The Case for Romance Novels

I read my first Romance Novel when I was eighteen. A fresh graduate from high school, the world was my oyster. In this world filled with hope, I stumbled upon an awfully written, extremely misogynistic, Romance Novel. It wasn't quite Romance given that it started as a Twilight fanfic (if you know, you know) but it was all the rage in 2012. I couldn't put it down. It was a fascinating character study where nothing made sense, or was good, but everything happened. A billionaire? Check. A damsel in distress? Check. Skinny, young, inexperienced 22 yr old enthralled by someone more experienced? Check and check. It was awful but it opened up a whole new genre of books for me. 

In 2012, everyone read Romance and pretended not to. This bookish world, pre-Covid and pre-TikTok, was the shameful place readers-who-knew-better resided in. These mindless books you would pick up in between college assignments were the equivalent of brain rot doom-scrolling today. Back in 2012, people wanted to be perceived as intellectuals on the social media stratosphere. Having interests that didn't add any value to your life were deemed as beneath you. As one can imagine, this was not the time for Romance. Romance section at the bookstores saw more cobwebs than a cemetery. You would often find tacky covers with ripped bodices and oiled ethnic looking men in mass market paperback format (RIP to mass-market paperbacks, you will be missed) in this section. I recall blushing walking through this section at my local Barnes & Noble. 

It was in this timeline that I found myself gravitating towards Romance. It wasn't that I thought these books were good, it was just that they created judgment free worlds for me. The world was beginning to care about the right words. We didn't quite have words for Social Justice warriors or Woke or Virtue Signaling in the colloquial language yet. This was a world where what words you used mattered a lot. The over-correction from years of not caring about language was finally happening. Naturally, in a world like this, you cannot admit to reading (and enjoying) anything remotely misogynistic. Traditional roles were ridiculed in the face of Girl Boss feminism and women were in their I-can-do-it-all era. We had effectively solved centuries of patriarchy, or so we thought anyway. 

Romance Novels, in this world, provided a haven for exploration of thought. A world created by women, for women, curiously meandering through many facets of what women want. No mockery of desire, no outrage because women's rights are being set back, and no shame for wanting to question aspects of what women should want. Romance Novels became the sanctuary for all forms of love. A woman who wants to be a construction manager, or a baseball team owner, or is madly in love with her childhood friend, or has forsaken all forms of love until she meets The One, or never connected with anyone until her, or them - all were welcome. A brown girl who has forsaken marriage until she finds her Darcy at a wedding of a friend of a friends, or one who falls for the tatted guy her demure, simple-minded parents would surely disapprove of existed outside of fleeting desires. A biker romance where a guy would go to war for his woman was no longer a Homeric fantasy. Romance Novels greeted all with open arms. You have a niche trope or sub-trope that you always fall for? There's a Romance Novel about that somewhere. Whether you like spice or sweet, someone has had the same desires. Romance Novels created the most wholesome world women could communicate through. 

The greatest thing to come out of Booktok is the shamelessness that Gen Z influencers created around reading Romance. The popularization of Romance on Booktok has revolutionized how Romance gets written and published. It has created a whole new genre for Romantic Fantasy, Romantasy, because Gen Z unabashedly embraced Romance. The popularity of Bridgerton and Heated Rivalry is a testament to what Romance is capable of at its best. There is a joke on TikTok that women only want men (partners) written by other women. However, there is a degree of truth to that statement. Within Romance, women see an equal footing. It's the only place on earth where a scenario is created and resolved based off of what women want. Whether it's a Second-Act Break Up i.e. the man has to run to the airport to confess his undying love for the FMC (female main character) or it's a resolution without needing any big theatrics (as is the case with Windy City series by Liz Tomforde), all of it reflects what women want. Women, it turns out, are as human in their wants as men. And that in itself is the ultimate case for Romance Novels. In a twisted, long-winded way, a Romance Novel is an attempt by women to be considered human. In its varying themes, interests, tropes, micro-tropes, and desires, women just want to be treated without a generalization. Romance is the only space where women can evaluate other women without the influence of men. Romance nurtures thought without the need to prove, or defy, or resist. I am no less a woman because I prefer a Sports Romance over a Mafia Romance, for example. Romance Novels humanize all women - the readers, the writers, and the characters. Men are no longer the center of this world and that opens up a lot of room for reflection. 

