She Says

Dear Diary,

Turns out I have trouble keeping up with promises and let’s be honest perseverance was never my strong suit. It’s been way too long since I visited this world that I created and tucked away oh so conveniently, coming to visit only when I’m lonely. It’s selfish, but I’m just a human and that’s second nature to me. I’m honestly not sure where I’m going with today’s entry, but I guess we’ll find out.

Lately life has been mellow. It hasn’t been bad enough that crying and worrying about it feels embarrassing and not good enough that my mind is at peace. But lately I’ve been thinking that maybe we never really get to the later phase? I mean as humans we seldom tend to be satisfied with what we have, and even if we do there’s this weird feeling at the back of the head as if we’re missing a train that’s going somewhere and served with a side of guilt.

Hustle culture has been so normalized that I’m in constant state of “guilt” for wasting away my youth not working hard enough. Some days I want to embrace this hustle culture just to see what I’m capable of or what my limits are but on other days I feel suffocated by this pressure. Am I an unambitious lazy bum? Or do I have no desire to live a life of such grandeur and am content with whatever pockets of happiness life has to offer? I keep switching between the two from day to day.

My friend told me recently how she feels like she doesn’t have a home anymore. The new city she recently moved to certainly doesn’t feel like home nor does her hometown where she grew up in and spent most of her childhood and teenage years. It’s the same for me. The new city I’m in hasn’t offered me enough to feel like home, but my hometown doesn’t have enough to feel like home. In the new city I have a couple of spots around (like a chai spot or a grocery store) that feel like home, like they’ve invited and accepted us here. In my hometown, I have my home and family and people who speak the same language as me but somehow that’s still not enough. I still don’t have a spot around the city that I sneak away to when I’m feeling blue. Or friends I run to when I get bored. It’s weird and pretty unusual when you think about it, a place that I associated major part of my life with, still doesn’t have something for me to stay. I still feel homesick even when I’m home. Will I ever feel at home?

I met a guy recently who moved to the same city as I did, but didn’t find any sense of home here, just as I didn’t. He said “it’s not about the place, it’s about the people”. That’s so true! So much in life is more about the people and the memories they bring with it than the geography or the location. Me and my friends from college used to discuss how college was a living hell except for the fact that we met each other (we’re all cute like that).

I recently read a book by John Green called “The Anthropocene Reviewed”, where he talks about how smells are connected to memories in one of the chapters. It resonated with me so much because sometimes I get a familiar smell and get teleported to a certain moment in time. It’s crazy. The smell of a fabric softener reminds me of my college roommate/ best friend because she used to pour it generously over all of her laundry. The smell of sweaters reminds me of my grandma, the smell of oranges reminds me of sunny winter morning sitting in the balcony and sharing oranges with the family, the smell of sweat and cologne reminds me of my dad. It’s always the most mundane, insignificant & random things that make me nostalgic. I wonder if I too have a specific smell/ song/ object that remind people of me. If so, does it make them happy when they think of me? Or does it put them off? Is it the good memories that they are reminded of or is it the painful ones?

Love,

Shesays