Opportunities present themselves all the time, but I rarely if ever seize them for my own benefit. I am not sure why I have this unexplainable attitude toward anything even seemingly good. Agh, I wish I could go into more detail but I cannot. Sometimes I contemplate starting a new blog that is completely anonymous and does not give even the slightest hint about my identity. This restraint I must practice is quite hard for me at times.
Well, I don’t know why it is that I don’t seize these opportunities that I speak of. I mean, I can possibly narrow down potential possibilities. For example, I think my lazy lethargicness is to blame. Also, I am scared to try new things that come with risks. This isn’t the way that I desire to live – in doubt and isolation. I suppose the way I was raised is to blame for these tendencies I have, since I was raised in a semi-sheltered environment. My parents had always been wearisome of anything that I did, and this kind of overbearingly strict upbringing had a tremendous impact on my personality and character.
I don’t blame them for absolutely everything, because in many ways they saved me from living exactly the kind of life that repulses me, a life laden with drugs, alcohol, promiscious sex, and more. I live this life devoid of these actions and even while my parents have not been standing over my shoulder and guarding my every action and move, I have opted to reject these things due to my own will. There have been times in my life when my spirituality has gone downhill, but I have continued to abstain from these things because they simply don’t interest me at all. It perplexes me sometimes when I attempt to understand why these things seem to be the very center of certain peoples’ lives. I am flabbergasted as to how these things seep into their lives, forever holding them in their poisonous grasp.
Okay, I think I went off on a tangent. I just cannot understand why I let go of amazing opportunties. In the process of trying to analyze my way of dealing with things, I went off on a tangent about my parents having a heavy influence on me throughout childhood and my teens and how it resulted in me being the person that I am. There can be a million other reasons for the absence of my willingness to seize opportunities, but I cannot decipher every one of them. I suppose there is no use in sighing over what has passed. The most that I can do now is to wait for the next chance that presents itself.
Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always. You remember that, Mariam.” -A Thousand Splendid Suns
I just finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I attained a copy of it yesterday and devoured it since. Amidst finals and writing papers, this book found its way into the cracks between different obligations and commitments I strive to uphold and fulfill during the hours of my days. Not neglecting my list of things that must be accomplished, I found time to read this book. I have to say that periodically while I read, I would feel overwhelmed with grief inside as the book delved into the lives of the women in war-torn Afghanistan. The various social and political issues were addressed in pages of beautiful prose that lingered on my mind even when I wasn’t reading the book. Not only that, but the romantic and intricately personal elements in this book touched my heart in ways that I cannot describe – it is rather interesting how a book has the ability to string my inner cords in ways that a movie or a play can never do. I was captivated from the first page to the last, and now that I am done, I don’t know what I can replace this book with.
After I take my two remaining finals on Tuesday, this semester will be officially over, much to my dismay. I find myself wanting to cling to a schedule and a way of living that is fleeting me – rather, it has fled already and now I must grow used to the idea of the approaching summer that will hijack my days. I will miss my classes beyond belief, and the nuances of my days that I had become hopelessly accustomed to. I’ll miss this so much.
I don’t want to surrender and give in to time. I don’t want to, but I have no other choice than to embrace the upcoming days that hold within them limitless uncertainty and mystery.
It is quite ironic how perspectives change as one grows older and becomes more and more immersed in the seriousness of life. The way I now look at certain things is vastly different from the way I looked at the same things years ago, and that is obviously expected given the fact that age alters the lens that a person views the world through.
Yesterday, after I came home from my university and was stepping out of my car, for some reason I glanced at the sky hovering above me. Since it was a beautiful and sun-rich day, I had the instinctive urge to simply look at the sky. The sky was blocked by the massive trees in my backyard which overflowed the blueness of the sky, but through the cracks between the leaves, the deeply rich blue patches of the sky shone through. I was reminded of my childhood when I used to go on the swings in my cousin’s backyard and simply swing away for hours, staring at the sky every time I swung forwards towards it. The sky yesterday looked exactly the same as it did for that younger version of myself that used to swing away to her heart’s content, each time peering up at the overwhelming blue sky that seemed to be coated with an infinite amount of leaves.
However, it didn’t look exactly the same at the same time. When I was younger, the sky seemed like something so great that it was difficult for me to grasp its vastness. I stared at it in wonder, noticing on some days the white cotton candy clouds and how they looked identical to the clouds in the Super Mario video games I would play throughout my childhood. I pretended I was Mario swinging away. I would make out different shapes that the leaves formed over the sky. Yesterday when I looked at the same sky, I sighed as I remembered my young imagination. The sky to me now simply looked like a great sea of blue. I tried to utilize my imagination to see interesting things but I just could not, and then I realized that I simply cannot force myself to imagine things – imagination is supposed to be spontaneous and unexpected, something that comes to one naturally in their moments of contemplation and wonder.
