The loss is huge, the grief consumes us all,
The legacy he left behind, oh how will it stand tall?
Our mourning ends at “Pray for him”
We forget that now, his bargain is only with Him
More in need than your words and prayers,
Is a child looking for someone who cares,
Just look around, there is no time for tears,
There’s a world full of hardships, a world full of fears,
So don’t throw your words around as if you truly mourn,
Loss of a man, the most human ever born,
You are the same, you can do it too,
You have the same powers, you are human too.

It feels slightly childish to write with such simplicity and directness about something so impactful and someone so great, but simplicity feels okay.

Scars

This Huffpost article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-bare-their-scars-to-reveal-the-beauty-in-imperfections_us_55db32f1e4b0a40aa3ab6ae5

I love it so much. I loved how they called them "battle scars" just like I do.

I have two scars which have significantly changed my life. I have acne scars which I have talked about before, and then I have this ACL Ligament Repair surgery scar on my left leg. I haven't really talked about it so here I go.

I got this scar on 5th June, 2015. It was an ACL Repair surgery and it was way way way easier said than done. I don't want to go into too many details of the actual operation and everything , but I do feel like discussing the impact it had on me.

It made me understand by personal experience, how hard chronic pain is to deal with. How it drains you of your mental strength. It made me understand all the things that I knew, but never understood before. Like, the effect chronic illness has on you life. It made me understand pain profoundly. I used to be fearless when it came to thinking about being sick or experiencing pain, but now I know it is not easy.

It made me understand how hard it is to function without even one of your limb properly functioning. It helped me see how we have built this world to accommodate only those who are physically perfect.

It made me understand the fear and loneliness that comes with being left alone when you are in pain and this lesson is the most painful of them all. I got to experience betrayal and selfishness in friendship at that time. Those I cared so deeply for, did not even give a second thought to me when I was in so much pain. It's been a year and thinking of those people still fills me up with complete disgust. Those cowards who could not, even for a minute, get their heads out of their asses and see that a friend needed them. Those selfish apathetic assholes.  Thinking about it still makes me angry. They proved that they were an amalgamation of all that I absolutely despised in humans - cowardly, selfish, apathetic with no sense of loyalty.

I know, that a year ago, if I had read a paragraph about human betrayal, I would have read it and would have forgotten about it. But now if I read something like this, I understand that the emotional scars inflicted by betrayal and loneliness are extremely profound. They always stay with you and the pain caused by them cannot be calibrated or be understood by anyone who hasn't been through a similar experience. So I'm glad that I got this experience because now I understand a bit more than I used to.

I was someone who believed that as long as you are good to other people, they will be good to you. But this scar showed me that you should never keep giving to people who don't deserve it. Save yourself and give your energies to those who deserve it. To those who have proven themselves worthy of being your friend. Maintain your distance form everyone else. Maintain your distance form those who pretend to be your friend. The signs are always there. Learn to listen to your gut feeling when it comes to trusting people. It is a result of this that not only have I completely distanced myself from those shitheads, I have also redefined my friendships. There were people who I called my best friend that I have evaluated as people who make absolutely no effort to be a friend and there are those who pretend to care but don't so I decided to distance myself from them. I can now appreciate kindness and empathy in people in a way that I have never done before.

I have also learned that life has a way of balancing itself out. The despair you experience will get balanced out with the happiness you might feel one day (exhibit # 1: the shitty time I spent while I was doing my FSc vs. my life here at AKU). The previous summers were balanced out by me getting a chance to be friends with the most amazing, most kind, most considerate, most encouraging, most understanding, most selfless people in my batch. I love them with all my heart, but most importantly, I am extremely thankful for having them in my life. I learned that you can judge if you are with the right kind of people by the way your life feels to you. With my previous "friends",  I was always full of doubt, I was scared and depressed. But these friends are like a ray of the brightest most beautiful sunshine after a storm. They encourage me, they love me, they support me, they listen to me, they EMPATHIZE with me, they make me stronger but most importantly, they drive me to be a better person because they themselves are so good. They have been there in my recovery from depression and self doubt. I know, that one day, we might not be friends, but in this instant, I want to remember how much they have helped in changing me for the better and that of all the things I actively thank the universe for, these guys are one of them. And it's not only them. I got confidence to do things that I have always wanted to. I traveled across Pakistan and I went on adventure trips all alone, I stood for our student council and won and I did so many other things. Now when I think about it, I know that I needed that scar to be the person I am today.

That scar also made me experience depression first hand. I learned that depression doesn't mean just being sad. It means not caring. And that is worse because if you stop caring, you even stop caring about being happy and content so you just let go. Completely letting go is the most dangerous aspect of depression.

The scar made me fall so low that there was no way but up from there. I was okay with dying and it can't get worse then that. So when I decided to get up one more time, everything that had bothered me all my life, burst out. All the family problems, all the fears, all the insecurities, all the sour friendships EVERYTHING. And it was hard when they came out like that all of a sudden, but what kept me going was that now that they are out, I'll be able to deal with them. That's why, almost a year later, I can sit here and type that in this instant, I am completely content with life. I am thankful for all I have and I still fear the bad times, but I know they will be rivaled with good times. Life is a balance. I'll be okay. I'll have to work for the contentment I have today. It doesn't just come to you when you are sitting idly waiting for life to happen. You have to work to sort out your issues and you have to work to make it better for you.

So that's pretty much it. Feels like a lot for a two inch discolored skin on my knee but my scar tells my coming-of-age story. I struggled because of it but it also made me understand so much. That's why I love my battle scar.

