iss shehar ne thaka diya hai

You don't know how fast you’ve been running until something stops you and tells you to stop, breathe, and look around. I was drowning, I was suffocating, I couldn’t breathe, and coming here felt like someone saved me. When you’re in an ocean, the deeper you go the darker it gets. You keep going deeper and there comes a space when it almost seems like a void of darkness. That’s all there is, black. Though if you still continue going deeper and you see light. I’ve been drowning for so long that I couldn’t seem to swim anymore. I was drowning and someone grabbed my hand and forced me to push against the water and come back up.

It’s been two days, I’ve walked with the sun embracing my body and the wind jostling me around, whispering to me, “the world is kinder than you know, just reach out and feel it.” There is hope in kind strangers who let you first in the line because you have fewer items, there’s hope in people who let you share baskets in airports because you both forgot things, there’s hope in a bakery where a salesman tells me he recommends a cake to everyone because those are his favourite and there’s hope in my aunt and I running in circles at a grocery store and a saleswoman laughs and points us both to each other.

There’s love and hope and kindness in each of us. There’s love in nourishment and the act of feeding people. There’s kindness in a cup of tea with sugar, just for you and there’s light in the stars. There is light in people and sometimes you just need to step out. I wash my hands in warmth and consume love in a slice of a truffle cake and a quiche, and cut fruits. If the world was ending this is where I’d want to be, loved. I wish I could live in this love.

I also want to talk about a few things this struck within me. I realised I cherished being left to my own devices, the freedom to just exist and be the person I want to be. I think it told me that I am allowed to choose a better life for myself. I can be better, I can want better. I don’t need a bunch of explanations, I can just do things simply because I wanted to. I’ve also realised there’s always a way. A lot of times I feel like I try to control things a lot, yet I take every moment as it comes. So I am a contradiction myself. I think everyone gets stuck in a mindset that maybe I’m being too ambitious. I’m not, you’re not, if you really want something to happen it does happen. There's always a way around blocks, sometimes you just have to jump over it. You can make it happen, the world makes it happen for you if you just pay attention. My life has just begun, I get to go wherever I want to with it, because it's just us anyway.

I love my city, it’s one of my homes. It’s where I met my people, where my best memories happened but also where I have a graveyard of grief where I get stuck sometimes. I want to be unstuck. I am going to be unstuck. I want more. I am going to get it. I spent way too much time being a ghost and I want to go home now. I want to grow, I want to leave, I want to be relieved. I've had a glimpse of what life can be, if I choose that, and sometimes that's all it takes. One step at a time. At the end of the day, what is home if not the first place you learn to run from?

all the love,

Almas.