III)

You know that feeling when it feels like you’re at the top of the world. I felt like a conqueror. I felt like I had conquered the love which does not die with time. Something beautiful; something eternal. Something which could only grow with time. Something immeasurable.

I still remember the way He would put his chin up to smile at me when I would play with my watch on the cold flat surface of the second floor, and each time it was about to fall he’d catch it. In a stretched analogy, he didn’t just save the watch, He was saving me – from falling. The way He then looked up at me like I meant everything to him. The way He would take money out of his own wallet to get me water because I looked dehydrated. The way his nose would crinkle when he would be upset. The traffic outside The Lyceum was loud, and it was deafening. The world outside our bubble would be crossing by at a really fast pace but time stopped when he was there. Even though we didn’t have much, we had everything. He used to tell me just conversing with me would calm him. What a little thing so many took for granted. It made me realise what I wanted was this. I was enough for him. Enough to make him happy. Enough to make him laugh.

So where do all these little things go? Little things which once meant everything. Sometimes I wonder how easily people forget. I will never understand how they can forget those who they are in debt to for carving a curve on their countenance. How do you forget what you felt? To me, it began to feel real when we not only laughed together but cried, too. When the world seemed to gang up against us, but it was us against it. I remember everything.

As time went on, I started getting less and less enough. I admit I was guilty of not knowing what I exactly had to do in this but I mean then again who really does. But, I somewhat had an idea. Communication is key. The words He constantly repeated. Communication is key. Communication, the word that He engraved in my heart. I was shy. I took a little bit of time to open up, but i did. Communication is key, He would say again as He dismissed my shy nature. Communication, the word that I thought of even as I slept. I need to be more effective at this, I would think. This is how you make a relationship successful my blind heart would whisper; this is how they last; this is how they work.

Then came being told I did not know how to be there, and be of comfort. So, I took a step back and began to reevaluate myself to shape a new me in accordance to what he deemed correct. Maybe there was something wrong with me? Something which I was lacking? So I changed myself because all I craved was the security which seemed to linger in the sugarcoated words coming from him. But what I was also guilty of was not pronouncing my worth when there was clearly a need for it. He told me he had experience which was much more than mine. He said he knew what he was doing and how relationships work. But apparently I did not know. I made an effort to the extent I began to place myself second to become the “right” person. Communication is key. But, does communication still act vital when in the process of you changing, the other person becomes emotionally void. What are words without actions? Empty.

You know that day when everything feels wrong? When you feel like a victim and it’s cruel out there. Nothing works in your favor. Your mom says no. Your dad says no. Friends feel more than an arm length away. You say no to yourself. You’re shot. You’re down. When even you can’t help yourself get up. It’s just that one day when it gets too much. You feel stripped. You feel naked. You’re raw. There are feelings inside you – sentiments – oozing out.

There was this one time when I felt done with the world too. When I felt small and the world felt big. I hated everyone that one day. I needed to let it out but not in the artificial manner. I wanted to say all those things that I thought in their raw form. At this point I thought that that stage was reached where for the first time in my life I could be myself. Be myself not just when I’m happy but also when I’m frustrated. Letting the words in my heart out on my tongue became a mistake for me. I was judged. I was told He needs to reevaluate whether I was still the right person or not and He wanted his parents to hear this in due time so they too could see my raw side. All I did was express how I felt everyone was against me and the world was a harsh place. It really is a harsh world. One day of weakness. Just one. Wounds were already cut open that day and miraculously those wounds sowed themselves shut to never let anyone ever glance a site of weakness or rawness ever again.

 

I always knew He wasn’t good for me. There was anger involved. Anger tied to the past. Anger which was triumphed over temporarily – something which He often owed to the day I was befriended. Love didn’t only make me blind but He turned a blind eye too. And in the worst way possible, it hurt. It hurt to the point that my heart would yell out a cry by the end.

He told me He liked challenges, but when the hardest one came He succumbed to himself. I was always enough but He succumbed because He was never enough for himself. But I was adamant I was going to do everything it took to make this work. While I was too busy changing into the “right” person, He too was busy transforming.

II)

You know that feeling when it hurts so much that it does not even hurt at all anymore. You could call it a form of numbness, I guess. Everyone goes through this at some point of their lives. I just went through mine a little earlier than desired.

This friendship took that dangerous leap that I had feared and at first was reluctant about. But you know you really only see one side of a person when you’re just friends with them, and another side – the actual one – when you’re more.

I’ve always been a staunch believer in the philosophy that there are many types of love: romantic/intimate love, friendship love, family love etc. To reduce this grand emotion to intimacy is to treat it unfairly. Can one person be deserving of all of its forms? Perhaps. And maybe in my blind pursuit of trying to give He all of this I lost myself somewhere.

