New girl

So I haven’t really been writing. I know. There are reasons. Maybe good, maybe nonexistent. Please see post below.

There is much self-censoring that goes into being the new girl, if you are (charmingly?) neurotic like me. You’re in a new city doing new things and having new experiences with new people, so yeah – there’s a lot to say. But it’s not that simple. Maybe I’ll say the wrong thing about a new place. Maybe my gripes are petty. Maybe my observations are baseless. And so on. I have a whole mental file cabinet overflowing with reasons to not say whatever it was that seemed important until I sat down to write. So I have waited, and waited, and waited for something both interesting and wildly general to post. There is no such statement.

It occurred to me while riding the subway home this evening that, after a fashion, I write best, and most, about loneliness. I suppose that this comes as no surprise. A girl who grows up with three siblings and a gaggle of parent/grandparent-type figures isn’t built for single life, convert life, twentysomething life, life in a new city, or any combination of the aforementioned afflictions.

So yes, I admit it: life is somewhat lonely here. I feel oddly guilty about not having greater, or more, adventures on my own (and furthermore, admitting as much to you, whoever you are), but that was never really my style. I’m a friend person. A girlfriend-type. Whatever way you choose to put it, my best adventures are had with my near and dear. On my own, I mostly read and write. This keeps me perfectly happy, but it’s not very tempting fodder for my facebook friends.

And I guess this is what gets me about my newness. It’s not that there’s nothing happening; there is. There is lots happening. But it’s not very exciting, most of the time. I’m not romping around the most exquisite scenery having my mind blown by every single new acquaintance I have. Mostly, I slink into the backdrop of scene-y sheesha joints while other people tell each other fantastic stories, discuss common friends, or talk about business. Not having ever worked for a for-profit company, not knowing the right people, and not having adventured lately in South America or the subcontinent, I’m conversationally impaired.

My square-peg-round-hole problem isn’t unfamiliar. It’s the lot of the new girl, unless she is one of those rarely gifted people who makes friends out of anyone and everyone in five minutes. I am not this girl. I am the girl who hogs the sheesha even while she hates herself, because while she is smoking, there is no obligation to make conversation with her neighbors. I am the girl who looks pretty enough to exclaim over, but is a little too hippie-hijabi-student chic to be adopted by any of the female elders of the tribe. Worst of all, I am the girl who pays so much attention to her own misfittedness that she doesn’t pay a writer’s attention to the scene around her (that would require looking up, you understand). I am the girl who waits to be spoken to, waits to make friends, waits for school to start. Surely, this will solve all of my problems – because being (probably) the only hijabi (and almost certainly the only white one) in a class of 750 will make me feel right at home. No. Sweat.

Now I feel all kinds of better.

Still, as much as it is true that I am often the only white Muslim in a group, or the only Muslim in a group, it is not the sum of my demographics alone that makes me, well, different. There are other white Muslims (I’m related to one of them). And there are other hijabis and other law students and other everythings. I can’t just be stuck in a room with another convert and become besties with that person in an afternoon. It’s not that simple – thank God. There is a personal chemistry that makes relationships special and unique – and often renders whatever it was that made us feel out of place a moment ago irrelevant. Of course, the more worlds you place between two people, the harder it is to spin solace in the space between them. But it’s possible to grow up in the same house as someone and end up as strangers – common background doesn’t always translate to common ground.

Maybe that’s the confusing part. There isn’t exactly a predictive pattern to this. What has bonded me to those I have loved best is some constellation of shared ideas, shared experiences, care, respect, compassion, and admiration. Sometimes it is almost all shared ideas and almost no compassion. Sometimes it is lots of respect and no shared experience. But whatever the case is, it’s not something that any one outward thing predicts. Yes, I occasionally feel out of place when I notice that I’m the only white person in sight – but only if I’m not with friends. More often, I feel sore-thumbish in a throng of white people.

I have a love-hate relationship with the mystery of bonding, to tell you the truth. On the one hand, it makes my world a far more beautiful and varied place; I may love someone dearly, fiercely, and yet still be surprised by his/her differentness after five or more years. The inability to discover everything about my friends who have been raised in different countries, or in vastly different cultures than my own, is sweet – not bitter. But it does make finding these people difficult. How am I to know what to look for? I’m not even sure I know precisely what it was that made me me. Does every experience contribute equally? Does my year in Egypt weigh more or less than other years? And what about being a convert? Does the significance of this fade with time, or is it a constant – some part of my identity that is immutably important? I haven’t picked myself apart enough to know.

