In less than a month I'll be twenty one. I always thought that by twenty one I'd have my life under control. Someone once said how much they hated birthdays because after a certain age, each passing year was just a reminder of how little they had accomplished. I laughed at that idea. After all, I felt accomplished then, I felt that my life was in order. But, not so much anymore.

Perhaps though, I am not the failure I think I am. The failure that society has deemed me as. I am on a journey. I am feeling out the road. It is dark and someone has pulled the signs out. So it'll take a little longer. Maybe I shouldn't have to feel guilty about this year off. Maybe I should just breathe. Let it pass. But account for it. Maybe I should be whatever it is that I am capable of right now. And sometimes more, sometimes less. But, I need to stay happy. Because in the end it won't matter what they've said. All that will matter is what I think of the person I once was.

constantly the eyes of God watched over me

My first ice skating class was not the disaster I thought it would be. Starting something new is always intimidating, but now that I've put myself out there, it's not all that bad.

I bought a Norfolk Island pine, it's quite small. It's been pre-decorated but I will be adding to it. Also, I put up my Christmas lights and I love them dearly.

I've been drinking fresh lime water in my blue nalgene. I try to drink at least a liter and a half every day. 

I am currently watching the United States of Leland. 

I wish I could explain what I'm feeling. I can't quite put it in words. Perhaps, tomorrow when I have my Christmas lights in my room and I've accomplished something for the day, I'll better be able to write. Right now, I'm watching Half Nelson. I went to the movies today. I sat in a near empty theater and watched 50/50.

but i can't move the mountains for you

I signed up for a skating class for the next eight Saturdays.
I am going to learn photography.
I continue to teach myself Hindi and French.
I will be an ice hockey player by the end of 2012.

I will flourish.

the twenty fifth.

This morning, I made myself buttered toast and warm cocoa. I sat at a clean counter and read a National Geographic article on Mongolia. I went to mon cours d'histoire and learnt about Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War. I am determined, by the end of this year, to be somewhat fluent in French. 

Also, I went to the movies today  - something I haven't done in months - and saw the Ides of March and the previews for J. Edgar and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I desperately want a nose ring and feel I am not complete without one. 

Someone once told me that I wouldn't make it as a journalist. I am determined to prove them wrong. 

an update

Today, I made a friend. I nibbled on a berry coffee cake, with the sun shining outside and laid out everything I've been battling for the past year, to a stranger. But nothing has felt more right.

Today, I type at my wooden table, which I love dearly; I'm listening to 'after the storm' by mumford and sons. I am sad on the inside but somehow feeling something is better than living numbly. Somehow I feel like I will get past this.

I have a pile of National Geographic magazines (1970s -1990s) on my table. I have 'the road to dallas' on my nightstand. I have a Tintin painting that needs attending to. I will find myself.

i want to say, ‘my love, keep your chin up’ because she doesn’t yet know that the waves will crash on her bare back, that they’ll drag her to the depths, that her lungs will fill with water, that she’ll be swallowed up by the ocean. 

i want to say ‘little child, you are loved more than you know, if not by people, then by spirits of the earth, by the wind, the trees.’ i want to tell her to preserve her worth, to treasure herself because she is the sun, she is everything.

i want her to know that the ocean will spit her out but perhaps not until its stripped her of all but shreds of her soul. but i need her to know that she will recover; that she will regain herself; that the light in the tunnel is not a train, barreling toward her to crush what remains, but rather the faint rays of a sun that is awaiting her arrival. 

i want to say ‘my child, wrap your arms around yourself, keep close to who you were; it will all pass’

i want to wrap my arms around her. tell her i love her. remind her that she has a future. she has not been forgotten. 

i am ‘her’. i have recovered. not been forgotten. i have a future.

I never understood why they couldn't see the way I did. I dreamed of living in a tiny rented room in the Himalaya, even if it came with a leaking ceiling and a broken cot. Redemption, I believed, would be in a view of snow-covered mountain peaks, in the steaming hot cup of chai every morning, in the vibrancy of colors and people; redemption would be in the life that resounded throughout this place.
I had never been there but my imagination knew no bounds.
I wanted to be a tortured writer, I wanted to write desperately, I wanted my mind to run free, unbounded. Desperation, I knew, would produce works greater that I deemed possible from myself.

                                ..............................................................................................

I'm sitting at a table. The wind is ferocious and it rattles the windows and the paper thin walls. I wrap my shawl tighter around my shoulders and put on a second pair of socks. The candle light serves better purpose casting eerie shadows in the tiny room than providing light. Nevertheless it will suffice. I let my mind wander, slip a pen into my hand and watch as words and stories are brought to life. I write and smudge words and cross out others but by the end of it, I am satisfied.
I blow out the candle and climb into bed. The mattress is thin and the frame is sagging in the middle but it will do.
It has been a long day and I fall asleep under the cover of three blankets. Tomorrow is a new day and there is a bazaar to be visited and a road to be run.