Thoughts on months into 23.

The older I get, the more past there is to dig into and drown in. I try to tell myself to not be so nostalgic but the current is too strong and I slip into the quicksand of childhood memories.

If my life was a Hollywood movie, this would be the point  where I would finally get 'closure'. I would sink deep into the quicksand, wrestle with the turbulent undergrowth and then a few days later, I'd fly out of it a new woman. The final scene of the movie would be me with an arm outstretched like superman, reaching into my 'bright' and 'hopeful' future. The sun is shining and there's a happy song playing in the background, ready for the credits to roll and for the viewers to leave the cinema in a state of awe. The women are bawling as their boyfriends and husbands hand over tissues after tissue. "That was amazing, s-s-she was so a-a-ama-zing," they blubber as they leave.

But my life is not a typical Hollywood movie. I don't have closure. I am not sunk in the quicksand of nostalgia and childhood memories. Instead, I bob up and down like a fish. There are some moments where I feel like I am drowning and there are other moments where I am floating above the sand, confident that I will be that stereotypical romantic heroine.

I'm not entirely sure this analogy has been useful but I think it conveys this sense of limbo that I feel like I am in. I find it too difficult to shut off the past and to move on. What does 'moving on' even mean? How do I forget what has happened and learn to live my life because years have passed and there are things which I feel I should understand by now and I don't. I've noticed that over the last few years, as I have moved into the world of the 'adult' (that strange, alien state of being), that my mind has entered this place of extreme anxiety. All of a sudden, I feel like there is this tension between my true self, the child, and the self that grows up into a fully fledged person. I am too scared to cross that threshold and so I sabotage anything which would take me there. I know that I can still be me and be an adult at the same time but I think that my mind has made a mental note to not even attempt to consider my life as an adult. I work 9-5 and have a 'proper' job but besides that, I don't have any sense of responsibility. I am too comfortable by myself. I don't know if my mind will change this or not. Part of me thinks, f*** it. My mind can take its time. But another part of me thinks, what if my mind realises the truth too late.

In the indie (pretentious) movie of my life which stars someone beautiful and intense like Michelle Williams, I learn how to swim. The protagonist realises that she will not ever live solely above or below the quicksand. She accepts that the quicksand is a permanent fixture in her life but she does not accept that it is unbeatable; so she learns to swim. And at the end of the film, that's the last scene.

She is swimming.

She doesn't know whether she is swimming to something good or bad but she powers through anyway. And there is no music playing in the credits. There is just the sound of the water as she cuts through it with her strong strokes. Forward, breathe, forward, breather, forward breathe. The water, fluid and powerful, is the last sound we hear before the film cuts to black and the credits finally roll.

I like this version better. 

Elastic band

Stretched to the limit

My body begs me to breathe,

and my mind screams.

I should let myself be malleable,

be open to contracting.

But I am terrified of being inside myself.

I teach myself to never 

trespass beyond the limit.

I stay in the throes of tension.

Pinging constantly.

Pain

Ping

Pain

Ping

Pain

Ping

Within this limit 

I am highly strung but I am 

intact.

I think if I saw you again I would snap in two.

The birthday blogpost.

23.

I'm not one for swearing but SHIT SHIT SHIT.

I am in the throes of adulthood.

I am well and truly in the hubbub of the roller coaster, swinging in the air, arms flailing wildly and I can't even remember getting on.

What's stranger is that I still feel like a child. I have a proper, adult full-time job. I am a teacher to children. And as another day passes I grow more accustomed to the fact that I am the adult in the classroom. I am no longer a student myself. As each day passes I become privy to conversations that would have happened in my absence, conversations which I now run from.

There is something solid and sturdy in the number 23. Up to being 21 you're definitely a student. You can carry off the "I'm a student I don't know anything really" demeanour. At 22, you're answering questions about what you're "going to do for the rest of your life". But 23 is something else. You have entered the world of work. You have entered the future. And there's no going back.

It's pathetic but I woke up to an email from Subway saying I get my free subway cookie. That will be the highlight of my day for sure. I am already planning to get it on my way to school next week so that I can have it with my lunch. (I just have to get over the embarrassing hurdle of actually asking for it and showing the QR code on my phone)

#adultingforthewin

Ctrl-Shift-N

After years of wondering,

I found you in the secrecy

of the incognito tab.

Your twitter feed 

offers only distant echoes of you-

I can't conjure you up from

140 characters.

Believe me, I have tried.

It only hides the sound of a voice
which I can't remember.

16

You said "sorry"

as if I would be able to rebuild myself with a 

word.

7 years later and still when you apologise for something 

I remember.

I am all at once a trembling mess.

All at once remembering the many things that I 

never said.

And I never will.

You will never know the fear of hearing ghosts

screaming like banshees

only to discover it is your father

hunched over

wailing.

How do I tell you that I prayed for you every night?

That I worried every night?

That sleep was the balm that let me forget you.

That every waking minute I lived in fear of the pain

that you caused me.

And how do I tell you these things
now?

