time, stop thinking they should be with you 24/7. Stop wanting one month anniversary gifts, that's a literally idiotic anniversary! You're not married! Don't expect a gift from him having been able to put up with you for a whole month! Stop clinging, stop whining, stop crying, stop looking for “the one” stop doing all of that pop culture inspired, Hollywood bullshit, and chill out. You’ll be fine. And if you’re not, well, as my good buddy Cherith once said, “Smart, funny guys get girls. Smart, funny girls get cats. And gays.”

So,  if you still think guys have to court you and woo you and douse you with gifts and compliments then maybe you should go back to the 18^th century, give up your right to vote, and put on a fucking hoop skirt, Jane Eyre.

And if you don’t want to do that but you’ve read this seriously (the one of you) and you still think that guys are supposed to be your princes and you’re a GD-princess, that if he hasn’t texted you back within five minutes you don’t speak to him for the rest of the day, that he doesn’t surprise you for your 1-week anniversary or whatever, then I suggest you:

1.       Start day drinking (http://amzn.to/eEKSXv)
2.       Get a cat (Or 8.)
3.       Start a sad blog about how all men are pigs and you wish you were a lesbian
4.       Die alone

Don’t worry about number four too much because essentially, we all die alone HAHAHAH! 

<3<3<3

Love,

Uzma

Scenarios

I have this really desolate scenario that I fear will play out in my future one day and it goes like this:

        Well, prefacing is necessary probably…hold on:

I have a problem with “never.”

I can’t handle conclusively never seeing someone again or talking to them again or whatever. Effectively, I’m afraid of people falling out of my life if I ever cared about them at all. That’s not to say people I’ve cared about haven’t fallen out of my life, they have, it’s saying that when it’s happening in front of me—if the falling apart is happening in front of me— and I can’t stop it, that’s when I have a problem. 

Ok, back to the desolate scenario:

 So this is my desolate scenario that applies to anyone I may have once loved or something. (“Or something” is necessary because I’m incapable of making that conclusive statement)

At some point in my future, a few years hence, I’m somewhere in the north, grad school, law school whatever, for artistic purposes we’ll call it law school, and we’ll make the other player a ‘him’. 

I’m walking down the street in freezing New England weather, stacks of court briefs in my arms, bundled up, head down to avoid the wind, briskly headed toward my favorite local coffee shop to warm up while I peruse my law school homework (is there a more sophisticated term for that?)

And so I’m rushing in toward the warmth, because my breaks are few and far between, and I’m looking down to protect my tender face from the icy gusts of wind, and because of this nonobservationist stance, I suddenly run into something very warm and very solid.

Of course, it’s another head-down, brisk-walker, laden with his own school papers and as we collide, our papers fly everywhere in the wind.

It’s that typical trite trope, that nauseating romantic comedy meet-cute, and we giggle politely and offer hastened and half-hearted and haphazard apologies as we help the other gather up strewn papers, both of us chuckling in that amicable yet reserved for strangers way…

and as we’re doing this our eyes suddenly meet and for both of us, in what seems to be a fated moment (though the other does not know it), there is a brief flicker of overwhelming recognition, like maybe something from a dream, like someone from a long time ago, someone from the past, someone I might have once loved (or something)...

But the notion dances barely beyond the grasp of perception and before it condenses into a real thought, a real meaningful thought, we each shake the silly idea off, smile to ourselves at the silly little idea that we might know this stranger…

We get our coffee and go opposite ways. 

And that’s that. 

But later, much later, when we’re both miles apart, we’ll think about the incident in the hazy in-between time right before sleep. We’ll both look out the window into a black, starless sky, straining for something we once had; straining our eyes to see the stars that we know should be there. 

~fin~

That’s what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of losing people. I’m afraid of being lost to people. I’m afraid that everything will fall apart and unravel and I’ll never know what something could have been. 