This time around I find myself lacking in pearls of wisdom. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m not particularly adept at being new – if there is such a skill. I tell myself that the trick is not to lose faith in the face of difficulty. Part of preciousness is rarity. Just because every place and person isn’t as magical as the last, doesn’t mean that I’m a social leper or anything. No one fits the same everywhere. And it is often what is difficult that shapes us into something we weren’t sure we could become.

The fragile familiar.

Familiar is: being crushed against a chest whose shape you have accidentally memorized over two decades of touching. Being so wrapped makes you think that you will melt, or at least never let go. Remembering yourself with a kiss on the cheek – there is something else to do: you have to be introduced to the friends.

Familiar is telling your mother to stop calling you to check on 1) whether or not you’ve met Mr. Right and 2) your new part-time job every day. Too much pressure for news. And then feeling terrible and wanting to talk to her, and calling back to apologize, and hearing her say: I don’t just call for news. I miss you. I want to hear your voice. And you telling her you can’t make a life out of no life, and her protesting that she is the one who doesn’t have a life, so she lives vicariously through your tiny one. And both of you ending up laughing at the race to entertain each other.

Familiar is the feeling of your niece’s small body relaxing against yours and twitching asleep to your hushed lullaby that is actually a pop song. The tiny sigh when she wakes up and looks at you like a stranger. Little hands wrapped around your neck, and kiss after tickling kiss on your collarbone. Balancing her few pounds on your hip in the kitchen. Her laugh when you hold her against you and waltz. Going down the stairs one at a time, down, down, down, stepping backwards, holding your coffee and her toy in one hand, and engulfing her gripping fingers in the other.

Familiar is the sound of your own voice rehearsing a speech you don’t want to give to someone who is not your friend, and after the speech never will be. Wanting to be wanted and knowing that you’re not. Familiar is realizing that disappointment, like elation, is nothing new. You have survived, and you will again. Your own thickening skin, wishing someone would come along who would make those callouses wither and fade. Knowing it’s a fairytale. Wanting it anyway.

Familiar is the curve of your lower lip left in lipstick on the ten-thousandth coffee cup you’ve drunk from, and piles of papers around you in your thirtieth favorite coffee shop. Late nights of drinking coffee and tea, staying up to write or read, and not caring, not knowing any other way to be. Wishing you were a morning person. Your mother worrying about you being out late alone at night. You worrying too, but reassuring her, because what are you supposed to do? Some nights you have to get out of the house. It’s too quiet in here.

Familiar is the loud clicking sound of your high heels on the street, and the embarrassment of coming home late yet again and making a racket on the tile floor of your apartment building when you walk in. Your silent sorry to the people who live by the mailboxes. Shushing your cat as you come in the door so she doesn’t wake your roommate.

Familiar is the dread in your throat when you get two missed calls in a row from your mother. Your first thought now is: either Grandpa or Dad is is the hospital. They both were, too recently. Familiar is your grandfather’s labored breathing, and his telling you you’re pretty, and hugging him every time as though it is the last – because it might be. Familiar is everyone asking how your father is, because they met him, and they worry about him too. Familiar is your father’s advice, no matter the ailment, to focus on work. You feeling annoyed with him when he says it, and thanking him half-heartedly, and then realizing later that you’ll miss those weird things about him when death separates you for a time. Feeling terrible for every undevoted moment, because you will miss it all. What bothered you most will be endearing in hindsight. Hating that you think about that so much.

Familiar is monitoring your own heartbeat inside your chest, and wondering what makes it go. That feeling of it overflowing with affection for the people who have known you for so long that when you do something, they say, of course you did: the people you trust, and are trusted by, despite differences and time apart and failed plans. The eyes of those people, how they look at you and know you. How nothing can take away how you used to tease each other on the bus, and compete, and how that eventually turned into some sort of bond. How seeing them is wonderful, because you can gush, and it doesn’t matter, because they already know. A guaranteed I love you, too.

This is the new part. You pull away and hear the news: a mutual friend’s father has died. Someone you both grew up with, familiar to both of you. One of you has been home for the funeral. You start to cry. You didn’t know the father, but suddenly he is yours, because you are all growing up together or apart and none of you can help it. Because you remember when the mutual friend was a boy, and you had a crush on him, and he had a crush on you back, and he yawned and slinked his arm around you during a slide show in the fourth grade, and you were both so vulnerable – because that boy’s father has died. Because the father wasn’t sick, you’re hearing, it was a fluke complaint at a physical, that led to tests, that led to surgery, that led to a coma, and waiting, and death. Because a fluke at a checkup caught something that almost killed your own father not six months ago. Because life is barreling ahead, and the eight-year-old you once met, and then knew, and grew up with, is standing before you: a man with a beard, looking in his pockets for a tissue because he feels bad that you’re crying. And you’re standing in front of him, a woman who feels like a girl and can’t help it, a woman who can’t get rid of her childlike heart that wants to wrap her small hands around a neck, and be rocked and sung to sleep by anyone whose touch she has accidentally memorized.