Perhaps I have grown far too old and serious over these years, resulting in the annihilation of my imagination. Or maybe my imagination still lingers within, but the demons residing in my head block it out. I have far too much to think about and little time to do so, causing that box of thoughts to overflow and strain me. I need some time to myself. Is that too much to ask for?
So my favorite semester is coming to a close and although I yearn for it not to end this way, it is. Not only was this one of my favorite semesters, but also one of my last ever. Life of course trudges by with or without our consent, and does so in the most unexpected and sometimes unwanted of ways. Nevertheless, I think I’ve learned to swallow my depression and uninvited nostalgia with time. I mean, it is stinging inside but I suppress is so that the sensation becomes much more subtle as it gets pushed to the background.
“I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab’s door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” -The Kite Runner
I’ve been reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini the past couple of days. Although I read over half of it back when I was in high school, I never got around to finishing it due to unforeseen circumstances that in time resulted in years going by without me having finished the book. Now, years later as I stepped out of my car in the garage, I noticed that there were stacks of books on a lone shelf in the corner of the garage. The books seemed ever so familiar, given they were my own. When we moved to this house last summer, many of my books became scattered hither and tither, and I was left scraping them from random places that I’d come to discover as the months went by. So in this stack of book rested The Kite Runner, which I’ve succumbed to reading. The craziness and obsession that readers expressed over this book has now passed and even a sequel has been released. Much time has passed, and I’m a few years behind, but I honestly could not care less. I like picking things up after the hype is over and done with.
Needless to say, this book is an amazing read for me because of its evocative power. I’m not a huge sap at all. In fact, I abhor people that come across as overly melodramatic. However, this book evokes feelings of mine that seemed to have been buried deep inside of me all these years. It is interesting how simple black ink on a page can have that kind of ability – the ability to act as a catalyst in reawakening a person’s innermost sensibilities and rejuvenating a conscience.
I have kept a Facebook since, I believe, the June of year 2005. It’s been a while, huh? Well, during these years, I have deactivated it many a time, sometimes for months at a time. I have gone through stages with Facebook, at times loathing it because of the sheer boredom that it seemed to bestow upon my life and other times I loved it because of the way it allowed me to connect with certain people who I could not have connected with otherwise through different means. It graciously handed me the rare opportunity of actually having some kind of link with people that I perhaps would have lost if not for Facebook – there are some people I could have never tracked down without the amazing assistance of Facebook.
I created a Facebook for networking reasons more than anything else, and it served exactly that purpose. In fact, it was M who added me in the July of 2005 and from that point on, we became (half) friends. He added to his schedule one of the classes I was planning on taking during that fall semester and that was when we met face-to-face and after some happenings, I wanted to remain a pole’s length from him. I went to the extent of even blocking him on the instant messaging program that I used as well as taking him off as a friend on Facebook. Then alas, four months later in the March of 2006, I had the sudden urge out of nowhere to unblock the kid and apologize for my rash and uncalled for behavior. We became the best of friends from that point on and eventually ended up falling in love. I did not create a Facebook to meet my significant other – in fact, that was not even on my mind at all at the time. My path crossing M’s was complete happenstance and unplanned as can be.
So as you can see from the accounts that I have relayed on my blog, Facebook does hold a bit of sentimental value for me as it is the reason that my life is now the way it is. I know that this type of story that I told isn’t limited to only someone like myself, rather, there are many individuals that I know of whose lives changed due to their discoveries and proper utilization of Facebook. I am not merely alluding to the romantic element of peoples’ lives, but also the social element. Through Facebook, some people are fortunate enough to find their best friends. Other people utilize Facebook to organize and popularize certain causes and events by posting them, which creates unlimited awareness and interest.
As most of us know, however amazing something is, it will always have drawbacks of some sort. Facebook can potentially serve as a great invitation for stalkers. Before I concealed my Facebook picture in a way that only my friends could see it, I would get random requests from men from every corner of the globe, much to my disgust and repulsion. It was as though these men had nothing more productive and meaningful to do than to sit on Facebook and day in and day out and drool at unsuspecting girls’ pictures, eventually adding them – sadly enough, that is exactly the case with many people. There are also creepy stalkers of the female gender. That is why it is crucial to actually make use of the privacy features on Facebook if you’re worried about these kinds of things. I know I was, which was why I activated many of the privacy settings.
