Oral Fixation.

I feel like I appreciate both company and solitude more now.

I value being alone. Value it because it is difficult to be alone here and hence to be savoured. An evening walk, a morning on the terrace, a solitary smoke.

I met someone today who asked me what my greatest fear was and I told him it wasn't rejection or being penniless but being unhappy. That I would never want to wake up thinking I should be living someone else's life. He told me to read Fitzgerald but it turns out we've both read Gatsby and that is ironic.

I treated today like a Sunday because there need to be more Sundays in a week, in a month, in a year.

I like to watch him smoke but I don't like smoking around him. He makes me self conscious. Mostly though, he makes me feel young.

Dawn came and I went for a jog just because I could.

I crushed the last bit of cigarette and realize that winter is finally here. Goosebumps on my skin told me so.

October is already waving goodbye. Two more months and we'll be seeing off the end of a long year. Where did it even begin? With tears and a promise that now I'm finding difficult to keep.

Lahore is lovely and despite the obvious pull of alliteration that could not be truer. Soon work will pile up and I will stop noticing morning dew. But for now.

The boy I once asked for a secret is far away. Sometimes he calls. We talk and I realize he is done measuring out his life in coffee spoons but he still can't quote from Caesar and I have always held that against him, pretentious brat that I am.

I could write pages and pages about the fact that I no longer live at home, will hopefully never live at home again. My mother came for a day and after she left she called and told that it had finally hit her. That I was gone. That now we would visit each other.

For the first time ever I wasn't sure what to say.

Hey you.

Sometimes I see bits and pieces of you in other men and it fascinates and terrifies me to no end. Last Saturday night I didn't even know what I was doing and then all of a sudden I did and when I got back it had 'you, you, you' written all over it. He's probably never even met you. I'll never really know what he's up to either.

I hope he fades into the background. He's as unreal as you were.

But still, there are nights when I think of you and smile. I'll give you that much. You made me smile like nobody else could. Despite the fact that I knew what you were like.

Much love.

Today.

Today, while lugging groceries up three floors after haggling with a rickshaw driver, I realized exactly how much I've changed and how good this place has been for me.

'Karachi is burning, darlings.' Powder puff and then a dab of lipstick. Fiery red dress and I smile at the irony. Karachi burnt for a while before you noticed. You were shocked out of your bed at one am just a few days ago. Early.

Unreal City. Funny how much Karachi reminds me of Eliot. Maybe because bits and pieces are literally a wasteland. Desert. Who goes there?

 'You're here because of dengue, she can't go out like that, I never know where he is. Never. What is going on?' My mother is worried. My mother never worries. It just doesn't happen. But now she says a prayer every morning before she drops my sister off to school. She says a prayer knowing what is meant to happen will happen. She sends another kid, perpetually rebelling, to school not knowing if he even goes to school half the time, not knowing where he'll end up.

They tell us, apparently, there are mosquitoes mentioned in the Book. I don't know what that means. Is the end near? Should I have capitalized that 'e'? Is this how we're meant to go? How undramatic.

Eleven houses destroyed and I knew one of them well. Twice a week a woman taught us Hamlet soullessly. And she would tell us, rich kids with foreign passports, to get out while we could. Now now now. And then her house exploded and I wonder whether she'll leave.

And somewhere there are floods. I'm not sure where. Were they mentioned too? Should we check?

Should we leave? Karachi is burning, darlings. My parents are getting old. But where would we go? Back there? It's too cold there. Too different. Karachi is burning but at least we'll stay and try to salvage the pieces we loved the most. And maybe soon, sooner than soon, we can try again.

And so here I am.

It's funny being here. Maybe because I was so convinced that this is not where I'd end up or maybe because there's no time to adjust really, honestly it happens all by itself and bam suddenly it's like you've been doing it all your life which is sortofexhilaratingsortofdepressing in a way I can't place.

I'm excited about it though, don't get me wrong. Pretty campus, good people. And I realize of course that typical situations are everywhere and it's what you make of them that proves whether or not you are typical.

LUMS is such a mix of things, of people. Girls that stumble over three syllable English words and chatter away in Punjabi rooming with Karachi 'elite' girls in jeans and tank tops. It takes all kinds. I like the variety. I have yet to form a solid opinion about anything except maybe the womens gym which sucks. But hey, give it time.

I'm a brilliant packer but I'm forgetting things today. Shoes? Headphones? Where the fuck is everything?

I wonder if Lahore has a cure for my writer's block. Let's see.

It's all such an act and I've mentioned this before of course but it continues to haunt me, continues to surprise me.  Ten days to a fortnight after I realize where I'm going comes the actual breakdown. The actual realization and regret. Before it was all scripted, the disappointment, the tears and resignation. And now, when there are guests downstairs and actual work to be done I am incapable of lifting a finger.

I'm alright, I'm alright, I'm alright. It's for the best, four years will go by just like that, I can study what I please, it's another city, a competitive university, people have done worse, the parents are happy. Of course I'm alright.

And they're so happy that I listened and wasn't stubborn and didn't pull them further and further apart, didnt pick at the remains of what is left of a relationship. I'm getting lots of presents. So happy.

And all the congratulations and forced smiles and buying suitcases and straighteners have kept me so occupied. All of a sudden the phone rings again and I cannot, just cannot tell yet another person that I am excited.

All I can do is reassure myself that I did the right thing for me. In the long run this guarantees my freedom. And in that selfishness, I delight.

I'm alright, I'm alright, I'm alright, Except for now I'm not.