After all this time, how do I tell you that time or 

one word 

is not enough

to rebuild someone you 

ripped apart.

I know you didn't mean to.

If you did, it wouldn't hurt this much.

First week of teaching

Well, I survived my first official week of teaching. I say survived but I had a mini breakdown last night.

I don't know if that's related to being back at school, being triggered by a memory or merely because I was due to start my period. Incidentally, I have started my period...

In truth, I think it was a combo of all three.

I always keep things locked up but being back at school doesn't really leave time enough for me to cry. I'm not someone who can cry openly in front of people. If that happens, it means I have been caught off-guard. Last night I felt crap and started crying. But once I started I couldn't stop. It was one of those moments where everything raced through my mind. I started to remember stupid things which don't matter but for some reason in that moment they meant the world. I don't understand how people voice their "stuff"* out loud.

In my self-diagnosis (not telling people your "stuff", it becomes inevitable for you to become your own therapist; not necessarily how therapy should work I don't think) I have realised that my inability to tell people things means that I grow impatient with people who can, which is wrong. I have become so independent in taking care of myself in specific ways that when I see other people complain of their "stuff" I am uncomfortable about it. The truth is that I am the problem.

You should be able to unleash your "stuff" with the people you love. Otherwise what are they for. I think that I am a coward for not doing this. And yet knowing that I am coward is not enough for me to even admit on this blog what "stuff" is happening at the moment.

Yesterday, I watched "Take this waltz" and one of the characters said:

"I remember when my niece, Toni, was a newborn, I'd babysit her and sometimes she'd cry, like babies do. Nine times out of ten I could solve the problem, I could figure it out, but...sometimes when I'm walking along the street and a shaft of sunlight falls in a certain way across the pavement and I just want to cry. And a second later, it's over. And I decide, because I'm an adult, to not succumb to the momentary melancholy and I had that sometimes with Toni. She just had a moment like that. A moment of not knowing how, or why, and she just let herself go into it. And there was nothing anyone could do to make it any better -- it was just her, and the fact of being alive, colliding."

I feel the same way. I will be on the train or I'll be walking and I'll see something in the window and I will feel like I just need to cry. Today I was walking somewhere and a few leaves feel from the tree I had just walked under. Isn't that just so utterly and intrinsically poetic. There is something so beautiful about trees shedding their leaves. And they float so gently to the ground. Maybe that's just me being soppy. Or maybe it's the shedding. Maybe that's what I envy the most. (self-diagnosing again?)

Until next time,

T

x



*"stuff" being a reference to everything that plagues our mind/heart

The Seagram Murals. Part 2

Today I visited the Tate Modern for the first time since last summer.

Last summer was hard. I remember feeling so bad that I would look forward to each evening when I would finally be able to unleash the tears that I had been with holding from myself. One day, I remembered the murals and from that point it was not just a casual desire to see them sometime- it was a must.

I just had to see the murals. I wrote about it here on my blog (if I was a good blogger I'd link it here now but alas).

Never in my life have I experienced a sudden need to do something like that -- visit a place for no apparent reason (well, I realised the reason later).

When I entered that room with all the murals facing me I remember being overwhelmed with emotion and I lost the battle to my tears. They escaped as desperately as I had been fighting them back. Quickly.

Today I went to see them again but it was a different scenario. I had planned to go alone but my brother ended up tagging along. And I wasn't in as much pain when I walked into the room. The room was busy (more so than last year) and there were people taking pictures. I still felt that sense of being swept up in an abyss of colour and emotion but there was a distance that I felt from my previous summer's experience of the murals. I felt like I could look at my past self objectively from a place where things were different. I wasn't looking into the murals searching for a way out of my pain; I was looking at them having accepted the pain. My thoughts were less foggy.

That isn't to say that I don't feel similar pain and anxiety to last year. I suppose the difference is that a lot of what I was dreading last summer, I faced. Now, although I am facing more challenges ahead, I think subconsciously I know that I have sort of 'been there, done that'- written the blog post, if you will.

It's strange. I'm not sure that I will ever in my life experience that intensity so acutely when seeing the murals. I cannot tell if that is a good or bad thing but it's amazing how timing works. For the moments in which I experienced the murals, they were everything. They were the visual manifestation of everything that I had locked up inside. Everything that I wasn't saying verbally to anyone, confronted me in this abstract art form. It was liberating, poignant and for the first time in a long time it felt like I was being honest with myself (which of course is a lie; if looking at a beautiful piece of art work is how you justify not sharing your issues with someone, then you are most certainly in denial and lying to yourself. But that's another blog post).

The (not so) generic update blog.

For my future self:

You've changed since this time last year; to be more precise, you haven't changed much at all. It's a strange phenomenon and I'm not quite sure it's a solely "millenial" experience but in the blog/vlog/media sphere it is almost a given that when you see the word UPDATE anywhere you will watch/read about/ listen to the following:

• someone telling you that things have been tough lately
• they are on the mend
• everything will be fine.