In its lack of attempt to be taken seriously, Romance Novels have created an inquisitive study of womanhood. There is no expectation of effort from the reader, and yet, if one chooses to, they will find plethora to ponder over. Romance Novels embody seamlessly what many works of fiction try so hard to, they remind women that no thought is too shameful to be experienced. And ultimately, in doing so, Romance Novels have freed women from performing for men. 

Copy heart. Copy bracelet.

I recently switched back to an Android phone and found my saved notes from 2015 - 2017 in my drive. These were some random snippets of thoughts and quotes from books I was reading at the time: Gatsby, poetry, notes on Death, recipes, and grocery store lists. I found a list I had written down when I lived at home with my parents to help care for my grandmother. Such an interesting snapshot of time.

At work, I delivered a presentation today on how the software we use captures and compares data month to month. The technical part of me wants to write a piece of code that compares on certain values but isn’t that what writing is at the end of the day.

I have always found writers who write for themselves to be the most enjoyable. I don’t care what the audience wants to read, I care what you want to read as a writer. When you bring in performance, it always cheapens its meaning a little bit. Alyssa Liu winning a gold medal on her terms is the greatest example of this. She performed for herself. And in her joy, we all found a missing piece of ourselves.

In my previous writings, I found a draft of a piece I was writing on Math after graduation. It’s one of the many pieces I never bothered to publish. I am always taken aback with my love for all things Math. It lies dormant because I haven’t studied it in years. However, it always finds itself back in my life. A couple of years ago, I was going through a really tough time. I started tutoring Math to high school dropouts so that they could get their GED. At the time, I needed to think about something other than myself. Math was that grounding force for me. It was numbers and letters. In its familiarity, it reminded me that world could make sense.

I felt similarly invigorated by the Artemis II mission. Math working so beautifully and precisely to take humans further than they have ever been, and returning them safely home was a tribute to The Human Spirit in every way. It lit a fire in me that I haven’t experienced in a long time. The blaze that kept me going through my undergrad degree because I forced myself to find joy in the little things is peaking through under the protection of an experienced mind. I no longer believe in the systems we have created as the absolute truths. My therapist often says, life exists in possibility. In a way, it’s the most mathematical thought. Probability teaches us that there is no perfect 0 or 1. The basis of Math is in the Multiverse Theory. There exists a universe that we define. Once we have defined that universe, what are the conclusions that we can draw from it? This universe is the universal set. So, mathematically speaking, life is in its possibilities. And this is where things become joyful.

Whether it’s the first woman to ever go around the moon or a 4 minute performance an athlete has prepared their entire life for, only to so-called blow it. The possibilities of human capability are endless. Why go to the moon? Why climb the mountains? Why explore the deep ocean? Because it’s there. It’s as simple as that. There are a lot of practical reasons for all of it but at the end of the day, it’s something we believe is possible. And that possibility alone is the defense of its attempt. Given the right resources and the perfect scenario, what can a human being achieve? And if we fail, when can we try again?

As Huxley says in Brave New World,

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.'

'In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy.'

'All right then,' said the Savage defiantly, 'I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.'

The Great Attempt at anything is the reason for it all. Humans to stare at in awe, humans to cheer, humans to communicate with, and humans to come back home to - this has always been the North Star. It means something because we care. It exists because we want it to. Not out of hubris but in appreciation of. An homage to the stardust in us responding to the stars further away.

Some thoughts on Representation in Art

 Growing up in Texas as a Pakistani-American is challenging on many fronts. I am not going to bore the reader with tribulations of being Hyphenated, as that discourse is overdone. However, a missing piece within the current conversation is the expectation placed upon the Hyphenated to represent Pakistan (or Homeland). I find it quite silly because the stage is set for the Hyphenated to fail. You can never represent the experience of someone back home. You simply haven’t lived it. And you cannot be the other half of your hyphen only. The battle begins early on and most seem to stumble their way into a sort of peace. If you don’t let yourself get pulled too much in either direction, you manage your way through life pretty okay. Of course, the average person only has their loved ones to disappoint. The complication arises when you extrapolate that balance and attempt it at a global stage. Whether it’s Hasan Minhaj trying to make jokes about brown dads that evolved beyond the Russell Peters caricaturization of brown dad humor or it’s Riz Ahmed’s self-deprecating attempt at satire in Bait, there isn’t enough of an audience with that niche experience to grant them immunity from the monumental task of Homeland Representation.

In the recent years, both Minhaj and Ahmed have challenged the ideas of what it means to be Hyphenated but that critique is largely aimed at the Empire and not at the Homeland. It doesn’t help that anyone making it big in Hollywood uses being Hyphenated as their brand to get anywhere. Simply put, they have asked for the criticism from the Motherland.