As eery as it may initially sound, Facebook also attracts many stalkers from within, meaning people that are already on your friends list – those who you talk to and see on a regular basis. I think this is more fearful than strangers stalking me, because I have absolutely no way of knowing who it is or how to control it. Through simply reading your profile and wall updates, people can deduce quite a bit of information about you if they had the time and means to do so.
I always question myself as to why people take risks. Is the idea of experiencing an ecstatically joyful thrill what propels one to undertake a risk? Or is it the sheer curiosity of what would occur in the event that one took this risk and what sort of things one would learn or experience through undertaking the risk, which otherwise would not have been known to him or her if they had not taken the initiative to live this risk? Is sometimes the thrill of taking the risk more of a reason to do it than the actual learning experience that one attains?
I took a rather daring risk today in which there was a ninety percent chance of me having to face highly unfavorable consequences that could lead to a lot of things. I could have been stripped of any and all rights and privileges that I do possess. I drove all over the state today for inexpicable reasons – inexplicable because I cannot go into detail about them on this blog no matter how anonymous it is. As my entry below indicates, there are simply some lines to be drawn while writing. These are my own personal, self-imposed limitations that I uphold for the betterment of my life.
In any case, towards the end of my journey, my car’s gas gauge’s needle rather frighteningly was nearing “E” and I glanced at it often, hoping for a gas station to magically appear on the side of the seemingly neverending highway. Internally, I was composed rather than panicking, because for some reason I have uncompromising faith during such tense situations. It is a quality that I have possessed for years on end. Miles treaded by and I stared at the needle, which was past the “E” and still panic did not set into me. Finally, I came across a gas station and filled up my tank in relief.
I came home afterwards and now await the inevitable consequences.
Many a time I find myself having to censor my writing because of the possibility of a relative of mine accidentally stumbling upon my blog which unleashes the secrets and ordeals completely unknown to them. I don’t mind so much my colleagues or friends coming across my writing as I do my relatives, meaning my cousins or worse yet, my immediate family. This is because I tend to keep my life on the down low with them due to my private and reserved nature. I don’t enjoy disclosing the intricacies of my personal life to these people because these intricacies are exactly that – intricacies that are so complex and intimate that no one would be able to grasp or understand even the beginning of them.
Even though my blog is anonymous for the most part, meaning I do not disclose my name or whereabouts on this blog, I have committed a couple of mistakes in the past that can possibly lead to the unraveling of my identity by a smart relative if they possess the time and energy needed to do so. Unfortunately, some of my relatives are unduly intelligent and crafty at deciphering matters in a way that reveals the significance and backgrounds behind certain matters, stripping these secret matters of any mystery or question that remains in them. This has occurred in the past, which is why I am wary of my writing.
However wary I am, however, I can safely say that I do not let this bother or distract my writing for the most part. I write to my heart’s desire most days, and as for someone reading my writings and discovering my identity, I shrug and leave it to my fate.
Writing anonymously has its pros and cons as does anything. It can allow for you to state your perspectives in the most free of ways – you will not be held accountable for your views no matter how provocative or controversial they may seem to be. However, sometimes I desire for my friends and relatives to read some of my writings so that I can receive their input, considering they know me very well and they have the ability to understand me in some ways that strangers cannot. My blog’s readership will always be limited to some extent due to my determination in keeping it safely anonymous.
Most of my friends are oblivious to the fact that I even keep a blog anywhere on the web, and I feel that they aren’t aware of the existence of something that is actually a significant part of my life. My blog does hold some sentimental value for me, as cheesy as it may appear.
Perhaps someday I’ll let go of my reservations and unleash my thoughts in the open, but for now I suppose I’ll remain this way.
I think there comes a time in most relationships when one starts feeling a bit insignificant in their partner’s life because other factors seem to override the “love” factor of the relationship. The love aspect of the relationship suddenly becomes only semi-visible, if visible at all, and slowly you feel as though your world is crumbling apart and everything that you mentally built in your head for years appears to be a hoax of sorts. The castle consisting of countless hopes, dreams, and aspiration suddenly vanishes and you’re left with a hollow feeling inside that is incomparable to anything else. You know that your other half still loves you, but attaining his or her attention becomes a feat that proves to be unduly difficult. Other people seem to take a far greater interest in you than the one who should be there. After a while, you grow tired and simply sit back and watch your life take forms that you had never before envisioned it would. It is as though someone else is writing your own life for you, and you become a stranger to the life that you had held on to so dearly for all those years.