When I was younger, it was an insult to be told that you had changed. It was honestly the worst thing you could be called. I remember how I would physically recoil from the accusation that I had changed. It was a visceral and physical reaction to a word which was a plague; the mere mention of it had me thinking I was tainted with a disease. I imagine that this is to do with the naiive way in which you think that things stay the same forever. There is a lot of complexity you could unpack from that but for me in this moment, the reason that I'm remembering that is because as I'm growing older, there are changes that are happening and I can sense that somethings are shifting in my universe. But at the same time, things are stagnant. Really stagnant. 

This time last year, I was really sad. Deeply and profoundly sad. I won't forget that moment I had where I just needed to see the 'Seagram Murals' at the Tate. I have no idea why but they just seemed, at the time, like something I had to see. I will go back there before I start school again, to see if they evoke something else.

Reflecting back on last year, I was hurt. I was lonely. I still am those things but I have a bit more certainty than I did last year. Also, I feel like I cried so much last summer and this past year in general that my body has almost given all of it up. I feel the same things but just not as acutely. What worries me though about my future, is that my fear about pursuing the things that I want will get in the way of me actually achieving them. Getting older, there is an inevitability that follows you. Multiple 'inevitabilities' if you will. Death. Ageing. And they're the minor ones. 

I can't express entirely what I mean but it's this feeling that there are certain questions that I need to ask myself about how I want to move forward in my life (what a horrible cliche). However, these questions are questions whose answers I have maintained for years. Surely my answers should be changing. Or I should at least be more open to changing them? Instead, even when my hopes are pointing in a particular direction, my answers are stagnant. Again, it's this desire to give in to my fear rather than overcome it.

Eurgghhhhh. I have spontaneously word vomited here but anyway, to end my (not so) generic update blog-

• 
  
• things have been tough this past year
• they are not entirely on the mend
• things will probably be ok but I have a feeling there is more suckiness to come.

x

T

I see you

in the reflection of the bus window
as I'm standing at a crossing

in the elevator of Russel Square Station
on the steel panel I am a
dancing shadow

opposite me
curving into the tunnel of
the tube
as I am blustering in the humidity
of a packed out train

You are always a surprise to me
I
forget
how much
we are alike

We are hurtling through the underground
and your face blurs into
film posters and faces of the
other people on the train.

Hip students with headphones and backpacks
Old couples with 'visiting the museum today' comfy shoes
Men in suits with laptops and ominous looking folders.

You pop back every so often in the glass.

Peeking at me.

Shadows and reflections reminding me that we are
in fact
one
person.


It is always unsettling
your resemblance is always uncanny

and I am always waiting for the realisation that
you and I belong

The man opposite stands up to exit the train and
I face you.
Alone.

We are both
Alone.

I am not quite sure how to approach you.

Instead, I take out my phone and I write you and me
a poem.

Hoping that maybe here
in this space

We come to be

us

Adrift

As you get older, your world becomes bigger.
I remember when I was younger I felt things with urgency. I never acted out because of this but when I felt something I was adamant in my feeling of it. When I was hurt, I felt it with every fibre of my being.

I am still like this now but I am able to make sense of things in a different way.

Your world is too small when you're young. There are so many lessons to learn and so many things to experience. And one of the hardest lessons is that people leave. People move on. It is inevitable.

If I look back to being in primary, I think that's one of the biggest lessons I learned without realising. That was the first time I was uprooted. I mean sure we moved houses when we young but it was nothing like realising that I wouldn't really see my primary friends again. I loved primary. I had an amazing time there. Whenever I think back to it I always think about how that was where I was happiest.

I'm thinking about this because I've just been scrolling through the twitter feeds of old friends. There are people who I haven't spoken to for 10 years. I haven't physically seen or spoken to them in 10 years. 10 years. These were people who I cared about deeply and now they have all moved on in their lives and I don't know who they are anymore. They are strangers. It makes me sad because I'm sitting here thinking about them and I wonder if they think of me?

Are we all just destined to make our friends only to move on from them?

I'm at a point in my life now where I have my uni friends, school friends and friends from various groups I belong to. But it is hard to keep track of everyone. And I don't have a person. I don't have that one person who is my closest, bestest bestest friend. I think this is what makes it worse. It makes me focus on everyone I'm not in contact with anymore.


So to all my primary friends, you guys were the best. I hope you are all swell and in great places. I send you love and warm wishes.

Love,

T

x

Last day of teaching...

So it was my final day today. I had P1 with year 10s and it wasn't terrible. They gave me a bunch of flowers at the end and a card which they had all signed. It was really sweet. My year 8s all told me sweet things before I left which was also nice. It was a good day.

I felt sick though throughout the day. It is always after the chaos that it hits. I feel like an avalanche of emotions is going to pummel me this summer.

In our group chat, someone said that we shouldn't underestimate what an amazing achievement this is and because I need to aim to be more kind to myself, I am trying to internalise this. I have achieved something great. In 9 months I have become a 'teacher' (although I don't actually get QTS for a month or two I think). Teaching is not for the faint-hearted. It is not a way out or an answer. It is hard work and you make the decision every day to carry on doing it. There are days when you can and days when you can't, days when you're numb and days when you're in between.

