I have been unfair to my blog and have loads to fill in. My life is about to take a whole 180° flip! I shall start by picking up a few months before where I last left, i.e. April 7, 2009 (I'll skip the April 19 post cause it was more of a nostalgic/emotional outburst!). Stay with me as its been (my life) no less than a roller coaster! This shall be a series of posts since I don't want the best two years of my life to be summarized in a 1000 words!
I came to USC in Fall'08 and 4months into my masters, I was doing terribly at school. Fortunately, even though I landed up with 2B's and a C+, I was not ready to give up yet. I was subconsciously afraid that masters was the wrong choice for me.
Try as I may, there are some things that I just can not change. These things over shadow all the rest of my efforts and I am back to square one at the end of the long day.
I used to be very emotional. In the sense that I always needed someone for sharing my joy, happiness, anger, troubles, problems anything.. I was not emotionally strong enough. I feel I have come a long way. I feel proud to say that there is not one person anymore whom I'm dependent on. Without whom I would feel handicapped. No sir, and that is an achievement for me. It was about time I learnt this.
I was weak and in capable of looking after myself. I am now more independent than most people my age, living by myself all alone in this alien country fending for myself doing everything for myself. I needed to learn this as it was about time I left the nest of my parents and learnt to handle the big-bad-world head on.
I used to let anybody wreck my life into pieces, being so sensitive. I was told that "making me happy is nobody's obligation". I feel proud to say that no one, absolutely no one can take the smile off my face anymore. My heart is now like a brick wall that is quite difficult to penetrate.
Having said all this, there are many things that I can still not control. Try as I may, I just can not.. These weaknesses haunt me like a ghost. Bringing back skeletons from the past slapping me whack on my face and making me feel like a loser.
Is it alright for me, not to apply the above rules for ONE person in my life? Or am I being foolish in doing so? Is this where the key to my ultimate isolation n happiness lies?
I wonder...
I'm hurting...
I know it for a fact now that even on a happy day I can’t sleep without having spoken to Anant before hitting the bed! Precisely that happened today when today I waited for him to call me before sleeping till about 1:30 in the morning (my usual time of sleeping) and I realized that he’d dozed off cause he couldn’t get through my number.
My friends move on after I leave? They get closer to each other cause they'll be around each other and when I finally do meet them after a year or something, I'm like a stranger to them?
- Anant can see no good reason to wait for the year till he joins me or god forbid he doesn't join me at all? Then we'll be away for like five years cause I gotta work there after I graduate?
- My parents forget the feel of me and get more attached to my brother and his wife (they get married in Nov)?
- My dog ages too fast in these two years? Doesn't feel attached to me anymore when I get back? I feel like I'm betraying him by leaving him during the most significant years of his life. Dogs tend to age very fast during this age. He's nine years old, his father had died when he was 12! :(
- My room is all re-arranged when I get back and I'll be put in the guest room for the little time that I do come home during vacations?
- I am not cut out for the program that I'm going for? What if I think I love the course but actually I totally suck at it? I end up being a complete loser?
- I get freaked out once I get there?
- I finally do live the life I've been craving for only to know I don't like it so much? And, now there's nothing I can do about it cause, there's no looking back!
- Like everyone keeping telling me, I do like it better there and I'm too blind to see what all I'd left behind for it?
- My room mates hate me?
- I don't make good friends there and I end up being very lonely?
Oh! Sometimes I wish I'd just chuck the whole MS business and stay home look after my parents and work here...! b/w I just got my VISA! yey! :) I've been getting the weirdest of nightmares, where all the worst fears of my innermost soul are displayed ruthlessly!! :( :(
What if? What if? What if? ! !
I learnt not to put out someone's number on a for-sale site (even if it is a university site!) without asking. Whether I might have taken permission to put it out on my Job CV a week back. Else, I might blow up a decent relationship with my to-be-room mates!
I also learnt not to put good news on my blog until it gets finalized till the last stitch!
Well, Anant's not coming to US with me this year. He got his admit deferred for next fall. Which is a good decision but all the same quite hard to accept. I shouldn't be cribbing about this here cause I know it must be harder for him. But I was simply devastated. For several reasons. Primarily cause I felt he'd worked really hard for this for over two years and he deserved to go more than anyone else I knew. I was angry at the decision he had to take pertaining to the circumstances.
It was weird how it took him to council me about him not going! I felt quite ashamed of myself but as I think about it, I felt that way cause I consider his case as my own.
Now, I get fits of nervousness thinking about being all alone in a strange country without him for a whole year! I guess god needs to make sure before letting us be together!
I've started buying stuff for my new home (although I'm not sure whether I'll be shifting in with the same two people!). A bit scared about the whole thing. I hope I do well. Cause I can not do with simply doing OK. I have to do well. So, hope I'm good enough for it!
My body has developed its own immunity against soporific drugs. I have not been sleeping well lately and last night I just could not bear it so I took pills at about quarter to nine in the night. I was elated when I felt drowsy by about half past nine. So, I happily packed off to bed! Now the immunity I've developed cant stop me from feeling drowsy but it sends a weird sensation across my arms and limbs which makes it practically impossible for me to fall asleep. Its like an allergic reaction or something.
