Tsunami's Hungry

I wrote you last May after I guessed from mum’s cautious mentions of your name that you were not doing well. I wrote that I hope that you are well even though I knew that you were not. I wrote that I wish for you to find inner peace more than I wish for you to recover. I wrote that if you are to die, I hope that you die a champion, confronting your greatest fears and finding your inner self.

Now a year later, I’m reading that letter and wishing that I had sent it to you. It was harsh and very tone deaf. We weren’t close. I didn’t know you enough and neither did you. But I regret not sending it. Perhaps it would have broken a taboo that exists in our family of not opening up to one another. Perhaps it would have hurt you more.

Two wars have since passed. 

I’m glad that you missed the second. It has been a strange period and I wish I had the chance to talk to you about it. I regret not visiting you after the first war, though it’s a dishonest regret for I would likely behave the same way now if you were still alive. I was high on life back then. I had just gotten my bike and was learning to be a child again. I remember you joking about my love for it and I remember how the conjured image of the lighthearted daei that I always knew juxtaposed with the bony face and 3 hair strands I was seeing on my screen.

When I reminisce about my childhood with you I lament the fact that I only took the fun things: pirated CDs and chicken invaders (did you know that there’s now 5 of them and also a massive multiplier version??). I remember that you were so well read and I wish I engaged with you, your thoughts and your poetry when you were alive. I wish I shared more of my writing and poetry with you.

I’m just coming off the tail end of perhaps the hardest challenge of my life to date. During this time I learnt a lot of things about myself, about the real me that comes out when the stakes are high. I learnt the importance of trusting people, and taking things easy on myself the hard way. I learnt the importance of setting boundaries once again. I noticed how quickly one’s health can go out the window. Despite not putting my body through any strain over the past month, I get recurring pains: my right hip feels inflamed and it affects my lower back, my shoulders are always tense, my calves feel like they have splinters in them and the bottom of my knee screams when I get up to walk. My head is cloudy, and I keep getting joint pain in my fingers and my wrists. I’ve known for a while that accumulated stress causes physical pain, but I never believed it until it happened to me. I tell myself that it will get better but a part of me fears that damage done cannot be undone. You live with the consequences of the past, regardless of ones own responsibility. I remember that I wrote you the same thing last May: that I see myself in you. I have much pent up resentment that sometimes I feel like my cancer is inevitable. All the rage pent up surely at some point starts turning its head inwards, eating me from the inside like the cancer ate you.

I am working on it though. And one major difference from Tsunami one year ago and Tsunami today is that I don’t avoid responsibility. I own up to my mistakes and am kind to myself. I do my best not to run away from problems, and I try my best not to shy away from difficult conversations. 

I feel like I’ve grown a decade in the past month. And in this week alone I’ve done things that I have struggled to do my whole life.

If I were to have one wish granted, it would be for me to go back in time to a younger Tsunami visiting Tehran for the summer. One day when you were at work, and my brother and I were messing around playing games, and grandma came to us pleading. Please tell your uncle to take care of his health. Tell him that you love him and that you want him to stay healthy so that you can spend time with him in adulthood.

My conflict-avoiding, excuse-making self was already at work. I told grandma that I’ll talk to you but it was a pre-calculated impulsive lie. My excuse was that you wouldn’t listen to me and that it would be a waste of my time.

I wonder if things would have turned out differently if we had talked to you. I wonder if you would have put an effort to eat well, cut out drinking, exercise and to do regular checkups. It shocked me at first when I heard that you handn’t been to the doctor in over 10 years, but in a way I understood: I also have a tendency to avoid things that are uncomfortable. I delay and delay until I am forced to deal with them. You were going to do that till the end, and it was only chance and good company that forced you tog et checked, but it was too late.

Once I understood that health is important, I modeled my lifestyle to be the opposite of yours. I focussed on eating healthy, exercising regularly and going to the doctor periodically. In many ways you still motivate my life, and I understand that it’s not in the nicest way. But the real valuable thing I have learnt from you is that I am responsible for myself, regardless of who is responsible for the circumstances.

I promise you that I will continue on my journey. I promise you that I’ll make sure to go through uncomfortable truths early so that it’s never too late. I promise you to surround myself with people who lift me up by prodding me in the right way. 

Tsunami