I just want to hold onto everything and everyone forever. But if life means anything at all, it means that you can’t have everything. In fact, you can hardly have anything you want. All you have is what life leaves you with, and that’s what you deal with. 

So it goes. 

There will be no floating away

I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills.

It’s hot here.

And not just hot. It’s not like any heat I’ve ever known. It’s hot.

Obnoxiously, unbearably, lethally hot.  

The air is tangibly humid. Each breath is like taking a deep breath submerged in a lukewarm bath and your lungs fill with liquid.  The humidity clings to your face like spider webs and doesn’t ever go away. You’re constantly glistening in a universally unflattering sheen of your own sticky sweat. And no matter how many showers you take (don’t forget to keep your mouth tightly closed or you might get cholera) you’ll never feel clean or cool or refreshed.

But for everyone who lives here, it’s just a part of life. Slightly smaller than Iowa, but with a population of 180 million hot, sweaty, sticky people, Bangladesh is one of the world’s poorest countries.

There’s no AC-equipped oasis to escape to, because it’s just as hot inside as it is outside, if not hotter.

But in a place like this, the heat is the least of this country’s problems.

It’s unbelievably polluted, the water is dangerous to drink, the sewer system is virtually nonexistent, the government is disgustingly corrupt and cardboard shantytowns cling precariously from the sides of dirty storefronts—housing thousands of people who literally have nothing and nothing to live for.

The electricity goes out every few hours or so, it just happened (thanks autosave!) because the infrastructure is shot to hell. Electricity isn’t quite as pressing a matter, comparatively. When you don’t know if or when your next meal is coming, it doesn’t really matter if the lights go out for a few hours.

The country is plagued with endless problems…but none of these marginal things actually meant anything once I started talking to the people. I had, for so long, been tearfully preaching to anyone who would listen about how horrible and corrupt the countries are in South Asia all summer before I actually got here, I would climb up onto my soap box and wail on about the sex trafficking tragedies in Nepal and the disgustingly corrupt government in Bangladesh…like I knew something…but I don’t know anything.

At all.

There was a man I met in Bahrain when I had a stopover there on my way here, I don’t even remember his name.

 I don’t even think I asked.  I wish I had asked.

He is always smiling, but the weary, dead look in his eyes makes it clear that his smile isn’t quite genuine, the quietness in his tired voice, and the lag in his step…it doesn’t take much to realize that something inside of him has been broken for a while.

He worked as a waiter in the café I was eating in and he told me about his life while bringing me glasses of water and taking away my plate.

He told me wistfully about the wife and kids in Bangladesh he has, and how far away they are from him because he has to work 10 hour shifts every day in Bahrain (a Middle Eastern kingdom on an island that is 5 hours away by plane).

He sends the money he makes back to home them, but keeps some to pay for his housing in a 3 bedroom apartment with 3 men per bedroom. There are nine men total in his apartment.

He works every single day, 10 hours a day, only to go home to sleep and come back in the morning to work.

That is all his life is.

 He sees his family once every two years because that’s all the vacation time he’s allowed.

He sees his family once every two years.

All he does for two years is wait to go home, and every single day until those two years end, he waits and he works and he survives until he can see his family. And once he is home, he spends each day dreading coming back. This is his schedule, over and over and over and over…

That is his life, and that’s all his life will ever be.

His children hardly recognize him, he says to me jokingly. But the bitter pain masked by the candor is searingly apparent. We both know that it’s not a joke. And at that moment, something breaks, and it all becomes painfully real.

He doesn’t get to talk to anyone because the people who eat where he works don’t really treat him as an equal, just someone who is there to clean up. He doesn’t talk to people at his apartment because he’s either sleeping, working or eating. His life is just a day in-day out, mundane, series of events, completely lonely, with no one to talk to, with hours of waiting on people, and nothing to live for but the distant reunion with his family—that is until he has to come back.

