Has It Been Enough?

Two things have happened in the past few years. One, I moved abroad (much discussed here already). Two, Blogspot became even more of underutilized platform (blogging now largely being taken over by substack).

I don’t have much to say on the second development, clearly — I am here.

But on the first note, I have really loved my new life. I love London — the parks, the safety, the diversity, the beauty of architecture, plants, birds, and the way people dress (generally). I also loved living in France — I loved the colors of the sky, grass, and the sea. The food and care for ingredients, the je ne sais quoi of people and how they carry themselves. And, most pertinently, the art.

I found France to be far more diverse than I expected, although I already knew London was. I remember on my first trip to London as an adult, I took the Piccadilly line, and a girl in a headscarf was playing with a miscellaneous group of other girls. I say miscellaneous because it didn’t even matter where they were from, and they were about ten years old. It was so shocking to me, because I never felt that sort of inclusion in America — like I was a ‘normal’ person, certainly not in the 00s.

But, two things have happened since this adult trip that I took in 2018. For one, London has gotten more expensive and the job market has shrank, making it less competitive. And, two, I think America is changing (slowly). I used to love British TV shows because they showed a diversity I wasn’t used to seeing on American-funded TV. Now in the US you have shows like Deli Boyz and comedians like Aziz Ansari who make being my experiences no longer so niche but a little more mainstream and understandable (not that they do it in the best way haha).

Recently, one of my friends in Paris opined on taxes in Europe, saying that the money we make here is so that the man working at the grocery store has a good life. And I think that there are actually many good things from the man in the grocery store having a good life. He can create art, plays for which tickets are 20 or 30 euros, and go on holidays and educate himself. 

It does, however, mean that in a time of diminishing disposable income one can afford a lot less in Europe than you could in America — and a lot less than the life I am used to, to be very honest.

What about the crises of homelessness, drugs and gun violence domestically in the US? At the end of the day, I suppose what I would pay in US taxes are just a small drop in the bucket that I could probably not even actually consider myself implicit.

It’s much harder to meet people in America. In my new life, I’ve met princesses, heirs, as well as all sorts of lovely people. I could do that in America, too, but it would require more effort, or not quite the same circles.

In the end, it comes down to a trade off between living an avid cultural life vs thriving professionally / financially.

And it really hurts me to realise that the things that matter on paper — money, career — would be better in the US because I love my life in London. 

I love walking through Notting Hill or Hyde Park to get home. I love my Scandi cafes, Persian restaurants, and being able to buy freekeh at Waitrose. I love taking the train to Paris and walking around on the bridges and taking a million photos because cloudy or sunny or winter or spring it always looks beautiful. I love being on a plane for two hours and being in Italy, rather than being on a plane for four hours to arrive in Aspen where everything is expensive, overpriced, and overcrowded.

Has it been enough? Can I go back now, satisfied by a fun few years? (Hopefully not before two more years are over.)

I know that many people live in places they do not like and in jobs they find difficult and I wonder if I should just be OK with living in the US for other advantages like money and career and memories with family which at the end of the day mean more. And I love my friends and my life in London — but it is lonely sometimes. 

I suppose all lives I could have lived or have lived have been lonely in some way. I felt lonely and isolated in Dallas with my family and friends and with the way I wanted to live my life. I felt lonely in France. To be honest, I rarely feel lonely in London now because I fill up my time with so many things.

Perhaps counterintuitively, now that I write down my thoughts, I guess the doubts I had about life in London are disappearing. 

I was beginning to wonder if I should move to New York for money and for love — not for any particular person, but because the kind of person I would love can be more easily found there. 

Both are likely. And I am scared and I am sad because I am 32 and I know that I will read this back at an older age and think that at this very time I was so young and should not have felt this way. But it is the reality of how I feel right now.

Apart from really wanting these two things, I don’t feel the desire for a new beginning, not really for a new job, nor for a new place to live nor new set of friends to be close to. I suppose I could find the things I love in New York and I will test that out soon, but I feel like I will find them to be subpar replacements for what I can have in London

I guess I have answered my own question and my doubts.