Has anyone ever felt that way? Remaining perfectly subtle in my writing is becoming a task far too difficult for me to accomplish. I cannot veil my sentiments with obscure word play any longer.
My seventeen year old brother dragged me to see Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay today. Being the thoughtfully complying older sister that I am, I accompanied him and thought to myself that this may prove to be an endeavor more worth my time than the apparent folly of sulking at home. I was gravely mistaken. I have seen Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle but I was younger at the time and I thought it was moderately humorous although I did find it sharply crude.
Now I went to see the second part of this movie after being coerced into going while being slightly older and more sensible, and I found that it was even more crude than the first movie and rather devoid of humor. I won’t say that I didn’t laugh at all from beginning to end, but I found the sexual and drug references were overdone to the extent that the humor was lacking while these references were given sole concentration at the expense of the humor. As is the case with many movies in not only today’s day and age but movies since the beginning of cinema in general, there were many political references scattered throughout the movie. This whole movie was a poke at the government of the United States and the kinds of racial issues that “minorities” must deal with in this society. For example, the two of them are branded as terrorists because Kumar decides to carry a smokeless device for marijuana on the plane that airplane passengers mistakingly take for a bomb. Then the two are carried off to Guantanamo Bay and after their escape, they encounter many people of different ethnicities who must also deal with various different types of issues because of the color of their skin or the shape of their eyes. The first movie was somewhat of a creative take on tackling these issues, what with its satirical approach towards the subject matter, and the sequel also satirized the war on Iraq and race issues, but it didn’t quite amuse me to the same extent as the first one.
This is not a movie that I felt comfortable seeing with my younger brother – the nudity just killed it. This movie sadly reflected the nature of what today’s youth shamelessly enjoy and savor. This is the type of entertainment that defines the average individual’s taste in humor, and I have to say that it undoubtedly portrays the quickened rate of deterioration in intellect and thought. All in all, I would opt for an alternative when going to the movie theater.
I almost always confidently state that I’m going to say at least something in this blog everyday. I think I’m finally reaching my goal, considering I have been writing consistently for a couple of days now. I need to hone my blogging skills, because I think it will assist me greatly when it comes to writing papers for school that consist of endless pages.
I have always had a passion for writing, but I am tired of feeling exasperated and irritated while writing papers for my classes. I sigh constantly and take sporadic breaks throughout my writing. It is obviously considerably easy to write about topics that I actually have a decent amount of interest in, but sometimes the professor will throw some whack, obscure topic at us and I’m left thinking, “what?!” in my head because I simply cannot come to grasp how difficult it will be writing practically a book on that particular subject.
So my goal is to try blogging about things that may not necessarily interest me at first glance, but perhaps after delving into these issues and actually taking an active role to educate myself about them and then analyze and decipher them after informing myself about the subject matter, I will experience a change of heart and not mind the subject as much anymore. I’m also going to attempt to write it and not edit and proofread it a million times afterwards – I think sometimes that process takes away from the true essence of writing. I don’t know why this is, but I detest reading my own words after writing them – it gives me a bad feeling in my stomach afterwards for some reason.
The weekend is here and it was much awaited for, but last night left me so incredibly depressed that I had a difficult time functioning properly. My taste and joy for doing anything else besides sulking in misery basically became non-existent. I honestly couldn’t bring myself to even smile. I don’t know why it is that I am tested this way and what I did to deserve such a cruel punishment, but it grates on my nerves and effects my health in a detrimental and adverse way.
I also don’t want this spring semester to end. As much as I adore the summer, I feel that the closer I become to graduating, the more transient my days seem to me. I think about “aging” fairly often, and the reality of it all is sinking into me every single day. Although I am only twenty-something years old at the moment, I know that this will not be something that will stay with me forever. I don’t want to come out of university and enter the “real world,” losing any kind of attachment I had to my dreams and past times. I’ll have to gather everything and put it to the back of my mind because I’ll be too busy worrying about a husband and a family. I don’t want to become like that at all, so I fear coming to that point in my life and having to act that certain way when I am in the situation.
I wish to take my days and breathe them in as I authentically live them, savoring them and giving them the true attention and dedication that they rightfully deserve. I don’t want to be shocked one day when my breaths suddenly become dreadfully sparse and difficult to take as I die. I won’t be granted the hour or few days that I’ll painfully yearn for at the moment.