All he does is work and wait and that’s all he will do until he can’t anymore. As I finished my meal and left, he asked when I was leaving and if I would see him again. That was the moment when I realized just how lonely he was...and I realized that I may have been one of the only people to ever have an actual conversation with him in who knows how long. And more than anything he’d said before, this was what made me so sad…his hope that I might be back for dinner. That he might have a friend for a few more hours.

And I sat and cried because of this. Outside, the planes were taking off and landing and taking off again and I was sadder than I think I’ve ever been. I was sad for this man who only had his waiter’s uniform and his bleak life, I was sad for every moment he would miss watching his children grow up, I was sad for the children who wouldn’t know their father, for the wife who spends years waiting to see her husband, sad for the inevitably millions of people just like him. And I was sad for myself, sad for something I had lost.

When I got here, I met a girl named Lucky. She can’t be more than 14 years old; even though she fervently assures me she’s 18. She’s young, but the dark hollowness framing her black eyes tells me that she’s older than any child should ever have to be. I asked her how old she was when she started working, but she doesn’t even remember. She doesn’t really remember….that’s how long it’s been.

 I asked her what her whole name was, and she told me she didn’t know. She just knows that all she has been called her whole life is “Lucky.” I asked her if she went to school, and she said she did when she was very young back when she didn’t really understand anything. She was sweeping and I asked her if she did this every day. She said yes, she did this every day, but she didn’t really feel like doing it anymore. I asked her why and she said it was because she missed home. She wanted to go home but she wasn’t allowed because I had come and they needed the extra help. I asked, “Are you mad at me? Because I’m the reason you had to stay?” She laughed and said of course not, how could it be my fault?!

But it was a forced laugh, and her smile didn’t quite meet her eyes as she assured me she didn’t blame me. She can barely read, but she uses context clues to make out what the newspaper says. Anyone who speaks to her for five minutes would realize just how brilliant she is. She doesn’t forget anything she is told to do, and memorizes strings of numbers without having to be told more than twice. And I know that if she had the opportunities I had, that she would be so much more brilliant than I could ever be. The injustice settled in my stomach like a cold brick as I spoke to her. I asked her about her brother and sister and mother and father, and her village at home and whether she missed it…and as she told me just how very much she missed them all she could no longer meet my eyes and towards the end of the conversation she sped out of the room, saying she had work to do. I know she didn’t have work to do, I know she was crying, because I saw her wipe her eyes as she left, and I heard her crying quietly in the crawl space she sleeps in through the wall.

                                                                                                                                                                                            

The most painful thing for me, I guess, is that it’s not just one person, it’s never just one person—it’s not just Lucky or the man in Bahrain. It’s millions of people. It’s the receptionist from Manila who hasn’t seen her children in 5 years. It’s the hotel maid from India who is trying to raise enough money for her daughter to get married. It’s all the young girls who are taken from their villages to cook and clean for people who pay them nearly nothing. It’s all the young girls who are taken from their villages to do much worse than cook and clean. It’s everyone who works so hard and gives up so much, to the point that it nearly kills them, who sacrifice their lives to ensure that the people they love don’t have to do the same one day.

And each of these millions of people, each of them is somebody’s son or daughter, and they each have a family, and they are each individuals. Once you realize that the statistic is comprised of individuals, you become overwhelmed with the significance of the numbers…

I don’t really know anything about anything, I’m beginning to realize.

Because this is real.

It’s not a book, and it’s not a movie. It’s not facts I learned from journals or the CIA World Factbook or National Geographic articles…it’s real, living, breathing people.

And the brokenness of it all has never hit me quite like this…

…but now that it has, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself anymore.

But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning.

There will be no floating away.

Quarter-life Crisis

One of my favorite sounds is rain outside of my window at night.
And not the pussy bitch drizzle kind, what a tease.

Real rain, pounding, slamming, thunderous, lightning, apocalyptic storms of rain. Sinners in the hands of an angry God, rain. Build an ark, rain.
The kind of rain that means something.
Like it's trying to tell you something in the middle of the night, the meaning of life or how to divide by zero or what God looks like or where Amelia Earhart actually is or something crazy and unknowable like that.
That kind of rain.
It's gorgeous.

