imaaa

[imaaa]

i go to the market to pick pomegranates. i am not very good at choosing the best ones, but i still make the effort. i relish the act of handing them over to you; the act of physically placing my affection in your hands, the act of letting you know that you were on my mind. and the next morning, i peel them for you.

we devour the red seeds together, while you work quietly and i do the talking. there are pomegranate stains all over. all over the table, all over my hands, all over my soul. in the list of deep hues that you love, i hope crimson red now makes an appearance too.

the days of departure are near, and i wonder if the splattered patches of red will fade. so promise me that when i am away, you will always keep some pomegranates in your basket for me. and i will ensure a few make it to mine as well. make sure you eat them before they go bad. don’t let the pomegranates rot. don’t let them rot.

[imaaa]

everything really ends up with how much effort you are putting in. i cannot continue whining that i am not the way i was when i am not willing to put in the same effort. yes, circumstances and the environment vary, but i cannot use them as an excuse to not even make an attempt.

i watched a movie today that had too many underlying meanings. i was unable to catch them or resonate with them as deeply. but when i came back to my room and went through people's opinions about it, it struck me how my younger self would have resonated with the movie's theme and felt connected. and i think that is because when i was younger, i was more involved with the satisfaction that thinking and pondering about life brought.

i used to be way too engrossed in the minuteness of things, always delving into them. i was full of details. i loved the concept of thinking, and i used to be fond of abstract concepts. pondering various topics did not exhaust me, if anything, it energized me. i believe i used to voluntarily dive into complexities because simplifying them or just being able to understand or articulate them brought me contentment.

but now, i think i have turned into this simple, plain person who is always too worn out to form an opinion on anything. i do not mentally challenge myself anymore. my thinking caps are lying somewhere in a hidden corner, and i am not even making an attempt to put them on. possibly because the utopia i am experiencing right now will be shattered when the chord of rationalization strikes.

it has been a year since i started asking myself the same thing.

i am happier now, but am i living a way too simple life?

[imaaa]

i am a dreamer, viewing the world through a soft lens. where music dominates, always a melody in my ear. where reading poetry on pinterest makes me feel like i'm sitting on a park bench. i was the small-joys type of person. handmade cards and messy bookmarks. quiet corners and air through the window. sunsets and cool evening air.

sweet that that's what i go back to thinking of when sorrows chase me. slowly embracing sadness as i slip into slumber, thinking of a quaint house in a cottage. i don't mind the despondent days; they make me quiet, shush everything around, and bring me back to painting soft shades in my head to rest the sadness. i want to stay here, in these small joys that i'm slowly moving away from.

[imaaa]

the setting sun, the overwhelming feeling while passing by it, the cool air passing through the window of the car, and a song full of yearning playing in the background – all of it struck a chord with me. sunsets no longer evoke this feeling in me the way they used to when i was three years younger. but yesterday, on this tranquil road trip, the sunset brought back the feeling i have been failing to feel for quite a while.

tears welled up in my eyes. was it that i miss the solitude that no longer exists? or was it the bittersweet experience of growing up? or was it the lack of words to express what i am feeling? or the sentences that no longer make their way to my mind? or is it the anticipatory absence of this one person that i’m dearly holding onto for as long as i can? i guess it’s mostly that. oh, how the feeling i have only felt in the past made me sob for the future. the way i have collected an overwhelming amount of nostalgia for my future selves. and i do not know if those selves are courageous enough to deal with any of that.

[imaaa]

Else Fitzgerald, from "Everything Feels Like the End of The World," publ. in 2022

[imaaa]

i am still unable to decipher how i feel about growing up. about growing out of the interests i was once so fascinated by. about being unable to be moved by things that used to leave deep, dark, brutal marks on me. i am more forgetful now, not as emotional, less nostalgic, and more involved in the present. ideally, i should be happy about the change, but i am not ready to leave behind that part of me that used to keep the essence of melancholy so close to herself. i am not prepared to be detached from that part of me that defined my personality.

i do not want to be so involved in the present that i slowly forget what it is like to miss people. i want to continue to be moved by sunsets and skies; i want people and good conversations to be something i look forward to; i want the slow, mundane tasks to still matter to me. i do not want the habit of romanticizing life to fade away. i do not want literature and quotes to cease being a crucial part of my life. i do not want the idea of discovering new music to stop exciting me.

i want to hold my past in one hand and extend the other to the ambiguous future. i want to reminisce about the benches in my favorite childhood park while, in the future, i sit on the ones in paris. i want the memories of my old house’s terrace to resurface when i stand on the balcony of my new home in a crowded city. i want to smile at the thought of the cheap posters on my hostel walls right now when, in the future, i am in the position to hang real fancy paintings. i want to continue carrying the colors i was made of while adding more and more of them as time passes by.

[imaaa]

— Arthur Miller, The Crucible

[imaaa]

Vogue, Annie Lord, I Feel Like Men I’m Dating Won’t Like My Fully Unfiltered Self

[imaaa]

dead poets society // hesitations outside the door margaret atwood

[imaaa]

I equally miss the good old Tumblr days. Life was simpler back then. I'm good. I'm in the second year of my course now. It's tiresome but I'm managing. And I miss your presence too. But I understand the lack of activity because I'm not at all active either.

Aww that is very sweet. Thank you. I hope the same for you. :)🌻✨

hey, it's been so long. how are you?

Heyyyyyy, it has indeed been so long. I'm doing all good. How are you imaaa? How is your life going currently? How have you been all these days!? I miss you. I miss old Tumblr days.

Hope these last few months of this year bring you peace and happiness 💞

Rooting for you always 🫂

Please take care of yourself imaaa ❣️

[imaaa]

Marcel Proust, from a letter featured in The Selected Letters of Marcel Proust

[imaaa]

oh, the way sentences upon sentences, phrases after phrases, thoughts over thoughts are endlessly, without any pause, falling off my mind. not too fast, not too slow, but at this certain moderate pace. like a cold stream of water continuously falling off a cliff. so naturally, just flowing and flowing, without any indication of ceasing.

am i bothered? yes, i am. but it's not the excruciating kind where i'm restless and anxious and want to run away. it's the kind of bother that's slowly driving me to the point where i'm looking for answers to the difficult questions that i have been putting off for later. perhaps, slowly and eventually it will become excruciating when the answers will unfold and all of them will be too harsh to accept. not that i am not already aware of those answers. in some vague and loose sense, they're floating here and there in my head. but now, i must gather all the bits and make a note of acceptance.

am i sad? definitely. but is it something i want to complain about? no. it's the quiet, calm, essential sadness that would help me sit down and think rationally. honestly, i don't mind this feeling as much, it is relatively easier to make hard choices because the realities of the situation tend to be clearer than the usual times. at this point, i do not deliberately tone down the screeching truth. i let it screech. tears fall down and i feel so vulnerable. but it's all for my own good, all for my own good.

[imaaa]

“To try to not be more interesting but be more interested” literally changed my life perspective btw

[imaaa]

[imaaa]

Imam Al-Ghazali // Tennessee Williams

[imaaa]

Reitdiepdal, the Netherlands

[imaaa]

Margaret Atwood, “The Blind Assassin.”