Manifesto for My New Age
Tomorrow, I am turning exactly 34. At this rate, I'll probably hit 40 too... Time flows so fast, and in the past, I would always feel as if I had failed to sort things out, as if I hadn't put my life on track. Actually, life isn't something to be put on track, but something to be lived; the 34th year of my life was spent realizing this.
My delusion was thinking that life was something to be sorted out, which led me to carry a constant sense of anxiety whenever things went wrong. Because why wasn't life flowing the way I wanted it to? Why did I constantly have to fight a battle while everyone else's life functioned like clockwork? While everyone else's entire life operated on a clear schedule, why were things always either too late or too early for me?
As things came and went, I realized how meaningless it was to feel anxious. Because even if I tore myself apart over it, at the end of the day, what was meant to happen, happened. What I needed to do was accept my story and move on. What I'm talking about here, of course, are the things in the order of life that I am powerless to change, or the things that still don't turn out the way I want even after I've done my absolute best. I suppose I am slowly coming to understand that Allah's plan is the most beautiful one, even if it is very hard for my ego to accept. Did I miss a stop on the road? "Oh well," I say, "at worst, the journey gets longer; there must surely be another exit." Did someone cut off contact with me? I no longer look for the blame in myself; I just say that the distance they were meant to accompany me ends here. We learned things from each other; perhaps new companions are needed for the rest of the journey, or perhaps continuing alone for a while is also an option.
I no longer expect the apple to love me just because I love the apple. I am now aware that I don't lose any of my worth just because the apple doesn't love me back. In the past, I would blame and ruin myself, thinking, "I valued the apple for nothing." Now I say: "Loving the apple taught me a lot of things too. If it doesn't love me, that's its own problem." Let me drop a note here like those pop psychologists: the issue here isn't the apple, read it again if you need to :)
Another thing I've learned is that even the people I love most are mere mortals; they can make mistakes, they can be wrong too. I have stopped trying to fit the people I love into a mold. They are human beings with their flaws, and those flaws don't determine my worth. A single mistake they make doesn't put them in the category of bad people. I am slowly learning to love them with those flaws.
I think I am also slowly learning to show compassion to myself. Instead of treating my birthday as if it were an ordinary day or expecting someone else to celebrate it, I am throwing my own celebration this year. Because I know that if I don't value myself, no one else will. I am slowly learning to prioritize myself.
The thing that astounds me the most is seeing how everything you put at the center of your life is actually just an insignificant piece of it. Life is a very interesting place; in a single day or even in a single moment, everything you knew as true can become a lie, and what you knew as a lie can become the truth. In an instant, your whole house can be ruined, your whole garden ravaged, but then you look and see red poppies starting to bloom from the edge of that devastated garden. You start putting the bricks back on top of each other, plowing the garden again, and moving forward. Because you have to keep going. The moment you start thinking, "Why was it my house that was destroyed?" everything gets harder. Because why shouldn't it be? Who are you? If I ever feel like rebelling against something, the life of our Prophet (PBUH) comes to my mind now. I give thanks for everything, every opportunity, every person, every blessing that has been my lot so far. And perhaps the most priceless fortune of my personal life is that I have finally reached these realizations.
I think of my 33rd birthday. Writhing in stomach pains in my sickbed. I remember saying from time to time, "If only I could die and be rid of these pains." I barely made it through the day, forcing myself to eat just a little banana and some roasted chickpeas. The days I was forced to return to work after my medical leave ended were like a nightmare too; it’s a wonder I managed to drive well and care for my patients well in that state. In that condition, I even went to do a post-mortem examination, struggling to keep myself from throwing up. My God, from what fires You have pulled me out; thousands of thanks to You.
Actually, there has been a subject on my mind for weeks, one I wanted to write about but couldn't quite find the courage to: Death. So many deaths have fit into these 34 years of my life. It still feels so bizarre to think that my father is no longer here, that my older brother Levent is no longer here. It feels like just yesterday my dad was nailing wire screens to the upstairs room of my grandfather's house because I was bothered by flies while studying. It feels like just yesterday my brother Levent came back from the bazaar and we sat down together at the table in my aunt's house. It feels like just yesterday we were sitting on the balcony of the lower house with my grandfather; like just yesterday my grandmother was pouring me the linden tea she brewed on the stove; just yesterday my maternal grandmother was insisting, "Eat a little more," offering the kapak böreği she made. Just yesterday I was convincing my brother on the name Ömer Mirza; not knowing that Ömer Mirza would only live for 40 days.
There is a part of my heart that will never be repaired, and I am now aware that this will always be there. From now on, I will always live life with a certain amount of sorrow. And I am no longer complaining about this; I've even started to find a strange comfort in it. Sometimes I even say: "If it weren't for all these things, maybe I would still be living blind to certain truths. If it weren't for all this, I wouldn't be this fearless. If it weren't for all this, I might have just rotted my life away in my comfort zone."
Welcome, 34; however you come, I accept you completely now.