It's perfect.

And if I didn't have the flu or if I didn't have any inhibitions, I would go out there and stand in it and get soaked and the rain could pound on me and melt away everything I don't like about myself and every fear I have and every worry and every weakness and everything that makes me angry and vulnerable and broken and everything I'm not sure of and everything that's ever hurt me would wash away and flow through me and over me and out of me and go away down down down through the drains and into the streams and into the ocean where they would get lost forever and never come back.

Like a baptism.
Like a catharsis. A rebirth. Something.
And then I would come out fresh and clean and new.
Like metamorphosis. Like a butterfly.
No, but not a butterfly though. Butterflies are fleeting and fragile and pretty and they alight on things and sip nectar and don’t last.

I want this to last. I want it to be like metamorphic rock, where I go in and then the pressure and heat swells all around me until I can't take it and I writhe around twist and fold in on myself and swell and almost explode and I have to change and melt into something completely new, and scrubbed raw, ripped out of my old skin, and so aware and ready and sure of herself, and stronger, and harder, and better than I was before.
Lately, for some reason, I've been looking for change. Not more for change, rather to change.  Change within me, to become a better person I guess.

Ever since 2011 started, I’ve been working harder, planning my life down to the hour, week by week, figuring things out, making goals, drinking 8 glasses of water a day, eating healthy, studying more and harder (studying, at all really), taking the stairs, exercising, volunteering, getting things done, keeping busy, and all that.

I’ve been scheduling my life to graduate a year early with either a triple major, single minor, or a double major double minor, English/Pols and Spanish/Arabic or just triple in the three and minor in Arabic. I’ve dedicated this summer to researching child welfare in third world countries and next summer to a study abroad in Morocco and an intensive Arabic learning semester there, too. At some point I want to do something in Latin America or Oxford, I want to do an internship, I want to do Teach For America after I graduate from UGA, before I go to law school. I need to get a job at some point, to pay for all of the stuff I do.

I want to do so much, but, the scariest part is…I don’t quite know why. On some level, I’m aware that doing things, doing stuff, having stuff, will benefit me in the future, I know being accomplished with all these things on my resume will get me somewhere, eventually. Everything I want to do is something I love, yes. But I don’t know…the terrifying part is, do I do anything because I want to? Or because I want to impress the world and society and be a part of the system?
Does free will even exist?

Do I want to go to law school? Or did I choose that because I want success in my life? Do I even want success or do I just want to prove myself to everyone around me? Do I want to play success, act it, or do I actually want it? Do I really want to help people, or do I just know I should? Am I a good person at all? What is a good person anyway?

When you’re young, like me, you have a million dreams and you want to be somebody, and you want to be rich, and you want to be famous, and you want to show up everyone who doubted you growing up, and everyone who was ever mean to you, everyone who ever made you feel small, every college or job that rejected you, you want to make up for every failure you ever had by proving to everyone that you can be incredible. And then you grow up, and life happens, and you settle, and nothing really amazing happens in your life, but no one really cares because no one’s really hot shit either. And then everyone is in the same mediocre boat for forever. And then you die, and no one gives two squirts of piss about who you were.

Basically, I have no effing idea what I want right now. What I want from life is to be happy, to look back and have had a million happy experiences, I want to be loved and love and do what I love.
I’ll figure out what it all means I guess, along the way. Maybe life is the experience. Maybe you’re supposed to live it in order to figure it out, instead of living it because you figured it out.
Maybe you have to let it wash over you and accept the shape it takes and let it flow through you.

I don’t know anything at all, I’m beginning to realize.

When the wind picks up and leaves and sticks and dust blow all around me and  I can’t see or breathe, that’s when I realize that I don’t matter at all.

We'll never feel bad anymore

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

All anyone ever wants is to be happy. Whenever I'm sad, I read "Desiderata," and I breathe. 

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.