Nearly ten months have passed since my migration. I’ve accumulated a mountain of experiences and discovered new dimensions of resilience within myself. Challenges that, if someone hasn’t faced them, seem like fleeting, abstract problems, transform into issues that jolt you day and night, from the moment you wake up to the moment you try to sleep, and even while performing daily tasks.

The expiration date on my visa card winks at me, reminding me that less than four months remain if I don’t change my situation. Just imagining returning and going back to life before migration unsettles me.

The reason I haven’t written posts like this for a while is that nothing particularly new or impactful has happened. I returned from Iran two months ago, and I have no idea how these two months passed. Maybe things happened, but I’ve gotten so used to it and thick-skinned that nothing stuck in my memory.

Nine hours a day at the company, which involves a lot of coding, dealing with previous broken code, and lunch. Two hours commuting, at best half of it spent reading on my Kindle, and a little time waiting in Starbucks lines. Hours for cooking, cleaning the house, and doing laundry and ironing; by night, there’s no energy left for anything else. I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie.

During those commutes, I read Anything You Want by Derek Sivers. It had been gathering dust for a long time. If I had read it at the end of 2015 and hadn’t gone to military service, it would have been perfect. If I hadn’t migrated after service, also perfect. Even now, it’s excellent, and its impact is noticeable. But it requires a stable mental state and a body not bruised by exhaustion.

Suddenly, I remembered that many things “just don’t happen.” Even if I twist and turn them, it seems they’re cursed not to succeed. These failures frustrate me deeply, at least the parts of me that desire them.

Out of two hundred draft posts, eight or nine have grown impatient and want to be published, and I’m forcing myself to finish them all today. Among them is “Why Should I Kill Myself?”, a post I’ve been working on these days, yet it stretches on. Perhaps because I haven’t truly been able to kill myself yet. My recent posts make that clear.

In no time, the first days, weeks, and months of migration have become memories, and I miss them. Even the days right before traveling to Iran. Is this longing caused by regression? Or by old pains resurfacing? I don’t know.

A sense of stagnation and inactivity has seeped into me. I feel that if I don’t make a fundamental change in my routine and life, things will fall apart badly. Maybe even a different country.

To close, I invite you to enjoy the soothing sound of Rumen-Florin, street musicians from Istanbul’s Independence Avenue, on YouTube here, and imagine the world as a more beautiful place for a while.

Nothing new is told to me.
So I shall tell tales to myself.
- Nietzsche | Thus Spoke Zarathustra