Do I know you?

 This morning, I had a pistachio biscotti with my coffee and it was such a good mouth feel. The biscuit was creamy without actual cream. It is so far one of the best parts of my day. 

HQ's 18 year old niece is staying with us because of family drama with her household. It feels like I've inherited an 18 year old daughter, and navigating this new dynamic in my household is new and different. I'm caught between acting like a parent, and acting like cool aunt. The people-pleaser in me wants to gain her approval, but the eldest daughter in me brings the tough love out. She takes both in stride (or at least I think it's stride; I can't tell sometimes. She is too quiet for my liking). 

I have a love/hate relationship with cooking. Did I ever mention that on here? Never learned it before I was married, and you know when they say koi logon k khanay se pata chalta hai k unka haath hai or something like that. Yeah. That's my sister. That ain't me. Although HQ says I can make a mean baked rigatoni.

Acupuncture yesterday triggered an autonomic reaction and I am officially terrified of my next time. I asked ChatGPT how often I really need to go, and she (he?) said it doesn't need to be every week. That was a relief to read, although sometimes I think ChatGPT is a people pleaser too, and tells us what we want to hear.

We are toooooo dependent on ChatGPT now, it's scary. My favorite things to ask it is "create a hyper-realistic mockup of this room with this furniture in it." I used to tell he/she all my problems and ask it to solve relationship conflicts with my mom and K, my sister; I think that's too much, and stopped doing that. I will use my original neurons and original life experiences and lifetime teachings. And my emotions, which I am trying to reclaim and bring back to the surface.

I deep dived into some of my recent posts and saw that I talked about the unraveling of my family. Well. That has...raveled. Mama Baba are in a stable place. Is it the best place, no. But are they less toxic for each other, yes. And Baba mellowed to a point where he isn't the stereotypical main baap hoon, what I say goes. Is this just how life pans out for every Pakistani child? We have a harder, traumatic, toxic, hostile environment to grow up in, we become hyper vigilant, only to grow into our late 20s and 30s, and have our older parents now be complacent? Did they change, did we change, was this simultaneous, was it gradual? I'm going to go see them today, and take MIL and HQ, for a (hopefully) nice dinner. I should go get ready for that. 

Purging closets and decluttering and clearing things out gives me immense satisfaction. I put two dresses up for sale on Marketplace. I found this old lady looking tunic in my wardrobe and asked chatGPT how to style it; he/she gave me good ideas. I am excited to try it. The day I can get my laptop decluttered and my phone backed up in storage will be the day I'll be invincible. 

Work week starts tomorrow. I will definitely blog about that. Bye. 

Everything in my capacity.

 The inertia I had to bring myself to type in the web domain, is hard to put into words. But I'm here. Disassociated, but here. Adults should be given how-to manuals. How to feel alive and continue to enjoy things while being inundated with the weekly groceries, the monthly bills, the annual car inspections that you swear you just did. 

It's a merry go round and I want to get off. 

Emotional self preservation became disassociation and of course, I didn't feel it happen. It was a slow day to day thing. The people I met in residency and fellowship always spoke about being "jaded" as something to be proud about; it sort of felt like high school again. Cliques, needing to feel like you belong somewhere. I've always been a people pleaser, and the moment I started setting boundaries, I felt everyone's anger; it was disconcerting and an uncomfortable feeling. 

But anyway. Everything I'm talking about above, I've decided to get off the merry go round and also actively slow it down. I will call this era of my life "Reclaimance." I only learnt just now that this is not a word, but it sounds like one, so I will use it. It's a nice word and it has a heavy feeling of "hope is not lost on you."

Infertility is the test I always dreaded, and it's here, and it's everything I have feared. From tests, to very violating ultrasounds every week, to the rise of joy and anticipation and the deeeeeep fall of despair. And the question of: when? Will it even happen? Me and husband are starting our third round in 2 weeks, and I am afraid to be hopeful, but I should be. We're always told that we should protect our heart; but where did that get me? Back to disassociation. I need to let myself feel emotions. When A was pregnant, I would ask her when the due date was; she was protecting her heart too. We had both lost children. Oh my goodness, we miscarried within days of each other. Her husband said "now that's a true best friend." It sounds so morbid but will I be hated if I say...comforting? Because I wasn't alone. And now I feel alone. 