 

With a stone on my heart, I said yes. It’s not that I did not want it, but I was familiar with the fate of “friendships” at this stage. A-Levels is a transitory time period, when we are discovering, growing and trying new things. I knew the risk that came with it but I was willing to take it because I was blind. Those who call love blind are not wrong. I never viewed it that way because I always felt like I had some sort of control over every decision I made but with hindsight I learned I really didn’t. The first few months that follow after the friendship turns to more I would say are not the one’s which set the stage for what there is to come. They are not defining and unfortunately these are the moments we fall in love with and base our stay on. We sometimes subconsciously build our foundations on the wrong parts. Because this person was once like this, so we fall victim to our own optimism that there might be a chance for those good times to come back. Like I said in the first part, we are beings in love with the memories sometimes much more than the person. In most cases they are nothing but an act. Act being a harsher word than I would like to use but calling them “a phase” could be an apt euphemism to describe the situation. Some label it as the “honeymoon phase” because both parties are new to this, and as I was taught from He that, “the love decreases. Be prepared!” What a cute warning I overlooked. Everything seems cute in the beginning but that is when one should be most cautious. Don’t be okay with things in the “honeymoon phase” which you would not actually be okay with later. Never loosen yourself to please someone, because that is not who you are. Sometimes we learn this the hard way.

 

Like anyone else’s initial stage, I was ecstatic too, in mine. I had found the one, or at least what it felt like in that moment. Someone who understood me like nobody else, someone who cared about the little things I did, someone who noticed them, someone who noticed me, and made me feel like i was important and worth something. Calling it the best feeling in the world would be the biggest understatement of all time. This feeling was the reason we all live, and the thing we are all searching for. I am in no way suggesting we need others validation to feel content but what we sometimes do crave is others acknowledgement and the reiteration of our own beliefs from someone else. I felt so happy knowing I found somebody who cared about things as little as the number of hours I used my phone so my eyes do not hurt. But you know as they say good things do not last too long. I don’t know who this “they” is but I wish I had understood their message a little earlier. But “they” also say storms don’t last forever.

I)

I was always the “new girl” everywhere. Even if i had spent a lot of time somewhere I was still new. I never really fully assimilated in the environment and that is the situation I found myself in when I joined The Lyceum School. Even though I had been in the country for two years prior to boarding on to this new adventure, I still didn’t feel settled. I had friends, but they were all spread around. It was difficult to stay in touch since I’ve now lived in four different countries. You could say in terms of friends I was all over the place. One thing I lost on was childhood friends since I didn’t stay in places long enough to watch those friendships grow and blossom. As unfortunate as it may sound I can’t really post those photos with a “9 years and counting” caption. And, I don’t really regret it. Those people, who I met for short time periods, are important parts of my life and I owe my current self to them. I am how I am today from how my experience with them was. My personality is an amalgamation of fragments of good and bad influences I picked and observed from other people’s personalities. That is what humans are essentially: they are observations. But, I’ll be honest, it is different to see people and it is different to just know they have once existed in your life. This may not make sense to everyone but it just doesn’t stay the same way forever. You grow to be in love with the person in the moment. And, time it is a terrible terrible thing. It indeed does divide – create wedges – distance. You meet the same person you called your best friend after five years and you see yourself standing in front of a whole other person. One you do recognize physically but is that emotional connection still there? Not really. You don’t have the same jokes. You don’t fully know and understand what is happening in their life. And to me that’s one of the saddest realities of life. People you loved and maybe still do grow apart. But what we really do love was that moment. We are beings in love with memories and moments, and time really does in some cases create bridges between what was then and what is now. This sometimes happens for your own betterment. It allows you to meet more people. According to me as sad as it is, it gives you space to create new memories.

This space and desire to meet new people is always active within my soul. This need to search. The decision to enroll in Lyceum was the first big decision my parents left in my trembling hands. I had to choose between Karachi Grammar School (KGS) and The Lyceum School. The former being one of the most reputable institutes in Karachi with most students ending up in the best universities of the world. The latter having a more friendly environment considering everyone was starting afresh there, and still being a really good college. The feeling close to being settled began when I met this one person. Yes, it was a he. Anyone who is a he, puts me in a discombobulated state. Should I trust them? Or should I tell them everything because I obviously have no chill. It was either all or nothing. There is no inbetween. Oh my this person is definitely different! Will this lead to more? Will this lead to less? Or are they more of a best friend type? Yes, that’s right not all boys are created to be anything more. Oh but like most girls I fell too.

Before I take a plunge into this story, I would like to make one important detail about this very clear. I was never the “serious type.” That just was not me. I will never settle for anyone and no one was someone good enough for a forever – not in my world. For a second to put myself second and make someone a priority was a vision I never imagined myself seeing. But it was one I began seeing for the first time after a few months of this “weird friendship.” An outcome which I in my wildest dreams would not have ever imagined.