I have made it through. And that is no mean feat. Last September, I couldn't see me standing there at the front of a class and now I'm at the other side.

Hi-5 T!

You did it.

This is why we teach

I had my last lesson with my year 7s today. It was P6, after lunch. A lot of the girls were quite early and one of them walked in with her arms outstretched saying, "Misssssss". I stood there and I remember panicking, thinking "is she, oh crap, yeah, she's going to hug me". I stood there with my arms pinned to the side feeling incredibly awkward but also so moved and touched. A few of the other pupils hugged me too. As someone who doesn't instinctively hug, it really highlighted for me why I teach. It was a lovely moment. I know that they will forget me soon enough and I know that they'll move on, but in that moment where they realised that it was my last time teaching them, they were sincere in their sadness.

I have had a lot of tough lessons that I forget my good classes. I want to remember this. When times get hard T, remember that they're just kids. They are only ever kids.

They are complicated, troubled and messy but then so are you.

Today wasn't too bad.

What role are you playing?

I was thinking yesterday about roles and how we are all playing one or another.

It began because over this past year, I have developed the firm belief that becoming a teacher is acting out a particular persona. It is yet another role on the earthly stage of life. I have spoken before on my blog about how teaching = acting. But yesterday I realised that we are all playing different roles.

As a teacher, when I step in front of the pupils, they see me as a teacher. They see me as a dispenser of knowledge, a member of the school staff. They don't see me as a human being. Not straight away. My uncle is a doctor and it occurred to me that where I see him as a human, a family member, his patients see him as the person who is going to get them medically. If we saw people who we come across in our daily routines, as humans and not as the role that they are playing, then the world would stop. We'd accept that our food arrived late to our table because the chef was having a bad day. We wouldn't hate politicians as much because they are imperfect like us. We would not mind if that store does not have our size because the salesperson is having a hard time right now and can't afford to buy clothes. We would pay more for services because we would truly realise that the person who is providing the service needs to survive like we do. We would be empathetic and it would make us more understanding but I wonder, would things get done. Would we become too complacent? Does the pressure of fulfilling our roles just mean that we are collectively playing our part? Is this how we survive?

Part of me is realising that it is through these roles that we are productive. If pupils saw me as their equal, someone who was in pain like they are, they might find it harder to respect me as their teacher. It may seem narrow-minded but I think that throughout this year I have been trying to figure out a new persona for myself that is different from my usual 'nice' one. I can't be 'nice', 'understanding' and empathetic' all the time. Sometimes, I need to demand respect- or I will be forever trying to get kids to give in h/w and they will forever be giving me excuses. Empathy needs to come with expectation. I am not just me anymore. I am me the person and me the teacher.

As I write this, I realise how it is restrictive and draining. What if you don't like the role that you are playing? What if the role stops people from seeing who you are? Maybe kids need to see their teacher as human in order to respect them. It's a difficult question.

I have no answer for this- just pondering...

I'm not bitter- but I probably sound it.

Over the last few years, a significant number of my friends from secondary have married. It's confusing for a number of reasons.

Firstly- what on earth ?????????????????????????????????????

I am 22 right now. 22.

22.

I can't even contemplate being a full-time teacher and my classmates are making concrete life choices. One friend got married at around 17/18 and already has a kid. How do you get there?

How does a person get there? 

It becomes more complicated when I think about the people they were when we were 16. There was pain and angst- so much angst. 

We were so young. 

These girls are married now, settled, but just a few years ago they were confused and I was the one who had it together. I'm not saying that I don't have it together right now or that I begrudge them their happiness, but I would never have predicted that they would be married and having families now. Some of them never went to uni. They didn't follow a 'path' or have any direction for their lives and now they are starting one of the biggest journeys that could be embarked upon. 

Everytime that I get a message from someone now about an engagement, I am so pleased and genuinely overjoyed for them, but at the same time it terrifies me. I'm not bitter. I know I sound it, but I am not jealous. 

I am happy with the choices I have made this far. It just makes me think about how much we really cannot predict the future. I have absolutely no idea about how my life is going to pan out. There's this moment in Gilmore Girls where Rory is worrying about getting into college or getting a job (I can't remember which) and Lorelai tells her that she's had it easy so far, everything that she has wanted or gone for, she has gotten. That moment is so real for me. It made me think that I had always done well in school. Alhamdulillah! I know I worked hard but it is a terrifying thought to really come face to face with your own fallibility. It's the truth. And that is hard to internalise. For me, I think there is a part of me which thinks, I have pursued academia, and everything that I could have expected to get, I achieved- is this it now?

I imagine sometimes that I might bump into an old teacher and they'll ask what I'm up to. They'll probably be happy for me, excited but mostly, they will think I always knew that she'd be the one to become a teacher. I can't imagine me surprising anyone. But there will be the inevitable question- what is everyone else up to? And I know that this would be the point where I might say, so and so is married, so and so is engaged, so and so has a kid... Then comes the open mouthed what! wow MashaAllah.