I hate when my phone lights up with a useless notification from NextDoor. I need to go through the "Allow Notifications" part of my phone and switch 99% of them off. 

I'm now a fully accredited physician with an outpatient practice 4.5 days a week...and I am feel like I am going nowhere fast. After 15 years, since 11- O Levels at LGS, through FSc and medical college, and residency and fellowship, I've attained the goal. I am here. Where do I go now? Do I somehow need to get permission to start living life?

In the thirsty acquisitions of experiences, careers, relationships, how often do you step back and simply ask  "where exactly am I heading if I continue down this path? And to what extent does that align with my values and dreams?"

I cry to Noah Kahan and it is the release I need. 

Mama and Baba are old and while I am truly so grateful to help take care of them, I still feel like a child inside and I want to be taken care of. 

Husband always asks me where my favorite place is and at other times, when am I at my happiest, and my answer has always be the same: when I am around the people closest to my heart who feel the most genuine to me and who I can bleed fully in front of. 

I think that's it for now. Pray the inertia goes away and I blog more often. I feel like I've chipped off one section of bark from the tree. 

And anything you need, I will provide

A ride home or an alibi, 

I know the traffic light you can speed right by

Cause the camera's down

And I follow New York plates to the county line

I ignore 'em when they wave on 89

The minute that September hits

I'm going off my medicine, oh

Late August angst and a pointless night, 

Oh, and the feeling of being alive

For the first time in a long time

Deadness.

 Sometimes I feel like life throws curveballs to make it interesting.

I definitely know that when everything is going right in my life, life is very...boring? Don't get me wrong. I am content. I am grateful. And for now, I wish my life was boring.

Because I am currently in this mess of family drama that has dragged me back to the old familiar feeling of despair, dread, and deadness. Knowing that so much is out of my control and so much is painful.

I know desi families were never perfect anyway; toxicity lives under our relative's skins. Even our own. We try as hard as we can to break the generational curses, and on the path to succeeding, we get heckled on the way. And it is also much harder to carve that new road because it hasn't been done before.

My parents are separating. It is something that should have happened a long time ago; mom just didn't have the support. They are so incompatible. My mother is like a roaring lion, and she always speaks her way; I think baba didn't want that. I think he appreciated it from time to time, and spoke proudly of it to other people, but didn't want it shown in the household. But mama is headstrong, opinionated, and had an idea about how she wanted her marriage to be. He didn't fulfill it. Mama was also very naive about marriage in general. That's another blog post another day.

I realized that parents separating will always affect the children, no matter how much older and more settled they are. I'm 32 and in the last leg of specializing. Sister K is 31 and has a thriving career. The other two siblings... 27 and 25 but God knows what they want to do or when they want to settle (another reason for the pain. You cannot save people. You can only love them. You cannot transform people. You can only console them.)

I can understand the logic behind it, and I can definitely say it's the right decision...but now I no longer have a "family home" to go back to. I don't have a maika. I don't have an alternate place to my own home. And it's an unsettling feeling. It's a feeling I don't like. How will our Eids be spent? And our birthdays? Should we invite both mama and baba to things together, or will they fight or not come if the other is coming?

 Our family home is coming undone...literally. We need to sell/get rid of everything in it because they are parting ways. It;s a step nobody prepares you for. And the day mama leaves that house, we will walk with darkened footsteps to my car and I wonder what I will feel. Sadness? Relief that there will no longer be 6 month long fights about mama accusing baba of cheating? Fear that mama will live with me permanently and I lose all my privacy?

These are all valid feelings. These are all plausible feelings. And I'm scared to feel any one of them.

And my relationship with baba is changing minute to minute. He's a great father. I can attest to that. He's a terrible husband. I can attest to that also. How should these statements affect my relationship with him? Let's add confusion to the mix of plausible/valid feelings.

A said to take deep breaths. It's funny but, until I consciously breathe deep, I don't breathe deep at all.

Thank God for husbands that understand.

In the midst of the parent situation, I've been scammed out of $1000 while trying to sell Mom's furniture (beware of Zelleing people you don't know), I have a fellow's case conference to present this week, Daylight Savings happened last night which makes the nights longer, my littlest sister is purposeless and lost and refuses to take my advice, and I go on hospital call for two weeks starting next week.

