Gold. Not Silver, Gold.
The seven of us sat in the corner booth feasting on fried chicken and sweet potato pizzas sharing stories, experiences, laughter, and sarcasm. Lots and lots of sarcasm. I love moments like these because they really are priceless. And then it got awkwardly silent, not because we were chowing down but because in that moment, it was like God was whispering to us to learn something deeper about one another. And ourselves. He didn’t want us just floating on the surfaces. He wanted us to dive deeper into the depths of the waters.
My new friend (let’s call him G) decided to speak up. G told us he liked to play this game he made up, which basically translated to “let me ask you a bunch of questions and you can all answer them.” We were all down for that. I like answering questions. I may not always know the answers, but I do strangely like questions.
His first question: If you ended up on an abandoned island and there was a box lying on the shore, what would you hope to find in the box? The answer must be the first thing that comes to mind.
“GOLD.”
I replied, “gold”. Not silver, gold.
Un-friend Zoning is a Real Thing.
Timing is everything.
All it took was one conversation. And life got really real, really fast.
It took me almost a decade to come around. And when I finally came around and was at peace and open to it all, he was gone. I didn’t expect him to wait for me—to wait for me to maybe change my mind, or get my shit together (whatever that really means because it’s all subjective), or figure out all the life things. Because I know myself and I am a late bloomer a lot of the times. I process slowly because I need to think things through in depth. And it takes me quite some time to get from square one to square two because I am constantly wrestling through the steps. Some people leap and fly, and they leap and fly quickly without second-guessing. I need a running start, then maybe I’ll hop, and skip, then jump.
I’ve spent the last couple of days sleep deprived with my heart completely wrecked, pouring out tears with enough questions to write a new Harry Potter series. I haven’t been given answers to any of my novels and it really is quite frustrating because all I am really trying to do is understand what life just served me on a platter.
Back to the Basics.
We sat nuzzled on a baby blue couch at one of my favorite local coffee shops with our coffee and honeybee lattes, and out came the words that have been plaguing many of my conversations for the last six months. I have been feeling strangely rebellious and reckless lately. Rebellious and reckless. Those “R” words that send chills up any parent’s spine, causing them to shudder. Those words which have nothing by adverse connotations. But for me, it hasn’t been negative. It has been growth. And I needed to step out of everything I’ve known for almost my entire life, in order to bring me back to the basics.
Lessons From Life On Tour.
I’ve always talked about wanting to go places.
I’ve always wanted to go to all types of different places near and far, meet all kinds of people, experience various cultures, and to live the type of life that produces stories and where explanations are demanded. Because going to a place unalike what you already know is enthralling and somehow breathes more life into you. It teaches you more about yourself and the people who surround you. And mostly, you come face to face with life’s greatest lessons, even though some prove to be more thrilling than others.
…
You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful.
She asked me to write on a blank sheet, one reason why I find myself to be beautiful.
One reason. Any reason. White canvas, pen in hand, I began to write:
I am beautiful because… (wait, what am I supposed to write?)
I am beautiful because… (there is nothing that comes to mind.)
(Let’s try this again. It shouldn’t be this much of a chore to come up with something.)
I am beautiful because… (still drawing a blank.)
There was something strangely difficult and extremely uncomfortable about inking that piece of paper with the line, “I am beautiful.” But for some peculiar reason, those three little words were pushing my buttons. Like, they had somehow said something erroneous and inappropriate, and I found it offensive. And, the longer we made eye contact, the more awkward it became and the eye rolling, more frequent. It’s not like it was a foreign language. The word, “beautiful” has been used in description numerous times before that it was hardly a stranger. And then it hit me. It hit me hard like a train wreck.
We Lose Things All The Time.
I probably lose my keys at least twice a day. I’m consistently asking myself where I’ve placed my mobile device. Every time I do laundry, there’s always that one sock that magically vanishes into the mystery of that sock-eating machine. And the other day, I misplaced my recipe book filled with recipes I’ve modified and collected over the course of years. It still hasn’t come crawling out of hiding. Imagine the disappointment.
Loss doesn’t always look like what we expect it to, and it always comes at the most inconvenient of times.
The Art of Learning to Love, Un-Love, and Forget.
It’s an art—learning to love, learning to un-love, and learning to forget.
It would take me three days to finish that letter. Three days. Because I would write a sentence, throw myself under the covers while I let the one line resonate in my head, and proceed to allow my internal organs to twist and pull until I needed to actually fetch for air. And after I finished pouring all my vulnerability onto all the tear-stained pages, I would procrastinate another hour with three-dozen read-overs before I could bring myself to sign, seal, and deliver it—the letter, the key, and three years and nine months worth of friendship and memories.
Lights Are Meant To Shine.
One morning, I woke up with this awareness: For some time, I had legitimately swayed myself to believe that everything about it was right and that was where I was destined to be. Perhaps for a little while, it rang true and I was to be deliberately present there. But I had long overstayed my visit because my heart was too afraid of the unknowns that would come next.
I probably wanted out more than I was willing to admit.
Because in retrospect, I always felt somewhat limited. Like, I had put myself on the back burner and there was something in me I was holding back. But once I actually made the decision to be invested and dove into it, there was nothing else I wanted to change. I stuck around because I was comfortable and I felt safe. So I just let it happen, which is probably why it played out the way that it did. I must have known subconsciously though, from the very beginning, that this whole thing was flammable. But I ignored it because there were no real red flags. The honest truth was that, at any given moment with any wrong moves, it could all potentially catch on fire and everything would go up in flames—Bright orange raging flares that would require all the hard emotions, self-awareness, and rediscovery in order to contain it, served with a side bucket of tears to put the blazes out.
You Can Be Someone Different.
No one ever hears the silent tears collecting. That’s really been why I haven’t put much effort in writing lately. I’ve been too busy wringing out tears from my bed sheets and pillowcases instead of keeping updated with my two-month old website where I secretly vowed to write something at least once every two weeks. Forgive me, I’m human. In between normal life tasks and work festivities, my time has been divided between trying to fill up my calendar in order to distract myself from overthinking the events that have been happening in my life and all the emotions that come along with them, whilst attempting to get myself together. And by “get myself together” I mean that I’ve been on this journey of finding myself; because the honest truth is that I had completely lost myself. I’ve heard thousands of stories and have watched hundreds of film about people endeavoring to find who they are and their purposes in this world. Up until now, I never sought those questions to be my nemesis. I’ve always felt like I’ve known my purpose, where I fit in, who I was and where my identity was grounded.
We Can Bite Into Our Donuts, Together.
We are such unsatisfied beings.
We are so hard to please, and we are always wanting more. We’re always reaching, always craving, always feeling that we don’t have enough. More. More. More. And then in the blink of an eye and more quickly than you could swallow, you’re completely stripped of everything that meant something. And there you are, bare and naked—without anything.
Breathing was a little harder that morning.
I silently lay there numbly, my eyes vacant. I was immobile. Remaining horizontal all day sounded like the most brilliant of ideas. It was so still I could hear the “drip… drip…” resonances of the bathroom faucet down the hall making its regular wake up call.
And then I broke the quiet. I rolled to my side and I told her, “all I want is a donut.”
Here’s the thing about me: I don’t really do donuts. Especially not as my first meal of the day. If anything, donuts qualify as a dessert more than a breakfast item. I ingest donuts roughly about twice a year and even then, I wouldn’t intentionally go out of my way to put one in my body. That is just the love-hate relationship I have always had with the delicious sugary glutinous crack. But that particular morning, all I wanted was a donut.