What about you? When are you getting married?


(sigh)


It is hard to grow up when your head isn't moving at the same pace as time and biology.

It is worse when everyone else is growing up and maturing in a way other than getting their grades.

It's not enough anymore to be the 'good kid'.

It's not enough to be the 'one who was prefect and head girl'.

It's another ballpark altogether now-

and I am resisting but I can feel it starting to chafe. I know that a time is going to come when the new version of 'growing up' will be demanded of me and I am not ready. I don't know if I ever will be.

Gosh it sucks.

A year ago...

This time a year ago, things were tough. I had submitted my essays on May 1st and what followed was doubt, disbelief and pain. I remember that the theory of affect and the line 'things fall apart' kept running through my head like a song; I thought about them constantly. 

There was this emptiness. Just so much emptiness. 

I know that I was privileged compared to other graduates; I had a destination. I knew where I was going. But I kept thinking about everything that could go wrong. I spent a lot of time wallowing and I didn't tell anyone. To this day, I don't think I have ever told anyone how truly painful those few months were from May-September. It is only third year. It isn't the be all and end all of life but it feels like it. It feels like the world is splitting apart and you are right at the heart of it. Knowing that I was going to start my PGCE course was hard because there was an immense build up in my head. I was absolutely terrified. Just so completely and utterly terrified.

Sitting here, a year later, I feel the same. Slightly different, but the same. If I am kind to myself, if I could find a way to be a cheerleader for myself, I would say that I a proud. I am almost at the end of my second placement. 25th May and I am done. I have my assignment but other than that my last lesson will be Wednesday P3. I cannot wait. 

I have managed to get through the year and even though I am still anxious and worried, I have come so far and I need to cheerlead for myself because no one else is going to do it for me. 

That's what sucks. I hate that I do myself the injustice of not telling anyone how I feel. I bottle it up and instead of releasing the hurt, I contain it until late at night when no one will be able to see or hear my stifled sobbing. It's pathetic really.

Note to self: if you had a bucket list the top of the list would read "find a best friend - someone who you can hug and cry to".

Note to self 2: this time last year you discovered your left for The West Wing. See, when things fall apart, sometimes there are crevices of joy.

Note to self 3: you won't see the year 10s again after 9:30 Wednesday morning. You can survive them.

Note to self 4: you are enough. Internalise this. You are enough. You will find what you are looking for. But I hope, more than that, you realise that you never actually needed it.

x

T

In the lonely hours.

(Are you real?)


Or
                            a
                                      figment
                                                       of
                                                                my
                                                                            imagination

Sometimes it fells like you are right here.

But most
           of
            the
                 time
                       you
                           are
                                 running
                                                             away
                                                                                away
                                                                                             away

Genes

Your father was abusive.
A violent drunk.

The four of you will often say:
"We're lucky really. We got out of that shithole"
or something along those lines.

"You're lucky really. You got out of that shit hole"

But the shit hole never left you.

It followed you the way chicken pox
attacks like wildfire
never to be satiated.
Always on to the next victim.

You got out of that "shit hole"
But you dumped us in with you
because the bullied always become bullies
and because when you left,
you took the abuse with you

It is a disease that clung.

The few times I have looked and spoken to him I
have felt sick
and uncomfortable,

He is a stranger.
The ill-gotten stories of
his grandchildren
are trump cards he plays
but i refuse to play the game.

He does not know me.

Yes, you got out of that "shit hole"
but the disease has mutated.

You probably don't think it's here anymore
but I can feel it
in the air

and it makes me sick
with anger.

Mum, you got out of that "shit hole"
but your father was never really gone
and even though I do not know the man that
other girls would call
(grandfather)

sometimes

I think I have met him through you.

Liminal spaces

There are moments when we are talking
when a bridge opens up between us

and I almost step onto it-

I can feel the firm concrete and the relief
but I always back away

the waters are too choppy and
deep.
I'd drown and I am not good at
the forward crawl.

I am back stroking
through cloudy water and
clinging oil.

The bridge offers emulsion

but

I always step back,.

Golden

When we met
I was ten.

You were a
relative stranger.

Big, bubbly and bright

You were wearing a royal blue tunic.

I remember there being sparkles but

memories lie.

You bought gold coins.

It was your way in.

It worked.

You were golden 

and treasured

just like them.

You were new to us but we

were people you already knew.

I don't remember the second or third or fourth time we met.

There was no need-

we fell in love with you instantly.

Big, bubbly, bright and in royal blue, 

you made promises

which you didn't always keep.

Nearly 12 years later

I look back on that day. 

Big, bubbly, bright and in royal blue, 

you bought our love.

We loved you so much.

You loved us back.

With heart, soul and kindness.

But you are careless. 

You don't always do right by us.

We are blindsided by you.

We wear blue-tinted glasses.

It took us time
but we started to scratch
at the blue.

We found shards of light 

but swathes of blue

lingered.

Nearly 12 years later

I am taking the glasses off.

