This year has been about distancing self from things I have always known to be true. I'm sure there is a correlation between being at a place for the last time and feeling detachment from that place, from self in that time. There is probably a need to break enough ties so leaving the place hurts a little less-be it a mental place. But I have felt a very prolonged sense of detachment from things I knew to be true.
I have barely picked up a pen to write anything. I have focused more on nonfiction books. I have let myself be lead by my reasoning. I only skipped class when I was sick, unlike my first year at university where I would skip a lecture to go sit by the fountains and read. If I were to put the eighteen years old Mina and the twenty-two years old Mina side by side, I'd see a transformation from an idealist to a realist. Not sure if that's a good thing.
I have learned to trust my body. If it says it needs sleep, I acquiesce. Some part of me wants to do this as a favor to the eighty years old me. I have started working out somewhat regularly-not as much as I would like to but definitely more than before. I am patient with myself. I give myself the time I need-be it intellectual, emotional, or taking ten minutes to do an exercise an average person can do in five minutes. And it is fucking hard as hell. These things are supposed to make you happy, or happier, or at least content. I'm sure that phase will come but right now I'm miserable. But I have the strength to acknowledge that. I am no longer shy to admit that something is intellectually difficult or emotionally difficult or physically difficult. I admit I have a long way to go. My only stubbornness is in getting there. I am learning what it means to disagree with someone on major things-sexuality, human rights, economy, morals, etc.- and be civil in a conversation. I am learning what it means to love someone and still disagree with them. I am learning what it means to question things, ideas, thoughts but never an emotion if it is sincere. I avoid confrontations. I loathe them. Specially when they put me in a position to teach. I am not a teacher at heart. My soul is of a student. I can learn. I can't teach. Perhaps I will learn to do the latter.
I have become everything I hated when I started university. My degree serves the purpose more of being a segue from education to employment than to lead me on an intellectual road of curiosity. I despise the night, I have become a creature of the daylight. Sun soothes my soul, however scorching it may be. I let myself feel anger and then I give it to the wind. I do hard things now so I don't have to do the impossible later. I treat myself as a person rather than a machine.
I am terrified of what the year will bring. I am not ready. But I have no choice. So I shall march on.
