Infinite Ink

An update on this life

When you spend most of your time in your own head, your thoughts are your closest companions. This is both a good and a bad thing. It's good because you stay away from external influences that could set your mood in a bad way, and it's bad because you might stray down a dark path of your own thoughts and lead yourself into a dark mood. Both ways, you can get yourself out of the rut of bad thinking, but it does take effort.

I've tried painting, scribbling, doodling and drawing. I've tried texting, checking social media, and talking to my grandmother on the phone. I read and write. Sometimes I dabble in poetry. Sometimes I surprise myself, sometimes I disappoint myself, but I end up learning something from both experiences. The biggest lesson is that what steps you take for your self care today will have lasting effect several days from now. This can be explained through the simple example of drinking water: if you drink enough water today, you won't wake up dehydrated tomorrow. In this way, little steps build up your foundation of self care and prevent burnout. Burnout is not pretty and is much better avoided. 

Post-Ramadan 2017 and post-Eid, life has settled back into its own routine. 2017 is the year I gave to my own self for my own healing. No big commitments, academic or personal. Certainly nothing backbreaking. I've been getting into cooking for the first time in my life. I got sidetracked by a cold, but I'm getting better and will be taking the reins of the kitchen back into my hands soon. This thrills the family no end. They get excited when I cook. I appreciate their excitement.

I've also brought baking ingredients into the house, mostly for making brownies and the occasional microwave mug cake. The brownies are for regular chocolate consumption and the mug cake is a personal serving made in times of chocolate emergency when no other source of chocolate is available.

The family is pretty much hooked on my tea, to the extent that they don't like the tea that they themselves make and prefer mine instead. This is both inconvenient and flattering. Flattering because they like it, and inconvenient because every time they want tea, it's up to me to get up from whatever I'm doing and make it. I'm fine with the interruptions, though. I'm enough of a tea addict to have tea myself whenever I make some for someone else.

Being back in America, the other day I saw my Pakistani neighborhood in a video and it made me feel homesick for my old home. I spent a lot of years there, so I have a strong connection to it, but I'm fine here too.

I still haven't settled down 100% over here. The milestone that has to happen before I count myself as properly settled in is: going to the gas station or Dollar Store to grab a little something, on my own, driving there and back by myself, just like I used to go to the corner store back in Pakistan. That hasn't happened here yet, so I still feel like there's something lacking.

All my friends are back in Pakistan. Hooray for WhatsApp, in that case. It's my main social connection with my friends these days.

What to write next, I wonder. I'll get back to you on that as soon as I figure it out.