#95 || MY LOVE MINE ALL MINE ALL MINE ALL MINE MY LOVE

I feel like I am going around in circles in this life, but this time, in my 34th year, I want the dive down into the darkness to be for the last time. Maybe the way that worked for awhile isn't the answer anymore, maybe the answer is to surrender to the half of my new reality that scares me. Maybe it's about letting the inner child that I have protected for so long, grow up and embrace the plummet of this low so that I can ricochet and experience a high unlike any other.

If I can remember the highs of this year, the takeoffs and landings, the reunions and the re-living of moments I didn't think I would ever have again. The wines and the wisdom, the cups of tea and the walks along the beach, falling asleep with my hands in his and the first kiss after midnight by the water in winter - maybe it offsets the self-deprecation that I didn't think I would ever feel again. The repetitive moments of despair and confusion and sadness and despondence, I have never felt as stupid as I do right now. Age doesn't seem to have brought upon any perception, only this superfluous ache in my bottom lung. How do I turn this around?

Hope exists in that this time next year will be strikingly different to this moment right here, right now. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel my fingertips rest on all that it is in my dreams, all that I think I deserve to wish for in this lifetime. If I strip it all down, it's more simple than I could ever imagine. Why do I always feel the need to over-complicate things? 

The love exists in those that stayed, the light shines in the sun and the stars every day and the ocean under the clouds. Look at the sky (no, but really - look again!), that is for you.

Happy birthday Afifa-in-the-sky, you'll be okay. 

 

Love always,

moi. X

#94 || Weird Goodbyes (feat. Bon Iver)

It’s always  circular, these funks. But this recent orbit has taken longer than before, maybe that is why this dip back into depression has taken me by surprise. The wretched insecurity has been hiding in the tension gathered at the base of my neck, between my shoulders and in my hips.  It is all too rare that I marvel at how far I have come, but simultaneously I feel so heartbroken that there is still where I go when I have nowhere left. I go through waves of pride at my perseverance but the more I learn about the world and all of its complexities, I feel ashamed at how I have over-decorated my heartache. But the one thing that is lurking at the back of my mind is how maybe I am assimilating to those around me, it frightens me more than anything. The thought of being boring absolutely petrifies me. I feel like I am disappearing but not how I ever imagined that I would. As I grow older, the more people I meet and stories I hear, I realise how unimpressive I am. Is the answer to accept that fact or to try and change it? The problem right now is that what I want doesn’t align with what I think I should want, so there is always this underlying sense of guilt accompanying me wherever I go and this apologetic feeling for existing and being the way that I am. I’m sorry that I am too quiet, too brash, too dull, too particular. If you could only see inside my head, if you knew how hard I try every single day – I promise I wish I wasn’t this way. How do I stop feeling like I am deceiving the world about the kind of person I truly am?

 

Yet, in my heart of hearts I still believe that this year is going to be extraordinary. In many ways, it already has been. The places I’ve gone and the places I still have yet to go, the one magic moment that I am manifesting that will surmount anything that has ever happened to me, that moment is still waiting to transpire. So if the inability to like myself is truly the only thing that is irking me at the moment, I do want to celebrate all the other hurdles that I have overcome. I had the enormous privilege of reuniting with some kindred spirits earlier this year and creating memories that a year or so ago I thought would never be possible, I visited and re-visited cities that I thought I never would and plan on wanderlusting a whole lot more. The freedom of my life right now is something I don’t want to seem ungrateful for, because even though half a life-time ago I thought I would be somewhere and someone totally different to where and who I am now, it is still for the better and for that, I am so thankful. 

 You are who you choose to be, Afifa-in-the-sky.

#93 || Starry Haze, Crystal Ball

'Take-Off And Landing'

 

Perhaps my grad dip was a big effing waste of time, because I don’t love airplanes anymore. The static, the humming, the sound of wind being mechanically propelled into the atmosphere and wheels thumping against the tarmac are all associated with the souls that abandoned me. I don’t think I think about them individually as often as I used to, over time they’ve merged into an achy blur but it still stings the inner corners of my eyeballs when I let my mind wonder why. Why wasn’t I worthy of rememberance? That feeling of feeling so loved and then it all disappearing in an instant - the epitome of too good to be true. Nothing lasts forever. I used to dream of a heart this hard but now I’m scared it will never be soft again. “I love you” doesn’t sound the same leaving my lips as it did before. It is still sincere but I don’t feel it like I did before, I don’t feel the circumference of my heart tugging in every corner, I don’t feel desperate, and I can’t imagine ever feeling like that again.

My life up until now was derived by daydreams that I turned into reality all by myself, and as spectacular as that sounds, it has been at the cost of a lot of sadness and disappointment. But acknowledging this gives me confidence in plotting my next chapter, because I’ve always made it happen and that is what is so special about me, that is my superpower. I create my own current, I am in control even when it seems like I’m not and I am an entity entirely on my own.