It hurts because you are

big

bubbly

bright

but halah-

you make us blue.

Cosmos

I'm not quite sure if I am trying to find you
to forget you
to remember you
or to be indifferent.

It's been so long that I cannot tell the difference.

If I was brave I would tell you-

I make too many comparisons.
I am scared of admitting what I really want.
I am hiding from the world and from myself and
no one is the better for it.

If I was brave I would tell me-

You are not real anymore.
People move on.

We are planets.

Orbiting around each other
Some of us stay close together
And some of us were only meant to be
passing by.

The stranger things

1.

I have conversations with myself. Regularly. 

I imagine you up 

my stranger. 

I place you like a counter on a board game 

into moments 

which just like you

don't quite exist

2.

I walk past litter only to

walk back.

The guilt is like gravity-

rustling crisp packets and lonely branches 

pull me

back.

3.
I write poetry down
then erase it

I am scared

4.
I don't like talking on the phone-
always worried that I won't know
what to say
how to say it
when to hang up

so I don't call people
and people never call me
and I am left

hung up

5.
I cry often.
at unlikely times
in public places.
walking to school
in the staff room
on the train

So I look up

To catch the tears
and dull the pain

6.
I refuse hugs.
always

but really

most of the time
a good hug

is all I need

Heavy

In the mirror I see me

Her eyes carry bags
drowning with the
weight
of unshed tears

I ask her for a way out

but

we refuse.

Growing up is...

• realising that it has happened while you weren't looking, whatever it is...
• lying down, sprawled on your prayer mat when you've finished praying and feeling too tired to sob your heart out (true story)
• hearing conversations between your family about 'suitors' and realising that you're not in school anymore- the distant reality has arrived.
• getting a 'proper' job and realising that you're going to be getting a salary (say whaaaaaaat!)
• driving (this is a big deal for me) to work with your tote bag in the back
• taking out your younger brother into the city then having to accept the fact that he trusts you- with his life.... don't lose him- literally
• seeing old friends and having to accept that so much time has passed that you need to re-introduce yourself (alternatively, you can walk away and pretend you actually don't know them)
• having to actually think about what day/time you can meet people because EVERYONE IS BUSY
• feeling sad a lot of the time
• achieving independence, maturity, perspective... and it feeling underwhelming and overwhelming all at once
• not feeling happy but not feeling unhappy either- and not being able to understand what happiness would look like for you
• people having conversations with you about things which you feel too young to hear about
• having to take it day by day because it hurts too much but at the same time planning ahead because apparently that is life
• having an address book including people from years ago and people who you don't talk to anymore
• realising that you are that new generation adults used to talk about
• crying, crying and crying

I need a hug-

- but I am not a hugging person.

The last few days have been strange; a close relative of mine is staying with us because of personal issues, my cousin had her mehndi yesterday where her sister-in-law unleashed her marriage and family burdens on me, the same cousin's wedding is tomorrow, I start work tomorrow and I am back at school on Monday. It's a lot. But at the same time I'm not a victim in any of this. I am okay. It's just that there are a lot of thoughts going on in my head. To get it all out I'm going to bleurghhhhh it here:

• The process of moving house is strangely ceremonial; the act of packing things into boxes is bizarre. Surely, your life should be bigger than the boxes it fits inside. Alas, life exists beyond the material things and I have realised that when the boxes are packed, that's when you see your life as it really is- I suppose it returns to being in a state of affect.
• Marriage is delicate, precarious and fragile glass that cracks no matter how softly you tread on it. 
• I'm nervous about going back to school. There are people who I'm scared of seeing.
• My puzzle hasn't gone well this half-term. I wanted to have finished it. I haven't.
• I am annoyed all the time with people I care about but I can't (or won't) tell them. Things said can never be unsaid. 
• I am stuck in a loop of too many conversations with too many people who are all living in my head. 
• I visited the 'Artist and Empire' exhibition at the Tate Britain today with a friend. 
• Hands. Just, hands.

This be the verse.

I learned to take each day as it came not because each day was precious, but because the alternative was painful; looking ahead meant facing pain in the future too - the pain in the present was enough. 

When I was fifteen, I tried my hardest to tell myself things would get better. They did. Mostly. 

There would be times when my thoughts would stumble into wondering about the future. I wondered, will things change and will it stop upsetting me?

Years later, I am reminded of Larkin's poem- although I personally would switch 'parents' for 'family', in the poem.

We learn the hurt when we are young. Life numbs the pain but also remembers and re-remembers it. It doesn't ever leave us. We think it does but it creeps up like a shadow. Like an email you thought you deleted. A text you thought you didn't send. The door you left open by accident. 

Today, I remember that 15 year old girl. I want to tell her that she was right; it gets better. I am better. 

But I don't want to tell her that now, the pain she feels is different. It's another shadow that creeps behind; another email she thought she'd deleted; another text; another door. 

Another, another, another. 

Questions and answers, in no particular order.

Fish- I think. I can't be sure.

How many cups of tea do you have in a day?

I waited until I knew that no one else was in the bathroom.