I want new work sweaters. TJ Maxx. maybe retail therapy will help.

Friendsgiving with husband's twin and wife plus friends next weekend. I am looking forward to it so so so desperately. A night off of life.

You were sunshine, I was midnight rain

You wanted to be comfortable, I wanted the pain

You wanted a bride, I was making my own name

Chasing my fame

Curación.

 Healing is when you forget what his Lahori license plate number is. Yet you have a photographic memory. And you had it memorized back in 2017.

Healing is when you still dream about him, but even in the dream, you call him by your husband's name.

Healing is when you no longer talk to him in the car when you’re commuting to work. 

Healing is no longer knowing or caring what his life is like, but just thinking he’s okay and his parents haven’t died yet. 

Healing is when the future is so bright, you’re looking so forward to it, that the past is starting to get muddled.

Healing is when you check the calendar, and the date of "The End" has passed and you didn't realize it. It wasn't considered a death anniversary anymore. And you weren’t triggered by it anymore. And you don't remember anything. 

The Tug.

 This is such a good song. Listen to it, S. It says Don't freak out, you're only twenty something. It doesn't relate to me, though.

W, you're twenty something in your heart. 

And then that inexplicable tug that I've felt before, happens again. It's always to ethereal music like this. All I can say is. My heart will forever belong to H2.

But my mind will always be my own.

Foggyness.

 My dreams are taking over me. I would hear about people having recurring dreams all the time and never understood. My dreams were always separate, fragmented, and had no connection. Not anymore.

The most common recurring dream is about H. Me and him somehow are still in contact, and we text each other, and when we visit each other in dreams, I am always asking him why it's been weeks since he texted me. In the real world, me and him haven't spoken since October 2018. I don't know what my brain is trying to tell me. Wasn't my closure achieved? I would be a liar if I said I don't occasionally peep onto his Instagram every now and then. I am also 100% telling the truth when I say that I don't obsess over him at all. Having recurring dreams is a nightmare. I don't feel guilty about it but I also don't have any solution, so I want them to disappear.

My dreams in general have been dark and sordid anyway. People I know dying. A lot of crying. 

The final year of residency. Senior. Third-year. Done with my fellowship interviews. Hoping and praying and willing to get the fellowship I want, closer to home. It is so true when people say that money isn't everything. I miss my family so often. Was back in NC for four days and it wasn't enough. I live in a beautiful tropical place that is ten minutes from the beach and I am bored. Because there is only a limit to which I am a homebody and I've reached it. I need socialization. Told Sh about it (never talked about Sh here. Best friend in residency. Met him on interview day and have been tight ever since) and he says "Why didn't you tell me? I just always assumed you were busy." Another friend I recently made said we should hang out soon too. I will take her up on that offer. I've had back-to-back floor rotations, ICU, and now night float and I'm burned out in a not-work-related way. I'm just bored with life.

I wish I was the kind of person that you read about in books, that could dress up and go to a coffee shop and sit on the chair outside, legs crossed and deep in thought, enjoying a croissant and a latte. I have a coffee shop near my house. I always think about doing it. I should do it.

I watched Squid Game. I finished season three of You. Upon A's persistent request, I've started watching Downton Abbey. I like it. Currently on night 6/13 and will watch it once I'm done with this post.

Parents are coming in 10 days to visit for a week. Match Day in December. Then (finally) Iceland in March. Then Coldplay (eeeeeek!) in June. Expensive-as-fuck tickets for that one. Then graduation. So many things to be shivering in anticipation for.

Then why does my soul feel so empty? 

Cuz I've been scared of crowded places,

Come with me, I'll take you home

Pink palm trees.

 Lexapro is way better than Sertraline. Just saying. Lexapro is giving me gratitude vibes. It's making me feel like I am on the outside of my life, looking in, and being appreciative of everything. 

HQ finally has a job (furloughed since June 2020), one that is going to jumpstart his career into gaming and one that will finally make him happy. He was subtly envious of me when I would go to the hospital to take care of patients, because he knew this residency meant everything to me.

Many financial issues got solved. Three months until I'm in my final year of IM residency. Life is good. Life is content. Life is smooth. I am astonished that I don't have things to worry about. Worrying isn't my baseline anymore. It's living. 

You have to play the main character in your own life.

Because if you don't

Life will pass you by.