An Epilogue, and a Prelude
Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts, abuse, depression.
The past few months have been a complete whirlwind, and I have to find space and time where everything isn’t upside down in order to write this blog post. Even when I do, it seems like writing a dissertation: I don’t know where to start. In this case, the next best thing is to start from the middle. It’s a bit of a wonky story anyway.
June 2018: My room is in boxes. It seems as though my whole life, my past, my home, my beginnings are in boxes. I have a strange relationship with Dubai, but I cannot deny that it is my fundamental vessel of knowing the world.
For the past few months, we’ve known this shift was coming, but we had no real idea where our destination was. Now, any mention of the Kingdom of Bahrain and our ears perk up. My sister’s first reaction is excitement: “we’re going to live in an actual kingdom??”
I smirk and explain to her that this makes her a commoner, and it’s nothing grand. She sticks her tongue out at me.
July 2018: The party is wonderful. Kuki’s (my sister) friends come over in the morning, and I have the pleasure of being the cool Older Sister in College. I give them counsel on movie choices and photo editing apps. This giggling bunch of 13 year olds turn our sitting room into a cave of popcorn bits and hilarious stories about that boy in their math tuition (he puts so much gel in his hair, it looks like a wall!!). Cue more giggles. I can’t help but smile to myself and wonder what I was like at this age. Probably just as full of wonder as they are.
My friends show up in the evening. I have written them letters. Everything feels so final. The internet is powerful, I think, but I don’t know if Snapchat streaks will keep our bonds going. With the last six months of my life being so psychologically draining, I have my doubts about all the relationships I’ve ever held close. These school friends are no exception, but once faced with the circumstance of having to let go of my proximity with them - all the memories come flooding back. Evenings spent ogling at boys on the football field, paintings made in the art room in utter silence, knowing stares across the classroom when an opportunity for an inside joke presented itself. Chits passed in class. Carefully curated lists of songs scribbled onto notebook paper for someone who was going through a tough time. Dreams of mansions and multiple dogs and endless sleepovers. Comparing hands after class to see whose fingers were the most stained by all that blue ink.
And all of it to culminate in this. Dinner cooked by my mother, Rick and Morty on TV, and a bunch of flashbacks. One of us is here in a suit: he comes straight here after work. Some of us (almost) lawyers, scientists, designers, programmers, bankers. All of us crazy and known to each other since before we could spell.
We sit on this couch one last time, and cut cake. The party is over, and the house is quiet again.
April 2018: Every bone in my body is pushing me to fling my frail self off the sixth floor. I can’t do this anymore. I cannot be this burden on everyone I love. I have reduced myself to a cavity in a wallet, and convinced myself that I am nothing more. My eyes never leave the floor anymore. I can recognise everyone in college by their shoes, so I know who is going to stop to say hi, and who will push into me like I was never there. Since February, I have barely shown up to my commitments - social, academic, or professional. Nobody has noticed. I spend all day in bed, imagining murals on my dorm room ceiling. This is a slow death I would not wish on anyone. I don’t remember the last time I’ve talked to somebody and they’ve said anything that resonates. Resonating implies feeling. I’ve lost that ability.
It’s an artifical state of being. Even leaves quiver in the wind. Flowers bloom. The stomach of a tiger rumbles. A bear snores in the winter. A mosquito bites. Me, I am a corpse. I do not hear the sound of my own heartbeat. I still have the freedom to cry, to know pain, to abuse myself constantly. I still have the ability to call myself a slut, a liability, a dunce, a fool. This much of myself I retain. All else is lost to the winter winds. And still, all I can think about is how much worse off my parents must be. They’re the ones hit by one man’s decision to liquidate an empire. They’re the ones who have to pay the bills: their own and mine. So I go for job interviews, knowing I will get it and decline, because I have committed myself to watching the murals on the ceiling.
And so one day, all the feelings I have reserved since New Year’s Day erupt in me. My body is quietly convulsing on the floor of my modestly-sized dormitory and I am possessed by Death itself. I imagine it is much like purging. Kind of like I’m forcefully sticking two fingers down my throat so that my gag reflex could somehow choke up my soul and leave me be. Even the One Thought I always use to knock sense into myself in these kinds of situations does not work. I tell myself: your sister. she will never forgive you. how will you forgive yourself if you leave her?
and then, Death speaks, in a raspy, alarming voice: she is old enough. she will be fine. get on with it.
This sends alarm bells to all corners of my brain, and I somehow drag myself out of the room (consciously avoiding looking down) and then knock feebly on the next door. A familiar face opens it: a batchmate I don’t talk to very often. At that point, I must have looked like a sputtering pressure cooker in a kaftan at that point. All tears, unwashed hair and runny nose, I don’t remember much of what happened next but she and her friend took care of me well enough for me to mutter something about sadness and then black out.
The next day, I am invited to dinner with The Girl Who Opened The Door and her father, along with some of her friends. I am unsure. My first reaction is to be embarrassed of my pouring out into her the previous night.
At dinner, I feel safe. After a long time, the presence of an adult who knows what he is doing - a parental adult - comforts me like nothing could. I shake her father’s hand, and my palm goes limp from the exhaustion of last night’s episode. We go to The French Window, and order lavishly. I haven’t seen this much food in a while. I eat until the table is clean and still, I am hungry. I have never felt so tired in my life.
May 2018: In the six months before I turn 19, I have been hit hard in the face with reality, crumbled from a throne I did not know was made of matchsticks, been nearly assaulted twice, and found love in a place I did not know I needed to look in. Things are still tough, but now I have sisters to lighten the load. They are taking me out to dinner on the eve of my birthday. As it seems, our friendship revolves around dinners and doors. The three of us sit down, chat, and toast to us. I still cannot be grateful enough for the strange synchronicity of our lives. They did not have to pick me up out of darkness, dust the dirt off my shoulders, and pretty much carry me until my legs gained feeling again. But they did. They still do.
late August 2018: I wake up at 6:00 AM. I cannot sleep for longer, no matter what time I sleep. My father video calls me, and gives me a tour of the new apartment. I drink my post-work-out tea and smile at the emptiness of it. It’s so much space. So many ways to start over.
