2010

let me just kick this off by first saying, happy new year! here's to hoping your year went much better than mine, though despite all the chaos and mayhem and devastation we here in pakistan have seen over the last year, my year still had some really special moments. my brother got married, i turned eighteen and legit and spent my birthday getting half drowned in the rain with friends and a few that aren't so anymore. friends i mean. or real friends anyway. are two people still really, really close if the other suddenly seems to change and drifts away from you, away someplace you don't belong and will never fit in? or is it me that's changed? i really don't know. i don't think i did. though one thing's for sure. my goals and what i want from life just suddenly made themselves crystal clear over the past year. life is fleeting. it is way too short, and everything happening here just seems to reinforce that fact all the more. so i've decided to hell with it.theres not even time to be a cynic. so from now on, i'm going to stick to positivity.or well, i resolved to do that, like twenty days ago anyway.and so far...been working great for me! it didn't come easy. all this time, i've been happy keeping expectations short, hopes not too high, because if you aim low, there's no room for disappointment.

what an idiot I was.

Because if there's anything that this year's taught me...it's that there's no room for disappointment. For as long as I can remember, I've been something of a cynic. I was always the girl who saw the glass as half empty, and refused to raise her hopes too high because she was scared they'd come crashing down on her. Now I'm not going to go into a long winded description of when that all changed, just know that somewhere along the line, it did. Looking around me, all i can see are bombs and devastation and chaos. And it's so easy to convince yourself that things have gotten as bad as they can, that hope's faded away. But then you take a closer look at the people around you..some of them heroes, choosing to fight the constant fear and trepadition instead. And suddenly, you're ashamed. You're ashamed that you stuck your head in a corner and wept and let your fear get to your head when you shoud've been out there, with them , fighting it off. You're ashamed because you know, deep down, that you're made of better stuff than that, that you're bigger and stronger than that. Looking at all these people around you, you see exactly the amount of strength it takes to keep your head held high and your attitude forever optimistic. Seeing them, you realize, there's two ways to look at things. You can cry, and wait for a miracle to save your souls..or you can go out there and be the miracle that changes everything. For my new years resolution this year, I chose to be the miracle.

These past couple of months, I've learnt a lot of lessons that most kids around me, in their despair, have given up on. I learnt that choosing to stay positive, doesn't mean you're deluding yourself against the inevitable, or what seems to be inevitable anyway. It just means that you're choosing to take a bad situation, and extricate out of it, whatever good you can find. Considering where we as a nation are at right now, that doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Maybe that's all we can possibly do. Take the good from it all, and build on it until there's enough of it to fight off the evils standing in your way. I'm immensely proud of the people in my country who've chosen to rise up and shout out against all the attrocities being committed on my motherland, at great personal risk to themselves, constantly reminding us that there is good in all of us, we can do whatever we set our minds to, and that one person really can make a difference. And when we join forces..we as a nation, are capable of starting a revolution towards a safer, better tomorrow. Be inspired, get motivated, to bring a change, because it's in you. No matter where you are, and who you are, know that you are more than everybody makes you out to be. And that includes you.

So despite everything happening..the bombs..the increasing death tolls..the war..I'm choosing to lift my head to the sky and tell God thank you. Because I'm still better off than millions more starving in Sudan, or the women being oppressed in Afghanistan by the warlords, or the homeless lying amongst cardboard boxes in a place as high up as NYC, who don't have a warm bed to sleep in, or a roof over their heads. I have amazing parents who would do anything for me, a brother, who albeit, isn't much of a talker, and is a serious pain in the butt sometimes because he plain refuses to communicate, much preferring to wallow in his one word silences, but i know he cares all the same because i'm his sister and he loves me. Also, because I pay for gas, but I'm thinking that's just an added bonus of having a sister, who unlike him, actually SAVES cash. Even though I'm seven years younger, I flatter myself that I'm much more responsible. Say, like a hundred times over.

I guess I should stop now. I have exams from next week. Finals. It's so strange..it's like everything's gone by in one big blur. One minute, I was walking into my first day at uni, and the next, I'm settled and have a crowd and five months have gone and the semester's over. At this rate, four years are going to speed by before I know it..

Scary thought. I want to savor every minute of school. When I graduate I'll be twenty two, you know. Old. And this being Pakistan and all, I can imagine the only word that'll be buzzing through everybody's heads now that I'm out of college, have a degree and gained as great a level of independence as can be expected of a conservative Pakistani girl..

"marraige"

Not that I mind, too much, I guess. It being the way it is, with me refusing to have a boyfriend, and only ever having really liked one boy in my life, having a guy in my life doesn't sound too bad. I'm even sort of looking forward to it.

Okay, so mass understatement. I am looking forward to it. I want to know what it's like to have a guy think the world of you and love you like crazy. Yes, I want that feeling you get when somebody looks into your eyes and you look back at him with unwavering trust and tenderness and realize that here's somebody who's going to care forever. Yeah, I want that, more than anybody will ever know. I'm a sap to the core. Only not like those annoying girls who read nicholas sparks and pine and go *sighhh*. Phuleez. I want a real man, not a guy who's too wussy to deal with his own issues and writes overly girly sentimental notes. I'm the girl who, in an ideal world, would find and go for the brooding, mysterious type who find it hard to phrase how he's feeling but manages to say it with those little things that matter anyway, and would break bones if he found out anybody had ever hurt people he cared about. I dig guys with anger management issues. Think, the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, or Kevin from Ben 10 Alien Force, or Lance aka Avalanche from X Men Evolution. Yeah, I watch a lot of cartoons, alright? My brother was a crazy Marvel fan, it kind of passed on.

I just didn't want to say that out loud. Or write that out loud, I guess. Even though this is anonymous, I still feel like everybody reading can see me, knows its me. Which totally makes sense, given that I've pretty much bared my soul out for all to see. It's just embarassing to admit. I've never actually said slash written it anywhere anybody could actually get this side of me!