Refuge

This one goes out to my brothas and sistas.

It’s possible, at times, to see and feel nothing but the cruelty of the world. It’s possible to feel alone and vulnerable. It’s possible to feel cornered. It’s possible to feel like there is no way out.

The worst one is feeling like there is no one to turn to, no one who will understand, and no one who can help.

The best solution to this sort of problem is friends you didn’t even know you had swooping in over stale coffee at 2 a.m. to say, “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m down. Period.”

I know people who have gone through one, or a series, of bad experiences that would tend to bias a person against some category of people: women, men, some culture, etc. I suppose that it’s tempting to write off the category altogether. I hate men. I hate women. I will never have a _____ mother-in-law. All _____ people want is ______, so I won’t talk to them.

I’ve never fallen that far into my distrust. If anything, if I find that the experiences that cause me to feel vulnerable only endear good people to me more. What would it mean to have good people, if there weren’t any bad ones from whom we needed refuge? Sometimes the best thing a person can do is step up when they’re needed. And the need would never arise without an offending party.

Still, it’s horrific to say: I need you. We really like to feel independent. Perhaps it’s a post-feminism thing. Maybe it’s just my personality. I’ve never thought of myself as reserved, but I recently gave someone the impression that I was – and maybe this is where that comes from. I’m always willing to express a thought, but I’m far more reluctant to say something that might lead to my disappointment. And what could be more devastating than someone refusing to help when you really need it? We’re not sure who is trustworthy – but in a moment of crisis, the line is drawn between  friends and acquaintances. You’re hoping the person in front of you will say, “Yes, of course I’ll do thus-and-such.” But you’re fearing that you’ll hear, “Sorry, I’m just not sure I can help.” There are some people with whom these requests are not problematic: family, best friends. But if none of those people can help – if they want to, but are unable – if they can’t understand – it’s really harrowing to have to go to someone new and untried with a need that must be met. Some things can be weathered. Some things are tough. And some things need to be fixed, and they need to be fixed now.

And that’s where beauty and mercy come in. And how wonderful it is when they do.

It is amazing to me that we fashion these little interdependent communities with each other, and are able to be there for one another, in affection, in mercy, for the sake of God. Because so many of us live far away from our families. So many of us are new in town. So many of us have so many different wants and needs, and for so many of us, it comes down to trusting in God. Sometimes faith in humanity is not enough. Sometimes we lose that – but we are able to turn to God and beg for His mercy, even when we have nothing else, even when we see nothing on the horizon. And He sends these people to us, these brothers and sisters, who can fulfill our needs and fill us with boundless gratitude and wonder at the mercy of people, and their capacity to love and be just – when we were lately so despondent, so distrusting.

Muslims call each other brother and sister. It’s taken on new meaning to me now – and that’s not thanks enough – it never will be – but I hope that for tonight, it will suffice.

The meantime

The other night, a friend asked me if I thought it was possible to be happy while waiting for Prince Charming to show up, bang down the door, and whisk me up in his arms:

Gee, he looks about fifteen…that might be a problem.

This certain friend of mine, who is absolutely lovely, is, a little lovelorn at the moment. We’ve all been there. When the last person to walk out the proverbial door seemed like he (or she, as the case may be) was (okay, almost) everything you’ve ever wanted, the temptation is to brood a bit. To dwell on it. If only…

If only I had a nickel for every time I’ve sighed and thought if only, I would be able to afford a much nicer apartment.

My if onlys started right around the time I turned eighteen. That was the first time I got my heart properly broken into a billion tiny glittering pieces. I was a traditional if onlyer back then, and it took me about a year and a half and the most awful trip to Italy in the history of tourism (that story I’ll save for another time) to realize that I was better off as I was: single.

Alone, alive, alert, AMAZING!

Now, if you’ve been reading these posts, you probably realize by now that I’m not the world’s least romantic person. So it’s not as though I’m completely unenthusiastic about sonnets, or Italy. Or princes [note: princes must be much older than fifteen to inspire enthusiasm]. What I mean to say is that the time I spend sighing and piddling around my apartment waiting for my life to start is significantly diminished. Okay, maybe I have a few weak Sunday mornings, when I’m alone in the apartment and there’s no one to go to brunch with. Maybe those days I have a few pigeon-toed, wistful moments while I’m waiting for my tea to brew.