I fell into this weird state where I knew I was awake but kept getting nightmares, which incidentally felt very real! I just kept twirling in bed till about one when I finally sat up and massaged my legs cause they were aching in a funny way! I spent the next three and a half hours trying to get back to sleep cause now the effect of the drug had worn out so, I stopped getting that icky feeling in my arms and limbs. I just kept twirling in bed, clutching my pillow, covering myself with my sheet and then uncovering myself , turned over, lay on my back, on my left side, then right side, on my stomach, covered my face with my pillow, held onto my teddy bear. BUT NO SLEEP. At about four thirty, I heard my father walking around in the house, he goes for playing golf in the morning. He came and sat next to me as I pretended to sleep and then he kissed my forehead. I had to garner all the strength in my soul to stop myself from crying and to continue pretending to sleep.
Now I sit here writing as I can hear birds chirping and the dawn breaking outside my window.
I hate not being able to sleep. :(
I've been getting a strong urge to go out there and live alone, for quite sometime now. Face the big bad world myself, away from my family and friends; away from their love and protection. At least not until I'm completely self reliant, not until I've seen it all out there, not until my heart gives the signal.
Its strange how I keep planning for this crazy dream of mine. How when I'm happy, I start wondering how I'd react if I were alone. How, when I'm sad, I wonder how I'll handle myself. I crave to wake up alone, cook for myself and do all my chores just for myself. Get back home to again plan the next day, that should of course revolve around me. The more I think about it, I just know I have to do this at least once. Live alone for a few years or I'd regret not having done it when I'm elder. I admit I'm a bit sad right now, but it has nothing to do with what I'm writing. If anything, I'm just very expressive which is good, since I've been trying to write for quite a few days but haven't completed a single entry. Those who've been following(my blog) may know how I cant write unless I feel very strongly about something.
I tried explaining this to my mother by citing the example of a bird. Even she HAS to leave her nest and go out into the real world. It scared her a little. She dint react until she made sure I was serious about what I said. I'm not so sure she still understands but this is precisely what I want a break from. I want to live for me. I did not tell her that it is this dream of mine that keeps me going at the moment. I know it is not going to be a bed of roses, it is in fact going to be the very opposite. But, I also know that after I've done this, my perspective of looking at any situation will be very different. I would finally start worrying about things that really matter rather than wasting my mind/energy/peace over tiny issues.
I would be able to say "I lived life".
I am now officially a worthless-internet-whiler. I compulsively log into the net everyday at around 8pm start off with checking my mail, orkut, blog, other mail, Anant's mail(he's out of town) and then, well, I re-check my mail! God-forbid I might have missed a mail that got transferred to the spam! I then try and do something worthwhile by reading interesting articles on the net. I have realized that I am very-bad at finding interesting stuff to read and unless someone directs me towards something eye-catching, I am well, still whiling away time!
I could easily blame it on many things!
1) I am anxiously waiting for universities to reply to my applications. They have been with them for over a month for Christ's sake. 2) I have too much free time on my hands! too much I say. Apart from having a four-day-week(three out of which are three-hour-days!), I have not yet started my project which should occupy most of my time once I do.
Each free-day, I decide to pay a visit to the nearby orphanage so I can talk to the authorities about giving free tuitions to the children, I end up not going. I just don't understand it, its definitely not cause I'm lazy.NO. I got up early, got dressed and even readied my CV just in case they might want to see. I am just apprehensive cause once I go there, I'd be responsible for the education of children who do not deserve to be taken for granted any more. I am afraid I might disappoint them once my project starts. Yet, I cant seem to rest. I really want to meet them, spend time with them and teach them. Well, having said that, I have decided that I shall go there at 10am come-what-may.
So where was I? Yes, I've been wasting away too much time doing nothing on the internet. Like I already said, I am bad at finding quality stuff to read (I have actually googled "current affairs" , "whats new" & "consumer electronics"!), I asked a friend for interesting links. She directed me to a very unconventional photo-blog. I have never been more gripped by someones posts as this and read three years of her hard work glued to the PC in two straight hours! Only once before have I done this with a blog which (I shall resort to Sandi's jargon) belonged to SHE-WHO-SHALL-NOT-BE-NAMED (at least not on my blog!). I found Kay's work phenomenal! I'm pasting the comment I left on her blog after reading over 250 posts and being totally over whelmed by them! I was whiling away my time viewing worthless sites when at the brim of boredom, a friend gave me the link to your blog.I have spent the past two hours reading each and every post in your blog and was tempted to comment at many junctures but the anxiety of reading the next post over-powered the temptation.I have never seen a better photo blog and loved your concept of three photographs, also I love the analogies you give them. They were hilarious at times and on others were very thought provoking. I have never met a more passionate Pakistani or such a positive person as you. Not one post culminated negatively. I loved the way you've talked about your lovely family!
Cheers!
May this blog go on for ever!
PS:may I put you on my blog roll?
Somehow New Year's Eve holds a very special place in my heart. I like spending it with my family and with Anant. As luck should have it we've never been together on this night ever since our first year together.i.e Welcome 2004.
2005: His sister wanted to be in town(Delhi, where we all live) so he opted to stay back in Indore(where his college is) to get both of them registered for their New Semester in College.
2006: We were both in town but since it would've been the last year that they(his family) spent with his sister (since she was going for her Grad abroad and then would probably be married), it was up to her to decide where she wanted to celebrate. Somehow it was only on the 31st that she decided where to go. By then my parents had made other plans, so we couldn't make it together.
2007: He was in town till the 16th, but left for college. He spent New Years with his friends with me on the phone all grumpy about not having him with me!
2008: He's out at Goa partying with his friends and I've pledged not to be grumpy again. Though I feel awful for not having him here with me. Almost in tears..Well, I'll be a good girl and not ruin things for him at least..
So, here's wishing all of you a fabulous year ahead...! Hope it rocks and all your worries from the past vanish with the clock striking twelve tonight! :)
Cheers!!