My Twenties

 ... are coming to an end, today!

It's officially the last day. I've spending a lot of time reflecting on the past decade and how my progress has aligned to my expectations. And, to my surprise - because I hadn't realised it throughout - I am really happy where I am. I have lived maybe too much in these recent years. I didn't take the trips to Australia, New Zealand, Japan that I thought I would but I did get to go to a lot of unexpected places, make friendships - and relationships - I could have never have imagined. I've read a lot, traveled a lot, worked a lot, had health scares and personal tragedy, but it could have all be a lot worse. 

Do I have any regrets? Maybe just holding on to things in my past that were not meant for me (still doing). And not enjoying my life in the moment.

It's funny because I think there's one dimension of my life I think I could be doing better in. I went to dinner at a friend's house the other day - in Ramadan. There was another one of our friends there with her 3 week old baby. Throughout the dinner, at least one of the 14+ of us there got up to watch the baby. I realised, at one point in my life, I will be so grateful for the time I have now, alone. I will look back and miss it.

I look back now at my life during the pandemic in Dallas. I was so miserable. But to me now that was very special time with my parents. I didn't realise how limited it was then.

They say you change a lot in your 30s - that you become more relaxed with life. I think what you learn in your 20s is, despite how much you might try to control of the outcome, a lot of life is out of your control. And a lot of things that happen are really unexpected. 

I never thought I would be an hour away from Paris. That I'd make Pakistani friends who are like me in London. That I'd get to work on net zero policy. That I'd go to Corsica, the South of France, Sicily... make friends in Thailand, the Philippines, Egypt, Turkey. That I'd have weddings to go to in Istanbul, Russia, Belgium...

Are all these superficial things? Maybe. But they made me really happy.

Am I different person than I was at 20? I'm honestly not too sure. I let go of something in my past. I'm less risk averse. Other than that... I don't know. Someone else could tell me. If anything, my anxiety still comes and goes.

What would I like to achieve in my 30th year? I think I'd like my life to slow down a little. I travel a lot lately and it's less enjoyable when it's so frequent. I'd like to settle in my group of friends and hobbies, and be more comfortable by myself. It will, after all, only be temporary.

But in practicality, I'd like to...

• Increase my income and savings
• Develop new friendships and relationships
• Become kinder
• Be more generous
• Be the best daughter and sister I can be
• Learn golf
• Improve my artistic portfolio (much to come on that)
• Get better at forgetting./ letting go of things not meant for me
• Be more chill overall

And, overall, I feel very lucky. I feel, at this point in my life, that I have lived a good life. How fortunate I am to be able to say that. I certainly didn't feel this way at 26. Sure, I still want many things... but I'll always want many things. And those things are not really in my control - I can only put myself in the right spot for them.

تمہاری یاد کے جب زخم بھرنے لگتے ہیں 

کسی بہانے تمہیں یاد کرنے لگتے ہیں 

حدیث یار کے عنواں نکھرنے لگتے ہیں 

تو ہر حریم میں گیسو سنورنے لگتے ہیں 

ہر اجنبی ہمیں محرم دکھائی دیتا ہے 

جو اب بھی تیری گلی سے گزرنے لگتے ہیں 

صبا سے کرتے ہیں غربت نصیب ذکر وطن 

تو چشم صبح میں آنسو ابھرنے لگتے ہیں 

وہ جب بھی کرتے ہیں اس نطق و لب کی بخیہ گری 

فضا میں اور بھی نغمے بکھرنے لگتے ہیں 

در قفس پہ اندھیرے کی مہر لگتی ہے 

تو فیضؔ دل میں ستارے اترنے لگتے ہیں 

Just when the wounds of your memory begin to heal

I find some excuse to think of you again

The titles of hadith begin to emerge

and gas starts to burn in every harem

Every stranger appears to us as a familiar one

passing through your street

Exiles speak to the wind of their lost country

and the eyes of the morning brim with tears.

