'Cause Pigs can Fly

There are various things scattered around me. Some just a metre or two from where I stand. Others further away. Boxes that hold their shape, blobs that look like jelly. Different colours and different sizes. They all represent something. Work, studies, love, friendship, a house of my own, the kind of life I want to live in, pets, wine, money, good mental health, freedom to do whatever I want, a space of my own. Some of these things I want, others not so much. But there they are, scattered on the floor around me. They all seem like things I can have. Things I can just walk up to and pick up. If I choose today that I want a house of my own, all I have to do is take those five or six steps towards that purple blob and pick it up. So simple. The first step is not a problem. But with the second, I hit a wall. Strange, because I see no walls. I reach towards the invisible barrier and realise I’m in a glass box. A few things, boxes and blobs, are inside. And I can pick them up. I can ha

When I was 21, a boy – or should I say man? – I wasn’t particularly fond of told me he liked me and because beggars can’t be choosers, I decided to give it a shot. When my mother got wind of this or maybe I just told her, she discouraged it, saying he was not suitable for me. She had a point. We were seated in the veranda when we had this conversation. It was past 7pm and too dark for us to see each other’s faces. A blessing, really, because I already felt so exposed. I remember saying, “I deserve to be happy.” A few days later, I told this boy I didn’t really like him and we ended things and he went on to find happiness elsewhere. Prior to this, I had only had one other person show any interest in me and he too, found happiness elsewhere. Since then, I’ve mostly remained by myself, convincing myself and those around me that I didn’t need a relationship or love. But I kept searching for happiness, because by then, the unhappiness I had felt since my teens had become a compa

Summer is not a season I’m familiar with. Autumn, winter, spring, none of them are. We have the monsoon and the warm weeks leading up to it. Perhaps the end of summer is like those final weeks of unbearable heat before the skies unleash on us rain and thunder, making us long for those drier days. We have been in lockdown for a month. This month feels like a year because during the weeks leading up to it, there was some form of self-imposed lockdown most of us practiced. With the exception of a handful of outings, to drop off food, visit my father, get vaccinated, or buy groceries, my life has been limited to the rectangular plot of land we have lived on all my life. Walks to the back of the garden to burn trash or pluck a lemon, running to the gate to accept a delivery, these are the extent of my travels. I even missed the occasion of my brother’s marriage because it would have been wrong to go. I have been telling myself that all this was done because it is the right thing to do

The truth is, I want to feel the same things that other people do. I want to be able to date people or be in a relationship without frantically looking for exit signs from day one or fearing physical intimacy because it makes me feel like I'm not even human. I want to be able to flirt without worrying about mixed signals and I want to be able to enjoy a quiet night with someone without my mind cranking up the volume on my inner thoughts. I want to be able to feel something, anything when someone touches me. I don't want to think of a future alone, deprived of one of the simplest joys in life. The truth is, I really do want to build a life with someone. I want to love and be loved. I want companionship, someone to talk to when it is 2 in the morning and I can't sleep. I want to know someone inside out. I want to love them so much it hurts. But I want to love them so much I don't want to leave, to run, to flee. And I want to stop having to pretend I'm okay with the ca

We are all lonely, a friend once told me. It felt like a confession. Admitting to one’s loneliness becomes somewhat difficult as one moves towards their late 20s. This is, of course, based on mere observations and experiences. Admitting that you are lonely is somewhat easy when you are in your late teens and even your early 20s. It’s easy because you either claim you are a lone wolf and prefer being by yourself or you still have some hope that these difficult years will lead to better times. There’s somewhat of an invitation in that “I’m lonely.” You are inviting people into your life, challenging them to prove you wrong. There is also the difference between feeling lonely and being alone and the line is blurred when we are younger. But when you get past your mid-twenties and move towards those years where people expect you to settle down, get married, or start a family, admitting that you are lonely is more a confession. It can be an admittance of failure of some kind. It’s a

I've never understood why people do this. What good does writing to one's past self do? They can't change anything. They can't prepare for what's to come. But I think it's less a warning and more a reflection. It's more about talking about your life, your feelings, your experiences, your mistakes from a different point of view. You create these different people. Characters of a story. Sixteen-year-old you is just a character. Present you is just a character. And you talk with honesty because it's a conversation between two characters. You are a bystander in this situation. You remove yourself from the equation. So here goes. You wrote this in 2016. " It's sad when people go from being part of your daily routine to someone whose life you only know through their Facebook posts. It's even sadder when you realize that the distance between you and people you once considered part of your life was created not by them but by you, through your fear o

For most of my teens and perhaps my early 20s as well, I hated that my parents weren't together. I was somewhat embarrassed as well, because until my late teens, I couldn't even talk about it openly. Family was always depicted as parents who are together and their children. It didn't even have to be an opposite sex couple. Whatever combination of male, female, nonbinary, cis, trans, etc. the parents were partners. So I felt like my life would never be complete because my parents were not married to each other anymore. They got divorced when we were kids. And for most of my life, all I've known is living with my mother and visiting my father. Somewhere down the line, his wife entered the picture. As I got older, not having parents who are happily married became acceptable. In fact, it was rarely that someone would say their parents are still married and still happy in that marriage. Now, as I embrace my late 20s, what I can say is this. My parents aren't happily marr