It is a disadvantaged brand because in trying to appease everyone, it manages to displease all. There’s a saying in Urdu, dhobi ka kutta na ghar ka na ghaat ka, which represents this brand quite well. It makes me wonder, however, what responsibility the viewer has towards the Art they engage with. There’s a general sense of entitlement with any diasporic Art where it must represent all facets of life in Motherland. This thinking was highlighted in criticism for a show like Never Have I Ever that dared talk about a brown girl falling for a white guy (completely neglecting the fact that most brown men consider it an accomplishment when they sleep with white women, for example, Jemima Khan is still revered in Pakistan despite Imran Khan having been married thrice). Outside of the general misogyny, I find it fascinating that a generation of millennials that grew up smitten by Hillary Duff and Chad Michael Murray had trouble accepting a brown girl wanting to date a white boy. The audience back home seems to want a Pakistani drama in English and aired on Netflix but following the script of Hum TV. The diaspora, who are probably closest to Art like that, find it cringe for attempting to do what great Hollywood TV has done. And anyone outside of the specific Hyphenated cannot help but stereotype, even while trying not to. A Trader Joe’s meal that combines Thai curry sauce, Chinese soup dumplings, and coconut milk finding a moment of stardom on TikTok attempting to be cultural but being hollow in every aspect.

The onus of deriving meaning from Art is as much on the viewer as it is on the creator. The nuanced filtering of what works for the viewer vs not is the path forward. Anyone creating Art for the consumer is always bound to fall into the trap of pretty aesthetics over actual substance. Art is meant to be a portrayal, not a two way conversation. Picasso didn't paint in hopes that people will feel represented. It is the artists’ job to create what is most truthful to them. It is the audience’s job to engage, not to demand.

Eldest Daughter

She woke up one morning and it didn’t crush her. The dust particles visible in the sun rays breaking through her bedroom window, the quiet of a morning that lead to a day of responsibilities but allowed the freedom to start slow. This is it, she thought. The content her mother and grandmother never got to feel. Even at peace, the duties of an eldest daughter couldn’t be shirked. The hope of all the generations prior and the weight of the upcoming generations sit tightly on the shoulders of the eldest daughter. But on days like today, she felt she could just be. Take a break. She knows the crown is sitting there like dirty laundry, she will need to wear it again. She’s one mishap away from her phone ringing and shoving her back to, well, life. However, life can wait a day and allow her to live. 

She wonders why regardless of culture, the role of the eldest daughter is the same. Project Manager at best, sacrificial lamb at worst. She remembers the first time she had to step onto that stage. She was five and asked to make sure her little brother, four, didn’t run off. Watch him for a second, will you? She felt something at the sheer unfairness of the request but didn’t have the alphabets of human emotions down enough to explain this bubbling feeling in her chest. It came out as anger, as frustration, as a loss of individuality. A single tear wiped away with chubby hands, a shrug of her shoulders, and the first of her smiles plastered on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes as she turned to her brother. This was the beginning of everything to come. How things would always be going forward. The child in need of protection becomes the protector. 

She mimics a similar shrug and forces herself back to reality. After all, she is also the first to unlearn this. She often wonders if she had an older sister, who would she be? Perhaps what she needed was the mother she was forced to be. Being an adult, she realized, was simply giving yourself the permission to be the child you would have been. 

She felt like a Broadway actress most days. Sitting in front of a computer screen giving technical advice to companies willing to shell out thousands of dollars for a few hours of her time. She played the part well. Logged into her investments to ensure she had enough for her future, and perhaps a family member’s. Her bills were paid. She had followed up with her friends and family, asking how they were really doing in hopes that they didn’t feel alone. Check, check, and check. She had an acceptable boyfriend. Someone her family approved of. Also, check. It was a great theatrical production that she decided to put on every day. She wondered if this was what life was. 

beauty and the mundane

 Some of the best writing I have done, in my opinion anyway, has been when I have felt the lowest emotionally. Too often, us writers - if I may take the liberty of calling myself one, although, I am far from one - believe too deeply in the idea of a tortured artist. We assume that because we wrote well when we were depressed, that our work was a byproduct of said depression. It makes us question our worth in a very confusing way because when we are no longer depressed, when we have gone through therapy and life is going well, we start believing that we won't be able to write again. I have nothing to say, you think. Everyone is having the same conversations and what can I possibly contribute? You silence yourself because anything worth talking about has the same three arguments floating around on the internet and you don't want to become part of that echo chamber. You can no longer tap into your own darkness to make it sound more creative, deeper than it is, and so you stop believing in your worth as a writer. 

