Burning out
A year on, I am still living on the 12th floor of the same building where I lived with my two friends since I moved to Sharjah. The three of us occupied apartments of exactly the same layout, but scattered between even and odd floors. I was in the middle floor. I am nowhere now. They left the country the same year. We had exactly the same view. Now it is just mine.
From my very narrow bed, so narrow that everyone makes fun of its size, I gaze outside at the sunset. I see the creek and cranes. I see building blocks made of permanent reinforced concrete housed by temporary people and broken families. Recalling Hopper’s admiration for windows, I gaze at and outside mine every day in a monotonous manner. I never had visitors. I barely see anyone around at all. Laying over the glitchy bedsheet that mama brought me from home, I am thinking about the fact that I often befriend people so fast or befriend none at all. I don’t have a certain routine over there. I seldom do new things. I also seldom get a good sleep. It is not the bed.
I grew up in a big a family. I barely had to spend time alone around our house; no matter who is outside, someone had to be around. I also had many schoolmates around me but very few friends. My friendships were often gone faster than they’d come. I was that student sitting alone in the double desk. I was seldom even but I liked occupying the who deskspace alone. I spent most of my elementary school years sitting by myself. I’d frequently overhear my parents say things of how untroublesome and easy it was to raise me as child because I was so good at just spending time there, all by myself.
Summer of nineteen ninety nine, after a swimming practice, everything started to sound quieter and I learnt how to (day)dream. I liked it a lot back then but now I hate it; as much as I missed out. I grew up straining far behind everybody; and now I have to spend my whole life running while everyone else is just talking a walk.
Winter 2011, the silence was, metaphorically, interrupted. It was hard to be alone. I was surrounded by dozens of people and millions of spirits. I was struck and I was overwhelmed.
The three years that followed, I lived in a bubble, crammed with everything I have ever learnt. I was happy to finally find my voice. The whole country found theirs.
Then we lost.
It became silent again, but it was not the same. It was also dark. I was still living in the bubble, except that I was stuck this time. It was not the kind of silence that I could settle down in. I went crazy. I literally started talking to strangers in the street like a maniac. But people were as lunatic as I was, they confided in me. I didn’t look at all crazy, not like I wasn’t, but I was not the only one.
Two thousand and fifteen, two thousand and sixteen; my mind went blank.
Summer of 2017, I had a university degree and a profound apprehension of how hard I am going to be crushed under the feet of adulthood. I was not pessimistic; I had only realised how much space my deafening silence has occupied. I familiarised myself with the feeling-palette of loneliness and solitary — then I fell silent.
Winter of 2017, I left home.
I have been gone for one year now. I still vividly remember the first month after I’d left; I was far more alienated and traumatized than I have ever was before. It burnt me out to know how for the first time in my life ever, I was rather scared of being alone than lonely. It burnt me out to realise that I was both at once.
Today, I am still burning out.
