Written on the Red Bike
What is so different between “me” in two years ago and current “me”? I am 25 and I've never felt this much lost. I have no idea what I want to do with my life and how I want to do it. If I should enjoy my 20s or I should start taking things seriously for a better future? One of the things that I lost in between is "writing". I used to write. A lot. Putting myself in words and expressing myself in every possible way. Pendency among three languages made me lose the ability to declare myself even in my own mother lingua. I took it for granted that it might be a good thing to not write and think about every little single thing for a while and live my life. Dancing instead of writing! Who doesn't like that? I did. I enjoyed every little time that I was throwing away my old self for a new one. There were some moments though. Some sober moments that I felt I'm losing my identity, the continuous understanding of a concept known as "self/ego". I felt the need to establish something. Something that helps me to read myself more clearly. I tried to write again, didn't come to me. Tried to read again, didn't feel the desire. Tried to watch something, fell asleep in between. Tried to think, words were not there to help. Now I'm facing a resentment that I can't figure out. It's been a while since I'm feeling it. I'm afraid of getting stuck in the same repetitive patterns because I haven't taken the time to understand myself. I want to let this new me transform through me. I want to feel it, know it and get along with it. How? By putting myself in words that I don't think with them.
English, all the sentences that come to my mind from now on has to pass from this filter. However, dear hypothetical readers, I don’t know what I am writing. I just know that most desire I have at the moment is to write, to elaborate myself, therefore, to read myself in the hope that may this suffering rest since that’s all I am feeling these days. I am feeling weak. I don’t have a firm foundation on which to base my live. I can’t find something that I am good at as someone asked me about it recently. I can’t find something that I can relate to or identify myself with and I am also losing the ability of being alone, by myself. The thing that I used to be a master at till two years ago.
two years ago, it was the first year of living abroad. So intense. Partly because when I left home, I knew where I was leaving but I had no idea where I am going to. I had given up all my life and friends back home just to rebuild myself. A decision that didn’t seem worthy after a while. I was surrounding myself with questions that why left? Was it really a good decision? Was it my decision or I left because I was seeing all my friends leaving? Was I also part of that wave? The harder the situation was getting the fancy of a place called home was getting stronger and tougher. Finally, after a year I could go back home. Never been that enthusiastic about something. Didn’t take me long to see that fantasy is collapsing. On my way back to bologna, the only promise that I made was that I don’t want to live the way I lived last year. “This is the place you’re living now, and you have to start making your own community” told myself.
Looking back through past months, ever since I came back to bologna from Iran (15th February 2022) all I was looking for was “connection”. Being in touch with as many people as possible to fulfill that thing that I was missing back home. As might be expected, this got to the point that I lost the ability of being alone and enjoying my own company. Needless to say, I am not having a healthy relationship with myself at the moment either. Thought and anxiety are the first things that come to me when I am on my own. The battle among logical “me”, toxic “me” and thousands of other “me” starts. The battle that is too difficult to survive from without any self-sabotage. The battle that makes me weaker and shakier every time. The battle that ends on embracing weep. me? I am exhausted. I am exhausted of this battel, therefore, isn’t it easier to avoid this process whenever I get the familiar feeling again? Honestly, I am afraid of reliving my past experience and getting hurt. Don’t I have the right to quit this battle?
Quitting, however, not only doesn’t seem like a permanent solution but also is becoming part of the cycle. I kind of new it from the beginning though. Simply thought I could imagine how difficult getting out of this situation would be, but I was wrong. It’s either I was not as strong as I thought I would be, or I was constantly exposed to insuppressible invisible stress that I had to escape from. One get tangled in things that cannot be found, right? That’s why I am writing. I want to write things so that I can find things in a glance, in a spark. I want to write things so that I can have everything in front of me. I want to write things so that I can touch my internalized conversation in order to break them.
I am going to write about my mom. About her friend who burned herself. About how she dealt with her disease. I am going to write about the village she grew up in, the one that I was born in. the village which is still present in my life. Yes, geographical determinism has swelled me, my mom and my sisters into a bigoted village. I am going to write about my father and his figure. I am going to write about my oldest sister. The one who basically raised me. I am going to write about my brother and last world cup. I am going to write about two other sisters of mine. I am going to write about me. My childhood, My university, when I decided to leave the country, when I moved abroad, here, bologna, Ventimiglia, people that I met, people I fell in love with, things that I felt, things that stopped me, things that empowered me, conversations that hurt me, my course, my classes, my oral exams, the sense of inferiority, the sense of not being white, the sense of being one of the people of color among white ones, being called pretty while I haven’t felt it, third position, being in relationships, being weak, getting rejected, trying, failing, escaping, partying, aperitivo, sex, stresses, dreams, mirrors, swimming, friendship, Sara, dancing, home, Iran, woman, life, freedom, blood, distance, blood, my people, blood, my sisters, me, blood, revolution, blood, news, blood, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, blood, mind, blood, not being stable, stability.