It's a funny place to be at because contrarily, you love reading about the mundane. The reason Vlog culture is so big is because people actually love the mundane. We don't always need the fantasy to escape. Watching someone buy their daily groceries is just as much of an escapism as entering Hogwarts. This is not a new phenomenon. One only needs to read about how Plath describes chopping vegetables to be convinced of the argument that we love talking about everyday thing. The song Lover by Taylor Swift has a line, we could let our friends crash in the living room...this is our place, we make the call. It's toted as a romantic ballad and used by many as the song for their first dance because its beauty is in its simplicity, in its mundanity. It is not about big romantic gestures, it's about the little ones that remind you that a relationship is about the small mundane actions. 

So much of life is contained in these small acts and those are the things that matter. The everyday logistics of human existence - grocery shopping, filling up gas, taking out trash. They matter because when we see someone else replicating those motions, we are reminded of a weird sense of harmony. Perhaps we have different struggles when it comes to the big stuff - you might be dealing with an aging parent while another might be dealing with a newborn - but these small repetitive mundane moments prove that some things just make sense in life. That you could be a billionaire or someone working 3 jobs to make ends meet, you still need a car that has gas. It's a strangely comforting thought.

the final hour

Been thinking a lot about what it means to be human and to live a conscious life. Consistently declining, your body giving up on you to a point where you can no longer swallow, where you forget there is food in your mouth, where you have no concept of reality, is no life worth living. It is a miserable and cruel existence. You are holding onto a faint glimmer that something might get better. There comes a point when you have to rationalize and accept death. You don't want to be the murderer of your own parents but you cannot deny reality either. Life is not a bedridden existence where you cannot convey what you feel, where you cannot experience food, where you no longer recognize your children or even yourself. Life is consciousness. It is understanding that the first ray of sunlight brings a new day, that drinking a glass of cold water on a warm day, feeling it go down from your mouth to your esophagus and then your stomach is a reminder that your body is alive and fighting everyday to exist. It is recognizing the eyes of those borne of your loins from a mile away. It is feeling the pain and sorrow that existence brings. It is understanding the joy you feel when you see another human smile. The moment you stop understanding the gravity of these everyday experiences, you are no longer alive. You are a shell housing organs, pumping blood, and taking breaths. You have lost that which makes you you. These experiences need not be prolonged. These resources can be utilized for the young, who have a chance. This is a sacrifice owed to the young, from the old. The bow after the curtains are closed. The old have lived through their time. They have taken advantage of their young pliable bodies with a spring in their step and the energy to match the strongest coffee. They have created and rebelled and loved and hated. They understand death. There is nobility in acceptance of death - yours and your loved ones. Easier said than done and yet we have a timer since the day we are born. The clock is ticking - on us and our loved ones. If we must accept a truth, it is this - life ends. 

Sabr

I was perusing through my journal and I landed on this line from my nanis autobiography that says mainay sabr karna viraasat main paaya hai and it just brought me so much peace.

Sabr is an interesting word because yes it's patience but it's also more. I always imagine sabr as this shut door you are standing at and you hear these screams on the other side and you have the power to open that door but you know the screams on the other side will engulf you and make you lose your voice so all you can do is stand there and listen to them and fight the urge to open that door.

Many people think of sabr as this idea for the lost and hopeless, and it is. But for me it's not as much about hopelessness as much about it is the willingness to fight. I think in all these grand tales of valor, we do not crave the victory as much as we look for these heroes who seemed defeated but were simply waiting for the right time to strike back. Sabr to me is that crucial moment of gaining strength when you know your only defeat is in giving in to your urges and letting defeat ensnare you with its false promises of victory. Sabr is a reminder that you are human - in your weaknesses, and more importantly, in your strengths. That to win, you must lose for the moment for it isn't really losing, simply waiting.

On Becoming Pakistani Hyphenated American

I am twenty-six years old. I moved to the US when I was fourteen. Until I had moved to the US, the longest flight I had ever taken was from Islamabad to Karachi i.e. moving to the US was my first time stepping out of the country. I want to take this time to explore the "Pakistani" in me vs the "American" in me.

