Ayah Al-Masyabi is a journalist, writer, and artist whose work revolves around the power of stories. She resists the temptation to end with hope as she wrestles with questions that rarely have answers. She has been published in DAIRA, Westword, the Colorado Sun, The Mantelpiece, Literary Purveyor, Youth Communication, Inspire the Mind, and YR Media. You can find her on Instagram @ayahalmasyabi.
A Monotonous Pattern
Once, as she mediated a disagreement between one of my siblings and me, my mother imparted this wisdom that there are three sides to a story: my side, the side of the others involved, and the faithful side. I have come to believe that the faithful side is somewhere between the other two sides, and therein lies the truth.
This has been a concept I struggle to grasp, especially in the wake of a lifetime of mental illness and crisis that I feel incapable of climbing out of. In all honesty, I always feel on the edge of another breakdown. There is this instability about me.
Side 1:
There’s a certain element of not wanting to be alive that leaves out part of the story, that, as a writer, is just poor storytelling. I am particularly stubborn in my nihilistic beliefs about the nature of my life, reflections of despair, and, I presume, a world of pain. These are inevitable.
A certainty–definite, unpreventable, predestined–a fleshed living being made of layers of tight skin encompassing an individual set of organs molded by a large selection of cells that at its core are the simplest forms of being. There, somewhere in the midst of it all, I believe: a soul.
It almost sounds remarkable, and you may be right, but in it, I only see a monotonous pattern.
Some believe that all of this rests in a cycle. I make out of a mosaic of pain and hurt – brought down through the roots of an ugly tree. Random pickings of the lucky through wealth, class, illness, and health. Where in it all, some are plagued with my disease and others are fortunate not to be. From where I sit, all I see is this doom so deep it edges on perceived annihilation.
Now that you understand, what’s the point? How could I matter? When I see nature, I am astonished at its beauty, yet when I look in my mirror in the morning, I see a disagreeable presence. As I look into my own eyes in the background of my messy bathroom, I find that I am one of those destined to be worthless, a burden on society. A hurt, exhausted dog who is suitable for being put down. In all honesty, I often see myself as a piece of shit. How could I not? How could you not?
Side 2:
A couple of days ago, I rode in a car to a 7-11, only 5 minutes away from my treatment center. The driver, a woman I met in residential, who, like me, moved on to the next stage of treatment. All I wanted was a diet soda to quench my thirst and increase my desire to live. There is something hidden deep in the molecular network of a Diet Dr. Pepper that even top scientists can’t explain, where, within a couple seconds of a sip, depression can be cured.
I sat in the back, a place I prefer to be, because it is never long before the front forgets about you. The windows were cracked open, and a breeze flooded in in collaboration with the ideal heat of a spring day.
As we left the parking lot, she upped the volume of the music, and she switched songs. There was something about the sound of the wind combining with loud, upbeat music I had no control over, and the perfect sensations of the weather, that a thought popped up in my head – that made the occasion unforgettable.
I tend to forget why I choose to live every day, especially as it feels like the world is eating me up, toying with me as a cat does with a mouse. That pain that feels like forever because, in the moment, it feels suffocating and inescapable. That day, I had made an intention to try to recognize those moments that made life feel like it might be worth living.
I need to remember what it feels like to be a passenger with no control over the radio, I thought, when I feel like dying. This is only because that dull moment felt almost magical, like there was a light in my chest and the weight on my shoulders lifted, even just a bit. It felt like something I would desire to have happen again. I felt happy there for a moment, almost an extreme elation.
I must admit, something the least depressed of us miss out on is how special joy feels when it is scarce and often taken from us. I am told, and to an extent have experienced, that those small moments can happen repeatedly, even for people like me, and make living worth it – unexpectedly desirable. Or so I am told.
Side 3:
The hard part about the faithful part is that we can almost never tell it accurately. It is this vague concept that we must grasp individually. I dislike large assumptions about our universe and the stories we tell to ourselves and others because they can never be entirely accurate to the human experience, and whatever that means.
That doesn’t mean shy away from creating meaning, just always know there is a sense of presumption in every belief. I am breaking – that is something I truly believe – but I must admit that can’t be entirely true. Like the stories I tell about myself and the ones you tell yourself. It is scary, I am a personal fan of certainty, but there is a sense of freedom and a bit of wiggle room to change.
I can not always admit or believe that my self-loathing and perspective on living might be faulty, but maybe in the back of my mind, I can remember that being a passenger in a car with the music blasting could be worth living to experience again. Then again, my mental capacity doesn’t always give me the privilege to do so.