Names of Endearment

 

“People will kill you. Over time. They will shave out every last morsel of fun in you with little, harmless sounding phrases that people uses every day, like: 'Be realistic!'" - Dylan Moran

I am nobody,  two weeks before I was officially due, born in a disaster,  one of the biggest earthquakes my country will know. The epicenter isn't far.  My alloted hospital is a pile of rubble. My mom is greeted  by a candle held in the doctor's hand as she is lead into a low laying room with a broken window where she brings me into this world.

I am a year and a half, we move away to a big city, I will have no memories of my birthplace.  

 I am three years old. The teacher comes in our our first day of Pre school to find me alone and upset. She hands me a book that makes sounds and that becomes the only recollection I have from that era of my life. 

I am six now. I run around in the howling rain and strom with my weak umbrella with the sole purpose of turning it inside out. 

I have a friend in school with the same initials as mine, he comes upto me asking me to be a part of the SSSS team. He will be etched in my mind as my first crush. 

I am seven. My year is now counted in parties and hosting dozens on people in my home. My birthday,  then my sister's.  Then comes Christmas and we start again. Rooms filled with gifts and the entire building reverberating with laughter of all the children  that reside there. Not a single child remains uninvited. 

I am the fastest runner around and I am sought after when we play games in the playground. I can hide and I can run, the only two qualities that decide superiority when you are a child.

I am eight. We are allowed to wear fancy things for our birthday at school. I wear my favorite red dress, I see my crush in the assembly ground and I feel like a queen.

I am nine. Sitting in the terrace with my sister and my best friend. Torrential rains in front of us while we eat instant noodles that burn our tongues, It will become my favorite childhood memory. 

I visit my grandparents every year. I have always loved to fly but suddenly I'm  being flown away from the only city I've ever known  to a small city that I didn't know existed  a couple of months ago. I cry in the maze of bubble wrapped furniture that takes up my precious terrace on this seventh floor flat. All I've known will disappear within weeks.

I am ten. I meet my new best friend on the first day of class in this new school. It's April fools and it is strange when everyone is pranking you when you don't even know their names. That girl I met will remain my best friend to this date. 

I am eleven.  I visit my grandparents every couple of months now. So much so that we have a toothbrush for all of us at their place. I like that we can be here when they need us in their hardships and hospital visits post operations. 

The rest of the years can be covered sometimes else but most of them have already been recorded on this blog. My point being, I have memories of the smallest things to the biggest of journeys. I have bits and pieces in my mind from seemingly inconsequential events that have passed.

I find myself fantasizing about a house or a home years from now and what it would be like. I find myself thinking about the inconsequential events that could take place from painting walls with a loved one to picking out floorboards of my new home. 

I have loved with my heart on my sleeves and my mind on the backseat. Reckless  and wanting more,  no matter if the thing in front of me was animate or not. 

I have loved not only boys then men but also streets in a different city, a museum that I went to on my own, nights spent in a karaoke bar with friends, and nights spent telling those stories to my other friends. From drives with my father when he taught me how to drive to plane rides and sunrises, sunsets and the ocean, books old and new, a view from a hill to views from a hotel room that I slept in with a man I will never see again. 

I have always been someone who  can make the most mundane things seem romantic. Realism, for me, came out of necessity and self preservation rather than a wanted change. I have always  been a romantic but I never included  any of those things that you read about above into my definition of romanticism. I have since learnt that love can be so much more. I always thought of it as a linear, one track thing. You have a significant other and you love them. You have a family and you love them. Youu have friends and you love them. But this couldn't have been farther from the truth. 

You also love adventure and you love being curious. You love thinking of things that might never happen and you love that gift that you got so long ago. You fall in love with cities and places, with nature and nurture. You love the way the light touches your face when the day comes. You love food you've had your entire life and you love the clothes you bought from the flea market. And most of all you will learn  to love love, in all it's forms and glory. And you will realize that you are a romatic, without the need for romance (Though it'd be nice to have both.)

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With love and affection 

S