How often do you remember it?

I told him first.

Did you mean to?

Always

Why did they not leave together?

It was too late to make changes.

Would you have gone?

I promised even though I knew that I couldn't-

Would you vote for the tiger or the wolf?

She laughed at me then handed it back.

Tell me the truth- what happened?

I am still falling.



*This poem is inspired by Sarah Kay's poem "Questions and Answers, In No Particular Order" from her poetry collection 'No matter the wreckage'. I love her poetry, highly recommend giving her stuff a read. Visit her website here.

What's on?

My brain is a TV screen and you
are the pixels that crackle when I'm not sure
what channel I am watching.

Sometimes, I jump
into a long running series
and forget
that I haven't
switched channels or
paused for a while.

Then I hear the crackle
and feel the dread
and see the fuzzy black
and white and grey

and I remember.

Cyclical--

Yesterday, I walked into a charity shop looking for a new puzzle but I didn't find one with a good enough picture; they were all lacklustre images of dreary village roads and goofy childish pictures. I was in and out in five minutes. On my way out, I walked past the racks of old clothes and something caught my eye. I did that thing that you see in the movies where a character walks back and does a double take. It was a scarf. A red and purple scarf with a strand of glittery thread woven in. It looked exactly like a scarf I used to wear. I couldn't remember if I had ever donated that scarf but here in this moment, in this charity shop, it stared at me. I was confronted all of a sudden with the realisation that life goes on. Literally. This scarf, whether or not it was mine, moved on. Someone else will see it and think that they could make a life with it. They'll buy it and instantly, it has a new life. It's silly I know but I felt sad.

It felt like a part of me was gone and I hadn't realised it.

I suppose it reveals our biggest insecurities as people-- life continues regardless. Regardless of our happiness. Regardless of our sadness. Life and sadness and hope and joy and our dreams and death are all intertwined. We win some, we lose some and most of the time, we miss things. Seeing that scarf made me realise that I didn't have it anymore. That it wasn't mine. Which means that there are other things that are not mine.

There are other things which I don't have any longer. 

Dear future me,

Today, a student teacher said to you, "you make me smile, I like you! You're cute". This made you happy because you know that she genuinely meant it. But then it made you think, it made me think, am I going to be this person forever-- the cute, awkward one. I am awkward-- it's not just a hippy, bookish trait which I have appropriated-- there is a real awkwardness in my behaviour sometimes. That being said, I am always the first one to mention it and bring it up in conversation; I think it's because I don't want to be the kooky person who doesn't realise that they're kooky. In that moment today, I was pleased but I am sad now. I wonder when that time will end where I am constantly worrying. I wonder when I will not care as much anymore. It just feels heavy on my shoulders all the time. I am scared that I am going to be the person everyone mothers; what kind of a life is that?

I suspect that it comes down to age. The only problem with that is I am getting older and I'm not feeling it. I drove myself to school for the first time this week, and that made me feel like an adult for about five minutes. I wish there was a button. Beep and you're an adult. Enter phase 1. I'd pay, if that was an option. Alas, I am resigned to my fate. It sucks.

Maybe I'm holding on to my fears too tightly; I anticipate the worst and reminisce over the past constantly. This cannot be good for my mental health. Again, I know that this is an issue but I am not doing anything about it. Why am I not fixing it? And why am I writing to you-- to me -- when I could be fixing it? It's a vicious cycle.

The long and short of it, I suppose, is that I am confused about adulthood (like every other human on this planet. I am not under any illusions; I know that I am one of the masses in this instance). Pupils see me as an adult but I'm not as convinced and I worry that they will realise this and decide that I am not worth respecting.

Sidenote; I've been reading Sarah Kay's poetry collection "No matter the wreckage" and her poetry is honestly beautiful. I love it. I might do a review of it in the future.

Palimpsest

I rub you out 

then draw you 

again

I am tentative-- unsure, undecided, unsomething or another

From memory- blurred edges and a grey area stretch

like a shadow into me

into time

into blurred edges and grey area

I rub you out I draw I erase I tear apart

I --

You should have asked.

You switched the light off and the lamp on. The room jumped from darkness to dimness and my eyes crinkled. The words on the page in front of me turned away. Life blurred before me.

Sitting in my bed, a few meters parallel from yours, I try to focus the blur. Haltingly.

I hear the click of a switch. The dimness becomes darkness. I close my book shut and halt my mouth-- 

I am too sad and too tired to tell you...

Laptop thoughts..

It is 11:43 PM. I am sitting on bed, typing on my laptop in darkness. A bright white light beams from the power button on my printer at the other end of the room. Shadows of my open door sit at the top of the stairs, leading down into the rest of the house where almost everyone else is sleeping. I received an important email today. This evening. Life-changing, in a way. I'm pretty sure that in the months to come I shall want to remember this moment. Or perhaps I won't. That's the problem with time. It is always leaving. I won't know until the time comes. 