When I had just moved to the other side of the world, I was elated. I had always dreamt of wanting to move to a country where the schools had no uniform (yes, that was the root of my excitement, I was fourteen). I knew that moving to America meant you have to clean your own bathroom, you have to do your own laundry, and you have to pick up after yourself. I also had some vague idea that high school was of utmost importance in America, that Americans generally were bad at Math, and that for some reason the entire world was obsessed with both hating America and wanting to be America. Mind you, this was in 2008 when Facebook had only recently become global, when your Newsfeed still had FB statuses that went "[insert your name] is...." and you would fill out the rest. This was the time when Superwoman was barely that brown girl with cool braids who made a funny video on YouTube and when MLID (My Life Is Desi) was the coolest new way to find home away from home. (Side note, main purpose of YouTube was to catch up on Indian dramas and there really wasn't any money in YouTube). The point being, when I had just moved here, what it meant to be Pakistani, or Desi, or Pakistani-American was just as awkwardly being defined by the people around me as it was in my head. We didn't have a Hasan Minhaj with Patriot Act on Netflix or Mindy Kaling with her own show. Our version of brown comedy was Russell Peters with his hyperbolic impressions of what it meant to be raised in a brown household. That was funny then because we didn't know comedy could take a more realistic form. We didn't know that you could be both Pakistani/Desi and American and be true to yourself.

I paint this picture because I struggled with homogenizing the two identities for a long time. In fact, it wasn't until the APS Attack in 2014 that I actually took the time to re-evaluate how I had been looking at these sides of me. There was time where I held on to the Pakistani identity with my dear life while abandoning any attempts to learn what it meant to be "American." There were also times when I abandoned what it meant to be "Pakistani" and tried to catch up to the "American" culture in full speed. Perhaps those phases were necessary for what I will end up learning but during those times, they felt halfhearted. I mention the 2014 APS attack because at that point in time, I was going through my "American" phase. I was hell-bent on ignoring everything remotely Pakistani about me. I remember going to the kitchen to make coffee in the morning and my mother telling me about this developing story where a school filled with kids was gunned down. I remember then going to the university to take my Intermediate Analysis final exam and walking out of that exam completely numb. I spent the next few hours scouring through countless articles online trying to make sense of it all - the grief I felt, the anger, the heartbreak. I remember thinking "am I allowed to be in this much grief when I have not cared about this country I was born and raised in nor kept up with anything going on there for a long time?" I would spend the next few weeks in complete mourning of it all. Understanding the selectivism in my own grief because it was the army kids who were attacked and not those of civilians from a rural town. Evaluating why it still hurt so profoundly. Thinking through the actions I could take and if *anything* at all would be of any help. But the most resounding thought in all this was the idea that I cannot let go of Pakistan. It was the most clarity I felt amidst all the chaotic emotions. That I can move to a different country and assimilate but I cannot let go, entirely, of where I am from. And that was a momentous shift in my thinking.

I do think that if I was fourteen in 2020 and moving to the US, the distinction in my mind would not have been so rigid because I would have been exposed to a lot more via social media/the internet. But it is interesting to note that my generation, people who were in high school between 2008-2012, were truly the first generation to go through the left being very stringent about calling out Islamophobia. Here was a country that had elected its first black president, a country that was just starting to forget a bit of the 09/11 and not look at all Muslims (Muslim looking/sounding) with hate because the left had started to call out Islamophobia pretty stringently. There were of course still attacks on Muslims (looking/sounding) but the hurt wasn't as recent as for those who were right before us and were in high school or college when 09/11 happened.

My generation had the unique opportunity to break away from a hate and define what it meant to be Pakistani-American, in a way. It is tough, as a fourteen year old, to understand that you can be both Pakistani and American. That you can look at both identities of yourself and find a way to create something that is true to you. That you can love and appreciate Faiz and Ahmed Faraz and Iqbal Bano and you can also love Plath and Anne Sexton and Sontag. You can find humor in Jordan Klepper and Biswa Kalyanrath simultaneously. You can care about the impending war between India and Pakistan and worry for their safety just as much as you can care about the collapse of American Healthcare system. That the two don't have to battle for your attention. Holding on to your "culture" doesn't mean not progressing. Salima Hashmi (Faiz's daughter) very eloquently mentions that every generation holds a responsibility to their own generation to take the works of those before them and examine it in the "current" times. So what we owe, to the country we belong to and the country we live in, is that examination of ideas in "our" light. We must, as a generation of immigrants, analyze what it means to live with an identity that holds on to our roots but flourishes with the ever-changing wind.