Each time she stitches a voice to her lips

the air is scattered with another song.

Darkness seals the door of the prison

then the stars, Faiz, descend in the heart.

- Faiz Ahmed Faiz

My Year in France

This post is not about France, it's about my very traumatic year in France. Trauma definitely being an overstatement for my very privileged life. But maybe a more accurate title would be, "How I Learned to be my Own Person, in France" or, "How I Learned to be Alone, in France."

I learned a lot when I lived in France. I learned that if you say, bonjour, au revoir, merci when you enter, leave a store in France it makes all the difference. That the French are much more polite when you do that, and a less racist than people I grew up around in America. That most people really don't like Americans, and that conversation is totally different for Americans than it is for a European (you do not ask questions for the latter, you share anecdotes at each other). 

I learned that it is really painful being alone, that there are actual real dangers to being a woman alone, and also that I hate being alone (sorry, I don't enjoy solitude). I like going to museums, shopping, and cooking alone but in general I can't do it. 

I learned that I love cheese, that I don't enjoy patisserie as much as the glutton I thought I was, that I love Paris, love staying up late, love sunrises, sunsets, chausson aux pommes. I learned that not everyone is stable, healthy, and some people have dark ways of coping with it, and that it's important to stay away. 

But I also learned that kindness is in really unexpected places. I think of my friend who insisted once I spend two nights with her, and wouldn't let me sleep on her sofa but instead on her bed, when I didn't feel safe in my apartment. And of my landlord, who came 30 minutes early to my check-out, carried all my suitcases down the stairs for me, and even threw away my trash while I in futile insisted he not do so. And my leasing agent.

I also learned the importance of community and of having people around you. And I think if I don't build that elsewhere I wouldn't stay. And it also takes time. 

29

 This year I turned 29. It's the last year of my twenties! 

When I started this blog, I was a teenager. 

I can't say I learned very much in my twenties. You notice I didn't post at all in 2022. I learned a lot between 27-8. That, I think, was the worst period of my life. I learned way too much. You know how people say, after a difficult period, that they would rather not have had any other way. Well, I don't - I would rather not repeat that period ever again.

Most significantly, I learned that the person that I want to be is not very different from the person I was before. Or is it that people return to the habits of their past because they are familiar?

I think, however, that I am finally happy. Happy in a way that I wasn't earlier in my life because I felt held back by things in my life that I felt I couldn't control. Happy and at peace (most of the time).

I don't have many goals for this year. I'd like to do more art, travel to new places, develop and further friendships and relationships. And exercise and be generous and curious and all the other very stimulating and rewarding things. I'd like to read more philosophy. I think I fit in as a very small piece of this world and I'd like my small corner to be a good one.

I'm at a very lucky period in my life where things are going well.

Fontainebleau Day 1

 Let it not be underestimated how challenging it is to shop for groceries in a foreign language. How can I tell what the equivalent of cream is among the dairy? Moreover, why can't I find salt at Monoprix? Aren't the French known for their salt?

It's only been one day (and a half) but I have a feeling I will eat very well here. I spent >100 Euros on groceries thus far (worried about emergencies) and my favorites so far is this garlic and herb cheese, fig jam from Bonne Maman... oh I guess that's it, haha. Also some sables breton I bought from Monoprix.

There are many kinds of tomatoes here. Many kinds of cheese (expected) and lots of tea and spice options (which I was worried about). People say bon journee even into the afternoon (7pm, when sunset is 9pm) and are much politer than I expected (in grocery stores, my main domain of exploration thus far). And like the dumb American I am France is much more diverse than I expected. Fontainebleau is more diverse than Dallas--way more.

Anyway, I actually don't have that much to say except that I'm tired. Haha

On the Eve

 of an international move, nothing you anticipated to be able to do in the last five days will get done.

Preparing to Move Abroad Pt.2

 So I have another expense to add to my visa fees--apparently 50 Euros to activate your visa upon arrival in France.

-_-