First Love
Today it struck me — writing will always be my first love.
I don’t know if it’s because today I watched the 16th episode of the 16th season of Grey’s Anatomy and I saw Shonda Rhimes resurrect a character I wept for more than five years ago. Nothing in this life has made me cry more than Grey’s Anatomy. I started watching at age 8 and season after season, episode after episode, I have wept.
My friends ask me why I keep watching, they tease me about being in an abusive relationship with a TV show, but I can never explain what it feels like to them. I mean, I can’t even explain it to myself. How do I abandon sixteen years of consistency, of dedication, of commitment? I have never been committed to anything like I have to Grey’s Anatomy … or should I say, to Shonda Rhimes.
Imagine having the power to make people weep, or smile, or be more appreciative of life or love, just because your pen kissed paper and made magic? That’s what writing means to me. That’s the value literature has in my life. And sometimes, I judge people by that. By the books they have read, by the content of their timeline on the social media. Sometimes I meet a person and I know they’d be in my life forever, because we have lived through the same pages and passed through the same scenes.
Many people don’t know this, but before I got to Georgetown, I faced this chaotic period where I wasn’t sure what to do next with my life. I felt like I had been going on a journey across a smooth path and the road suddenly broke into two — an MFA or an M.Sc. I have never been as confused as I was with making a choice towards a career path. I didn’t know whether to become a development economist or to focus everything within me on writing.
Sometimes I look back and I wonder if I made the right choice. On days like today, I wonder if like Alex Karev, I’d realize years from today that I made a mistake and I’d leave everything I have built, everything I have worked on to be an economist and go back to writing.
I make a lot of bad decisions. A lot. So many. But a lot of times, in the midst of those bad decisions, I have laughed the most, and danced the happiest. I have also cried a lot and fallen into depression. I make bad decisions because I am spontaneous. I think of something and I feel so jittery, like I have to execute it immediately or my spirit cannot be at rest. I feel like that with my favorite pieces. I feel as though if I don’t bring out my jotting pad or my laptop and sit in a corner and pour my heart out, the world spins faster.
These past couple of days I have felt so many emotions. I have immersed myself in Grey’s Anatomy and Binged Watched Killing Eve. I have flipped pages of Joana Palani’s The War Against ISIS. I have read the story of someone my age, fighting in Syria for a cause she believes in. And I have questioned myself.
I find the strength to become a better version of me because of literature. I find the strength to be authentic, to be sloppy, to embrace my shortcomings and brilliance and occasional laziness… everything that embodies me because of words that form sentences… and pages and books. I know I joke about wanting a tundra. I can’t deny the fact that I want to experience the thrill that comes with getting on a speed bike or driving a big pickup, or getting in a race car. But maybe just once or twice, as an act of spontaneity. At the end of the day I just want to enjoy the solitude of living in a space with minimum furniture and art work. At the end of the day, I want to be surrounded by emotions sewed together by literature.
I want to read literature. I want to leave literature. If I die today, I want to be remembered not just for my actions, but also for my words.