On the Process of Doing

If I die now, you'll have a hint for which god to petition. 

Julian Randall wrote this line in his poem "On the Night I Consider Coming Out to My Parents" when he mentions that he is Black and Dominican and Bisexual.

I have been thinking about labeling of self a lot lately. Of these words we subscribe to so we can find someone who understands: pakistani-american, ex-muslim, fitness nerd, analyst, mathematician, mountain climber, music lover, fashion lover, reader. So many labels so we can find someone who understands numerous facets that are about self and all that feeds is the idea of consumerism. I want people to understand me because I am important. No, it's not quite your turn yet, it is still about me. I am going through a tough time in life so my thoughts, my feelings, should outweigh everything else.

Last year, when I took my trip to San Francisco, I realized the selfish nature of grief. It is a comfortable emotion that blankets you in its warmth and drugs you into thinking it's -40 degrees outside and you need its warmth. The irony? It's a 100 degrees outside and you're running a fever. It is an odd sensation, letting go of that grief. You have a void that needs filling and you don't have an emotion strong enough to counteract it. That is the hardest part about pain. Not necessarily the suffering of it but the void that comes after the suffering is over. The emptiness that follows that coerces you to face yourself.

After I had come back from my Washington trip this year, my dad had said, it's great to travel but the true place you need to travel to is your inner self. See where your thoughts lead you when they are uninfluenced. My uncle had suggested I wake up pre-dawn and make a habit of writing - before I have had coffee, before I have washed my face, before I have taken a single action. The idea is to get your mind as pure as you could and see where it takes you. I have not had the guts to implement that quite yet but I have started working out in the morning recently. I don't make any decisions - I set my outfit the night before, I prepare my workout bag the night before, I order coffee from the Starbucks across the street. I just get up, make my bed, wash my face, brush my teeth, change into my workout clothes, and go.

Alex Honnold describes his routine before a big free solo climb. He mentions that on bigger climbs, he minimizes the number of decisions he has to make so his body can save energy. He describes the process of free soloing El Capitan at Yosemite - climbing a 3000+ feet steep wall without ropes, merely using his body. He mentions that performing a climb like that, you do not want to perform at anything more than 70% of what your body is capable of. This is because you want it to feel natural. You do not want your body to feel fear or discomfort or any emotion that can trigger an insulin response in you and cause you to lose your footing. If you do, you fall off the wall and die - as simple as that.

I cannot help but think of the power of discipline in all this. The discipline required to do something so often that it becomes a part of your routine. You are not a person, in all your labels, who identifies as someone who brushes their teeth, or takes a shower, or fills their gas tank. You don't think about it. It's what you do. Then, if there are things we want to do, we must make them so routine they're almost mindless. You take the decision of whether you want to or need to do this thing or not out of the picture. There is no decision left.

You just do.

Thoughts from Mountains

Motivation is BS. It's all about your routine.

Aisa kahan se laoon ke tujh sa kahein jisay.

Human beings are so futile in front of nature. Nature is so magestic and we are mere mortals. It will live on with us, despite us, without us. That is all. -may 28, 12 pm. After a 7 mile hike to glacier basin.

When I'm in mountains, I don't miss home. Normally, when I go on a trip, I miss home after the second night. When I'm in mountains, I feel peace. This is where I belong, where I'm meant to be. This is home. The peace and quiet away from the loud cities. Your troubles too menial for a mountain. It takes life, it gives life. You are helpless in its angry storms, you find sustenance in its flowing rivers when the snow melts. This is life and all that it encompasses. That's all.

I belong in mountains. They brought me to tears. It was the lack of oxygen on a fast elevation but it feels like a weight off my shoulders. I haven't cried in a long long time. But when you're breathing, trying to fight for your life, you get human emotion in its most raw form. No pretenses, no barriers. Just you and nature and your emotions. What will you hide? What is left to hide when your body is struggling to breathe? Humbling experience. Working out in the gym means nothing when you don't have enough oxygen to breathe. You can get stronger but you cannot produce oxygen your body needs if there isn't enough.

Hitting PRs in a perfect environment is one thing, climbing up a mountain on a 30% incline for 3 miles is a whole different ball game. 

Inaction is action against the victims. As simple as that.

It doesn't matter how much I love a place, no place is Houston. Houston is home because Houston is where my family is.

None of them are you. It's not to say no one will ever be you, or better. But a year later, and no one is you. Being in love is a gift. Loving you was an honor. Being out of love and learning to live with that is the biggest lesson.