I run. I have goals and aims and they don’t wait. I sprint through days and months till they all become purple and blue hazes and one day doesn’t seem much more different than the other. I accomplish, I fall, I complain- but at the end of it its just rituals and day to day monotony.
Today, I was forced to stop, to turn, and to look back.
Happiness isn’t something triggered by an event or a person, I choose it just like I choose melancholy or insanity. Sitting in the plane, watching Karachi from my window, I put on U2’s Beautiful Day and decided that it was my official anthem. No matter what happened, I was going to grin through today.
Celebrating your birthday while traveling kind of sucks, but the mother actually made it quite fun. When the clock struck 12, the entire staff came with champagne and dessert singing. Embarrassed and half asleep, I grinned like a fool, and took huge swigs of what my mother thought was my first real drinking session. Ah dear silly silly woman how I adore you and your madness.
We got out of the airport early, I was restless. Its weird, but I felt the need of surrounding myself with people who knew how important this day was to me. Normally, I don’t really care much for birthdays, but for some reason I felt the need for this one to be monumental. It didn’t matter who wished me, my dad or my maid or the driver, as long as it was someone who knew.
We sat in the sexy office car and the ass driver went at a luxuriant speed of 20 mph, stopping for gas twice and answering his cell fifty times in the half an hour ride. Sitting in the back I cursed in English, saying this was inhuman, I had been traveling for two days, had not eaten in three and had not slept for a week. It had been insane, rewarding, but really insane. I called up F, and after freaking out on the phone she said she would TRY to come over today.
Ouch. Well ok, at least she would try, though I really excepted better. Putting the phone down, I was sure it would start ringing now that people knew I was back. But it didn’t ring, and I was compelled to just stare out of the window, forcing myself to stay awake.
I got home and was met immediately by the dad. Finally, some much needed TLC and love. After much hugging he physically drags me through the front door, saying that I should wash up before meeting the dog. Too tired to argue and in too much of a need of a bath, I went along with him, half held up by him, exhaustion hitting me slowly.
The door opens, and there they were, a hundred people, everyone who mattered, with a grin on their faces balloons in their hands and warm embraces on their minds.
And it just came out, infront of family and not to mention my very young and impressionable brother-
-What the FUCK?
Heh, and from then on, I don’t remember exactly what happened. There was food and white chairs and pretty pretty flowers. There were people I hadn’t seen for months and people who I once used to see everyday. I remember squealing that I was wearing white, and that I would get completely see through, but they didn’t care. Picked up and thrown in, I swallowed way too much water and looked like a malang with dripping eyeliner and baggy pants that half fell off when I was submerged.
I remember running up to change and then deciding there was no point. I remember meeting everyone, I remember S crying when she hugged me. I remember E putting flowers in my hair. I remember being smeared in chocolate cake.
Oh and I completely remember holding hands with my father and diving in like a fool.
Lying down in the grass to dry, my dog asleep on my lap, my head resting on F’s stomach and his on someone elses. My maid screaming that ill catch cold, me threatening to throw her in the pool, feeling the high rise and feeling the exhaustion creep away.
I run, I run so fast sometimes that I forget to actually experience and realize.
Today, I was forced to stop, to turn, and to look back.
And hey, its been a hell of a life.
