VAHISHTA

Ah, my long lost, neglected blog. How I’ve missed you– not. I doubt anyone else has missed my updates either– the only people here are spammers.

That means I can continue to write about my life in peace.

I hate job-searching. I hate the uncertainty, and the overwhelming list of options of things I must apply for that I will probably never get picked for.

I hate, hate, hate, not knowing where my future will go, if it will be interesting, if it’ll be what I want, if I’ll be happy.

I hate wondering if no matter what I do, I’m destined to be alone forever.

People keep telling me to be excited about this time of life. I’m not. I’m scared. I didn’t think I would, a year ago, graduating was all I wanted out of life. I had this awesome dreams about living in my own apartment and being awesome and creative and important and having fun. But even then, I imagined, I want a house by the time I’m 30, I want cute furnishings, I want professional success, where does that leave getting married? Nowhere? Are there really two life plans– marriage and happiness, and professional and material success? What promise did I have of finding a guy that I respected and loved, anyway? After all, I have high standards.

Now, the fears have changed. Before, at least I had the fantasy of meeting some handsome stranger who would fall head-over-heels for me and fit perfectly in my life plan. Who would love and adore me, all of me, and I would be okay with it. And it would happen– like it seems to happen with all married couples. So easily, so fittingly, almost like destiny– it just happens. One moment, they meet, next, they date, next, they’re getting married. Easy, it seemed.

The future today is different and far darker. I’ve met the one I want; I can no longer have him. I found the one I respect and the one I thought could at least learn to love me– but he opted out. And I don’t blame him, really. And I didn’t handle it with the grace I’ve come to expect of myself, with the dry eyes standard I always held myself to. What, cry over a boy? For what? Okay, maybe for a week. Eat some chocolate. Move on. Focus on the future.

But he insinuated himself so far into my heart that I can barely breathe at times. He hijacked my hopes so much that every other accomplishment seems but a disappointment, and every plan seems rotten and doomed for the start.

Where do I go from there? When not only is my faith in my own attractiveness, and capacity for being loved shaken, but my faith in God and his plan for my future?

When all I can think about with God is how it felt with my Dad growing up, where every bad thing was “for my own good”– and some surface benefit might be found, but internally I just felt disenfranchised and used.

So, what is there now? I don’t think there’s anyone else out there, and even if there is, there is the still the problem I have found with modern dating and relationships: what, do you just accept the one who comes last? The one who sticks around just long enough to propose? Why do men get all the choice? The career, and the money, and then they get to choose who they want and when they want them. We girls, we’re just supposed to wait. Wait until he stays long enough and decides we’re wife material. But we’d better convince him to commit before we’re 30, because after that.. it’s all over.

In May, I’ll be 24. I always wanted to be married/engaged by the time my 25th year on Earth concluded. That goal seems very far away now. Oh, well. Because I think the goal in general will never be obtained.

Here I am. I don’t want anybody else, probably ever again. I don’t want to be alone. I want success, but I want a family of my own.

I don’t want to be alone. And I don’t want to compromise. And I won’t compromise.

So I’ll be alone.

He still lives in my head and fantasies, and success seems to center around on how I’ve shown that I can do this without him, how it didn’t really matter to me, and what a good partner I’d make if only he’d wake up. And in my head, he always does.

I had to make myself think: this is what plays out in your head in the future. But what if it’s not true– what then. What does the future look like then?

I never see him again. I’m working but I can’t enjoy it because I’m alone. My parents die, and my family is small and I won’t be living near them anyway. Then what? Grief, pain, loneliness. Friends that slip in and out of my life like they always have. Friends are nice, but they don’t stay put.

And that terrible future looms over me, one in which all my worst fears are realized. One in which my life is pointless, my talents are wasted, and I am all alone, with nothing to show for it, and left wondering why I tried anything to begin with.

Oh, sure, I know I can give my life meaning– it’s very simple. Stop being so selfish. And I’ll try to do that. But even when I’m out, doing my thing, even enjoying myself during the day, being with people, getting things done, making a difference– loneliness invades my heart when I return home.

I’ve been so happy when I’ve been single– very happy. I’ve been happy to live on my own. And now? That’s ended. I’m not happy any more. The cute apartment? The nice furnishings? The accomplishments? The friends? The joy has decayed. And on some evenings– so has my faith.

But as life and disappointment batters me away until nothingness, at the core, that faith is all that will be left.

Babylonian Marriage Market

Years of doing Nanowrimo and I never quite seem to hit the 50,000 word count. Partly because I lose steam, and partly because I have yet to do it when finals weren’t looming in November– or, even worse, when I had other writing projects and I seemed to have no issue hitting 50,000 words on, but my poor novel would languish unfinished. Yet, each year, I try again. And I never regret doing that, because it does improve my writing, and at least I can come up with new ideas!

This one is fairly simple. I have been fishing around for a plot idea for ages, then, somehow I got this idea into my head– people love movies and historical novels about ancient Greece and Egypt, Rome and biblical stories– but the Akkadian empire and Sumer get no love. The Epic of Gilgamesh is fascinating and had lush imagery, at least I think so. A friend I pitched the idea to was less inspired than I was about basing a novel around it, saying the stories were cheesy. I don’t think they are any less cheesy than the story of Zeus and how Taurus came to be, or the Titans or Helen of Troy… I am rather pleased with this idea, but I had to figure out where it was going to go.

At first I thought about a rewrite of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a fleshing out in prose, and putting some twists on the legends, focusing on Ishtar. I mean, who doesn’t love the goddess who was the precursor to Aphrodite and Venus? But, then I thought about all of the wonderful things about the ancient civilization I would miss out on if I went that route. I remembered reading from Herodotus, how the “marriage market” worked in ancient Babylon, and how that would be interesting to touch upon in literature. Or how, Sumerian society started out rather egalitarian compared to Near Eastern societies that came later, yet patriarchy creep happened and with the Code of Hammurabi and other developments, it was the first time in history that women started veiling. And the cogs started turning. Did I have to choose between the two stories?

Perhaps I could stick with the “real life” sort of story, but use dreams to interweve parts of the Epic in– perhaps for a “vestal virgin” of the Babylonian pantheon. Then there are the issues of sacred prostitution, slavery, and the marriage laws, all things that could prove to combine into a compelling story. I’ll have to give this some thought!

YouTube – Dispatch: Beyond Ai Weiwei’s Detention.

YouTube – Female technicians progress in China.

via YouTube – Meryam fares – khaliji 2010 – Ya sariya.

via YouTube – Cheb Khaled,Faudel,Rachid Taha-Abdel Kader-Arabic Music (Watch In HD Widescreen).

Let this be my prayer!

Two kinds of Muslims – Ancient Hebrew Poetry.

There are two kinds of anything. (1) Those who take risks to protect those attacked by members of their own group, and (2) those who condone violence against those who do not share their vision of the ways things are.

But are Muslims the same as extremist jihadis? Some of their theology is so different that it can hardly be called the same– Islamic extremists have killed more Muslims than any other group.

I would say there are two kinds of Muslims, Christians, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Buddhists, etc… Those who can tolerate other points of view, and those that can’t.

There have been many Christians who are part of the latter (and still are).