I know he’ll show up someday…but if it were today, that would be awesome.

But these moments have not commandeered my whole life, thank God for that.

Things are hard to appreciate when they’re right in front of your face. There’s a reason that Joni Mitchell is popular. This poor lovelorn friend of mine is getting over her first…serious involvement with a guy. I won’t call it love. But anyway, poor thing, there’s no end in sight. Maybe the first time is always like that.

I recently reread some of the journal I kept during my first epic heartbreak. I was the lovesickest puppy in town. Man oh man did I have it bad. I recorded dozens of bright, hopeful moments between us, things that haunted me, things that I couldn’t get over. And I relived them. And obsessed about them. For like, ever. Mind you, most of these delightful things happened during the first two weeks of the relationship. Those were the happy times. First date and all that jazz. Throw in some angsty folk music, a few springtime hikes and a sunset dinner in a tiny French restaurant, and almost any girl will fall for the nearest reasonably attractive single male. Alas, I was not the exception. These loverly things were followed by an awkward summer, an insecure fall, and a miserable, miserably long winter. And still it didn’t occur to me that maybe this guy wasn’t Prince Charming disguised in a pair of stripey overalls.

What. An. Idiot.

I pity my eighteen-year-old self. Wretched girl! I wasted all that time pining for some narcissistic fool who couldn’t go a whole hour without insulting me. But that was the best I’d had it, so I thought it was the best there was. I’m convinced that this is the misfortune of first love. It’s all fun and games until someone can’t let go. And someone always can’t let go.

This friend of mine is having some trouble letting go. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t work out and we can tick off several reasons for that on our reasonable fingers. The vacuum of flattery is consuming her attention. Meanwhile, she and I drive around belting out happy love songs in my car, make each other very tasty tea every morning, and carefully dissect our days together before retiring. We model our best dresses for each other, share perfumes, read each other favorite pieces of literature, pray together, eat together, study together, dream together. Last night, we sang along to a Disney ballad (and no I will NOT give you the satisfaction of knowing which one) and spun giggling circles in my living room. And yes, I was wearing a smashing cocktail dress and stiletto heels at the time. The point is this: while she’s yearning for her lost admirer, life is happening. And life is good.

Beautiful friendships are under-appreciated. I wish I had paid more attention to mine, when I was eighteen and stupidly, stupidly in love. My friends had a lot more to offer me, and I brazenly ignored the fact that I was much, much happier with them than I was with my overall-clad chap. I had a friend whose entire room was plastered in Absolut ads (each one different, mind you). She called me “Mang” for a forgotten reason and had a penchant for burritos and Simon & Garfunkel. She wore all black the day the last episode of Seinfeld aired. I can’t remember a single afternoon we spent together that I didn’t laugh so hard that I couldn’t stand up. Another friend of mine used to run through giant leaf piles with me in the fall, would dance to any Shania Twain with me, and never made me feel anything less than a fascinating person. We used to go for long drives. I could spend any amount of time with her and never get sick of her. We never, ever fought. I had the kind of mythical good friends that exist in movies, or Nickelodeon sitcoms. And yet I managed to let a bad relationship get me down – and keep me down. Why didn’t I ask the same of him that I enjoyed with them? I don’t know why I didn’t hold the happiness bar higher. I would have been better off if I had.

Friends take us as we are. It’s not complicated. I love my friends, and it’s not hard to love them. They seem to love me back, and they don’t act like it’s a chore. But finding a romantic attachment of this nature is rare. It’s the Bigfoot of relationships; it’s out there, but the images we have are so grainy and overexposed that no one believes the witnesses.

But it could be a bad relationship in disguise!

Everybody says that you’re better off single than in a bad relationship, but for some reason this is hard to ingest. I don’t know if it’s the ego-stroking that comes hitched to romantic attachments, or the feeling of being wanted, or what. I’ve had some pretty legendarily bad romances by now, and the truth of this has finally (thank God, thank God!) wiggled its way into my head. And I’m happy. Happy! Imagine that. I’m happy not to be under the boot heel of a less-than-generous man, and happy to be busy making myself the sort of girl that the sort of guy I’d dig would like to sweep off her feet. (How’s that for a garbled sentence?)

Of course I won’t object if Prince Charming shows up. Unless he’s fifteen, in which case I will slam the door in his face. But until the day the non-jailbait, non-cartoon version comes a-knockin’, there’s plenty to enjoy. Including the fact that I’m not too busy pining after some overalls to hear the door.