When I first saw the email, part of me was relieved. It was something I was sort of waiting for, in the back of my mind. I wasn't panicking about it but it was something that I imagine I would panic about later down the line. The second emotion was definitely fear. I attended a lecture this week on adolescence. One of the things which stood out to me was when the speaker mentioned that teenagers and young adults can be fearful of failure, which we'd sort of expect, but they can also be fearful of success. The speaker also mentioned that adolescence is a period that is lengthening-- some people don't move on from adolescence until their mid-twenties. That leaves me in the space of adolescence. It's weird because the lecture was pitched at new teachers understanding their pupils and their experiences of being adolescents. For me, though, I realised that I am still very much making that transition. Getting that email made me feel fear because it was a great sign of great things to come. But that's a terrifying concept, especially for someone who doesn't feel at all prepared for it emotionally or psychologically. I feel like I am the adolescent the speaker was talking about. Fearful of success and in the middle of making a transition from one stage of life to another. 

Why is it that when we are young we want to grow up and when we grow up we want to be young? Why can we never be in the moment? I don't know how to be an adult. I don't know how to feel about being one and I don't know how to move into that space? What does an adult sound like? What does an adult do? What will I lose?

What hurts the most is that I am happy about the email, but I am too focused on failing. I don't know how to stop myself from feeling like I am going to fail. I don't know how to accept the happiness and embrace it. I am worried that I will be lulling myself into a false sense of security. Perhaps I am preparing myself for failure. Perhaps experiencing is believing and I'm still in the stage of disbelief. 

I mentioned in a previous post that being a PGCE students requires cheerleading on one's behalf. 

Here goes:

I can do it.

I can do it.

I've already done it.

I will do it again.

I can do it.

And if I can't, it's okay. 

The centre will hold.

Possible Pastures New...

A few months ago, I was having a hard time. Sometimes, I still feel like I am back there- in that space where things fall apart and the centre cannot hold.

I have a job now. Well, a job for September. Isn't that strange? One moment I'm terrified because life is moving too quickly and I don't know what to do with it, and the next I'm accepting a job offer. I feel weird, uncomfortable. Not because I'm not happy with the decision but because I feel like I am getting closer and closer to adulthood. I don't like it. It terrifies me. I'm worried that I won't be worthy of the role of a teacher. I know that this is a silly train of thought but it chugs along all the time, gathering steam and rattling along the paths of my brain. What do I do if I'm rubbish at it?

I cried today- tears of happiness. I haven't done that in a long time. It tends to be tears due to existential crises (I'm not saying that to be hipster, I'm being serious). I read the card that the staff in the department gave to me and I was genuinely moved. Usually, I accept cards and put them away but this one, I pored over a few times. I have put it next to my bed, a reminder that there are people there to support me. It's easy to think that when you're training, you're alone. But I have been so fortunate to have kind, lovely people who have helped me when I have thought that I am failing. When I had that horrible class last week, my mentor and another teacher both sat me down and talked through what steps I could take to improve. I couldn't think of a way in which they could have been more supportive than they were. I will miss them all.

Now, I have to start it all over again, in a month, at a new school.

*sighs inwardly*

Today was a hard day.

I think I had my worst ever lesson today.

It was the period after lunch and the class was just crazy. I feel like I did so many things wrong. I was firm but for some reason it wasn't enough.

It was a rubbish lesson and I felt like all the students who were well-behaved were cheated out of a good lesson. That's the hardest part. How do you manage an entire class when they are all at different places in their learning???????

I kept a few students back but part of me feels like I should have sent some of the students out. I entertained the nonsense for too long. I should have nipped it in the bud. There were points in the lesson where they were definitely running rings around me.

I felt deflated and slightly angry afterwards. This was mostly because I had engaged in futile conversations with the kids and it became a silly 'I didn't do it', 'yes you did' scenario. I get worried sometimes and think that I can't do it.

And what if I can't?

What is left?

I didn't realise that I would have to be my own cheerleader when I began my PGCE. Now that I am nearing the end of my first placement, that's what I feel like I am having to do- cheer for myself.

It sucks. 

Progress? Perhaps...

I think I made progress today. I'm not sure but I think I did. There were small moments. I spoke to more people today. I felt myself less tense and more relaxed. Normally, I get anxious and worry when I talk to other teachers. Today I felt that less. It's a nice feeling. I spoke to a teacher today about working in a department and how this makes all the difference when you're working in a school.

I've come to realise that this is definitely the case. I can't imagine working in a place where I didn't have support from other teachers. My anxiety is always present but it has never overwhelmed me; good teachers are a reason for this.

Anyway, I just wanted to document that. I'm always worrying so it's nice to be moving forward for once!

New Year (maybe I'll do them) Resolutions.

PRAY MORE.
I would like to spend more time doing my prayers and improving the quality of them.

READ MORE.
I would like to read at least 1 book a month.

DISCOVER/GET OUT MORE
Make new discoveries. Read more poetry. Watch a Shakespeare play in the theatre. Try to see Djokovic play tennis.

WRITE MORE
Write. Write. Write.

READ THE NEWS MORE
Stay up-to-date with the news. Be more aware of politics.




do more