feelings are a lot of work

a journal entry

a lot has been happening lately in my life, and i’m in a great mood relatively, so i must write it all down before the dedication wears off. to start off, i just turned 25 this august and had my first international travelling experience to the states. to say the least, i am not quite proud of the place i chose for my trip due to the political landscape and you know it all, who likes america? on the other hand, i lived my childhood dream which was fuelled by the curiosity of american cinema, music, art, not to mention noam chomsky and how the world works, in reality. the american lifestyle of a dog-eat-dog world, where labourers are treated better than our third-world country, every job is respectful and if you earn your money, keep your individuality, no one would bat an eye. well, i’m not feeling too wonderful about stepping into the quarter-life crisis but that’s for some other time. now that i recall and look back, i was travelling alone with extreme ibs flare ups, severely lacking the ability to focus in the last couple weeks. my brain has been so foggy and my body has been so weak that i felt like i contracted reoccurring typhoid. i also blame my bipolar but my psychiatrist says that i’m stable without drugs now (i came off of them a few months back after a good three & a half years, phew what a journey that has been). he tells me everyone with bipolar feels like this but you just have to do it, and was sweet enough to root for my trip, which gave me quite some strength. even when i know he’s right but it felt really hard to manage and regulate not having a manic or depressive episode, always on a look out for one, being in total sync with my sanity to figure out symptoms if i develop any. i mean, i am a victim here, i need to be taken care of but have to do it myself? self-awareness, i tell you, is a blessing and a curse. given i have travel angst on top of all my ailments that i had, i am grateful that my mental fog didn’t make me feel too scared or jittery or anxious, somehow i’ve gotten to handle anxiety to some extent where it doesn’t meddle with my general functioning.

i wanted to write about all this because maybe you’ve also had the desire to go to someplace, be whoever you want to be, masking your identity in a way you like, to be recklessly enjoying life - a new country, new people, new experiences. when it does become an experience, when you look back and despise yourself for feeling lonely amid people from different nationality, different way of living, other rules and in that moment you feel bad about missing home, i mean, you wanted to escape home, but here you are back to square one wanting to go home, like a baby feeling homesick. wanting to have one good meal of real rajma chawal, not some nri version of commercialised indian cuisine, where the food is bland and may or may not mess with your tummy too. sorry, i keep talking about food, maybe it’s my condition and i have been devoid of real food or maybe it’s the first thing you miss in a different continent.

“so here you are, too foreign for home, too foreign for here, never enough for both.”, as what ijeoma umebinyuo emphasised on in questions for ada. a disconnect in my realm, it was then these words hit home, suddenly my thoughts almost feel too present, like i am thinking more about right now than i ever have before and i don’t know what to do with that. being bipolar is practically my soul identity, i don’t remember most years of my childhood and adulthood as they were lost to realising something is wrong with me, having suicidal ideations, later getting diagnosed and of course battling demonic episodes of this complex neurotic illness where i was too focused on surviving leaving no space for me to “feel too present”. every episode later i was a different person altogether without remembering traces of my previous self, some behavioural patterns here and there to go back to but that’s just that. i’m always in the past or in the future or somewhere else entirely, dissociating or under the influence of heavy mood stabilisers with my emotions flatlined and my beliefs altered. all that to say, i’m here but i’m not here. then in that specific timeline, place and moment, it seemed like i was in an astral projection with a thread attached to my soul wandering off bridging the gap of this world and that world and yet not knowing what, why, how. selfishly, i want to feel like my social media is still useful for something, even if it’s insignificant in the grander scheme of things hence you see me posting “too much” and just making a big deal out of everything. i missed home while i was there, i miss that unusually capitalist and money making powerhouse of a country now that i am here. only if science wasn’t lazy enough to invent teleportation but then again it would be the third-world country business class, tax stealers to access that technology, or maybe the world’s powerful people are using it discreetly still like willy wonka, a conspiracy. i hate the huge gap we have between the business class and the working class, for some would say i am just jealous and it’s not their fault they come out of money and privilege. i have been thinking about the structure of “our” country and how classism and elitism prevail from people who were once sly enough to fool the system or make allies with the already corrupt regime and people benefitting to such great extent that in this time, to fill that immense void of disparity is inconceivable, regardless of how “hard” one works, the aid is beyond the bounds of possibility to be found. i love how you could work in non-white collar jobs still have a fancy car as an experience or a luxury commodity on you. here? to have that, is beyond my comprehension.

sigh, now i am here in the present so it’s been hard for me to visit the past, tons of photos that i clicked help relive the memory but not as distinct as i’d want it to be, the feelings are lost in translation between places, people, geographical landscape and humid weather. i want to go back and visit because i want to connect with the bhavya that i was there. in retrospect, i hated myself there for not being true to my authentic self (which is anyway a myth for all bipolar sweethearts, we run on episodes and not authenticity, finding oneself is a real job), had true religion but my personality religion was missing. and so i want to share and i want to be open and vulnerable if and when anyone relates a tiny ounce with me, because it’s so human to have someone to talk about on things they’ve felt and you’ve felt and it feels like home even with many dissimilarities, you connect in that space.

thank you for being here, reading and feeling all of this with me. i’m really happy you are.