Song: Jamie XX Gosh

She was awake. It took a moment for her to register that she was once again conscious of her surroundings but it was dark. She opened her eyes and felt the sudden intense transition from the comfort of darkness to the agony of a glare so strong that her eyes snapped shut again in rebellion; to protect her from the intensity of foreign brightness. This wouldn't do. She needed to be more visually conscious of her surroundings. She tried again.She opened her eyes but slowly this time. The gradual transition helped ease her eyes into visual focus. It was bright and extremely white. She looked around, It was too bright and too white to be true. She closed her eyes and opened them again, as if such an exercise would wake her from what she presumed to be a dream or a mistake her brain might have made in the process of growing accustomed to her consciousness. It was still the same, Extremely bright and extremely white. She grew more conscious of her body and she looked down. She could get up couldn't she? She tightened her muscles, preparing herself to get up and pushed herself. There was something restraining her because no matter how hard she tried, there was a force which kept her down. She was bound. Bound to what? She suddenly grew conscious of the coldness beneath her. It felt like she was lying on a table. She registered her situation. She was lying down on something cold and was bound to it. What is happening? Why is she bound? Why can't she get up? How did  she get here?

And then it hit her: Looking at the earth grow smaller and smaller. Sun above: it's glare so direct and potent. The mundane life in the spaceship in a realm so unknown to everyone. The red lights and loud sirens. The freefall. The deafening noise. The shadows.

And suddenly the shadow was upon her, It wasn't a shadow anymore. It was livid. She focused more. It had a foreign glow. It was upon her. It touched her. That steely and fiery touch. It looked at her. She looked back. And darkness.

A Lil Bit Of That Ol' Self Lovin

Just watched the entire first season of netflix original "Love"

LOVED the show. It portrayed relationships in what I felt was the most realistic way ever. Many times I felt like I could predict what was about to happen next because that's what usually happens in cliched love stories but it didn't happen that way. For example, that part where Mickey is unsure of their relationship and almost blows Gus off and goes to hang out with her friends, I expected Gus to show up at the same bar and have that awkward exchange where he sees her and walks out of the bar with disappointment in his eyes and Mickey runs after him and tells him to "Stop!" so he stops, turns around and out comes the word vomit of how he is sick of being treated like this etc etc. But it wasn't like that. Mickey hung out with her friends and Gus was at work. There was no drama, It was like it would have been in real life.

But the best part was how initially, it was good. They both were good and happy. And then the cracks start showing up when they go on their first date. How Gus invites Mickey over to hang out with his friends for their music party but she says "that's stupid". That was the crack. It showed it how it is and I loved it. Words matter.

Ugh I'm so glad I saw that show. That's how it is in real life man come on. It's not always care-y care-y love-y dove-y it's real. Real humans have varied interests and sometimes you aren't a complete dick to hurt someone, sometimes it's just some words and expressions. It was real and it was fun, I appreciated it a lot.

Didn't agree with the season finale though. I would have preferred if Mickey would have pushed Gus away and firmly stood by the fact that she needed to be alone to deal with her shit before she could get in a relationship. (Nod to Megan in So Many Partings).

I'm loving this idea man, This idea of being unsuitable to be in relationships unless you have yourself figured out because otherwise it's just disaster. The idea that it is okay to be single and complete yourself. I'm absolutely loving it.

Of Celtic Charms

I just finished reading Cathy Cash Spellman’s “So Many Partings”.

It is one of the most beautiful things I have read in quite a while. It spans almost three generations and uf. The tales of love, life and loss. They fill me up with this strange aged grief of how much a person goes through in one life time. You are born wanting love and then you’re fierce in your youth and then placid in late adulthood because life has done so much already.

This book, especially the ending, has this Celtic charm in it. Like some ancient magic whose secrets are whispered in the winds quietly and tumultuously to those who hear the wind in silence.  It makes me want to cry, but silently and with peace in my heart that life will go on as it wishes, with sorrow and happiness side by side. Makes me wonder, what will I go through in my life time? How many times will a piece of the rebellion against life be stripped away painfully, until only peaceful acceptance at the mundane high’s and low’s of life remain?

I loved it. I loved it all. When Diedre dies and a piece of Tom’s soul is stripped. When he is unable to be a parent to his kids in Diedre’s absence, and they become all that he was not. I especially loved this part because it made me question if Tom had been there for his kids like he was for his granddaughter, would they have turned out different? No doubt they would have. They would have grown up to be like him had he been there to show himself to them. It’s this guilt that stayed with Tom too. And then Megan. It was good to see how getting love, care and attention can make a child what Megan was (Would Tom’s own children would have turned out to be the same had they received the same love, care and concern? Maybe.).

I loved the part in the end where Megan decides that she needs to discover herself before she could love Jack. Absolutely loved it. It was a sign of a child raised in a healthy environment – self-assured, confident and she loved herself enough to want to know herself better. That bit was beautifully written, especially the part where she knows that until she knew herself, she would never be able to love Jack properly because she would have taken himself into her and she wouldn’t know her own worth, which is why she will be unhappy and will always fear Jack leaving her. So for the sake of loving someone completely, she decided to know herself completely. That was beautiful.

Another thing I noticed was this gradual trend of relationships from old to the modern era. Relationships were tad bit more romanticized in the stories of the previous generation. The modern love story, like that of Megan and Jack, was almost practical and focused on realization of self-worth before giving yourself to someone else; Tom and Billy’s relationship was focused on friendship, love which comes from having lived and experienced life together, understanding and being a source of comfort for each other; Mary and Thaddeus’s relationship focused on the willingness to sacrifice, compromise and growing to love each other eventually after having lived together. I liked these modern calmer portrayals of relationships as compared to the tumultuous passion derived relationships like that of Mary and Michael Hartington.

It’s been quite a while since I got absorbed into words. I’m glad I could feel the beauty of it again through this book.