While my heart is hard, it can feel warm and I think a lot of things do make me feel warm, which is equally incredible. It’s the momentary love, free from promise and chagrin, free from betrayal. It is the unspoken I-love-you’s, it’s the ease and comfort of coming home to wash the day away and wake up in my cloud-like bedroom as a new little baby bird.

Did this even make any sense? Watch this space.

XOXO, Afifa

#92 || Emergence-Sea

emergence | ɪˈməːdʒ(ə)ns |
noun [mass noun]
1 the process of becoming visible after being concealed: I misjudged the timing of my emergence.

The ladies in the office tell me about their daughters. As they speak my fingernails press into my palms and I hold my breath, wondering if this is the moment I will be made for the fraud that I am. A quasi-adult smearing concealer on her face with her fingers, before standing in front of her wardrobe trying to figure out what people wear to work on a Monday morning. As they speak of electives and hormones and evening spats before bed, an ache twinges in my heart when I remember being in the thick of adolescence, a phase I’ve never quite managed to escape. Teenage insecurities seem to have followed me into my thirties, finding any excuse to regress to the sullen, solemn little girl and on the bad days, it’s the only thing I feel like I have the potential to be. I murmur my sympathy as I remember my youth, a sentence made unbearable by none-other than myself.

I could describe it like a tamper, depressing my core beliefs into a compact sliver. Every feeling that somehow had to become a secret, simmering at the tip of my tongue, sometimes spilling out under the stars, encouraged by sips of red wine. I don’t remember any instance where I haven’t regretted unlocking the chains of my inner-self, I recall fragments of my heart left woven in the forgotten memories of souls I was foolish enough to believe were kindred. After all these years, I don’t think such a thing exists, I feel condemned to an archive of aquaintances. For the rest of my life.

2022 feels unimpressive, yet I have found this rhythm that is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It might be my own taste of adulthood :: bills, car keys and wilting leaves of basil in the refridgerator beside cartons of vanilla oat milk and pears that I bought in June. I fall asleep with the television on, the flickering of light from the living room lulling me to dreamtime next to a cold cup of herbal tea. I didn’t think I’d be so lonely all these years later, I thought it was just a phase.

[ i can't believe i haven't written here in over a year. updates: i don't really think about her too much anymore, not like that. i don't really think about anybody very much. REMINDER: everybody leaves, without exception. don't ever forget that, afifa-in-the-sky!!! ]

XX

#91 || Au Revoir, Pinot Noir

 
 And To Those I Love, Thanks For Sticking Around ;; 

 

It is surreal to think of how much metamorphosis has taken place in the last year or so [exclusive of the obvious]. One year later my heart feels more calloused than it ever has, transfigured by the severity and disregard of the actions and events that transpired, I didn’t know that places so dark and desperate even existed, ready to welcome lost souls into the alcoves of hopelessness. There lies the kind of loneliness that chills your bones, it’s the solitude that keeps your heart beating slow and steady in the moonlight but fast and rapid during the moments you hear the echoes of the declarations of love and longing that were all just lies and falsehoods in the end. At the worst of times I can’t imagine ever giving anybody the key to my heart ever again, but at the best of times there are moments where you are able to forget how they made you feel. Eventually you start believing that you are the way people treat you, that you are ordinary and forgettable no matter how strong and tenacious you are. It’s not about entitlement but it’s about believing at the bottom of your heart that you’re more deserving of how you feel right now.

I miss you every day but if you only knew how much it hurts and how I don't think I have felt as happy as one year ago today when you were in the passenger seat next to me, assuring me this wouldn't be the last time I saw you ["it's not goodbye, it's i'll see you soon"]. I realise now that even in those moments of complete and utter gratitude that I was able to feel loved and important and alive, that it may have been possible to feel even more grateful and savour the present until there was absolutely no more ecstasy left in that very second. To lose it all at once, it’s such an incredible sensation that I think is all too common in this era where everything and everyone is dispensable.

At the end of this chapter, I’m not leaving you behind in the memories of what happened but out of the one last shred of respect I have for myself, I think I need to relinquish the sympathy and fret of how I never want anybody to feel as sad as I have and as I do, and remember that this separation was your choice. I don’t believe that physical absence should engender amnesia because I treasure each and every single soul I have ever met, I cherish your existence and the beating of your heart and the love you bring to this world. At this moment, I know there is love and hope in the sunsets and sunrises, from my mother and my father and my sisters, from my beloved friends across the ocean and the songs and films that articulate what we’re all too ashamed to share. There is no animosity, only amity that for now will rest in the dormant chambers of my head and my heart. I hope one day that I will understand why it had to hurt so much and I hope that I will never make anybody feel this way.

 

 [ au revoir (for now), A xo ]