On the enchantment of nights and hope
I’m a hopeless romantic when it comes to the dark. There’s something so exciting, so intriguing once it’s darker. Any plan at night feels like an adventure. Special. It could be a Moroccan mint tea catchup at your regular cafe but somehow at night it all feels more elevated, feels more alive. More surreal.
I’ve been thinking about why I pack most of my plans after-work on weekdays. I’ve realized I enjoy feeling like every day is an adventure. It feels like falling in love with life all over, every night. Good company and good food— what more could you ask for, at the end of the day?
Coming home from a soulfilling conversation makes my heart feel full. Of love and affection and wonder and amazement. And gratitude. Everything at once. And I feel so full of life when I rest my head on my pillow, I dream in contentment.
It’s a strange connection, having days full of energy and coming home to online connections with people you love, miles away. Weekends for me then become sacred days I want to protect. Away from the busyness, and bustle. Just good ol days with no plans and a lot of room to be still, to stay.
In many ways I’ve realized I don’t like feeling caged. I’d rather be intoxicated on freedom than be sobered by restrictions. It’s a fear I’ve had many a time, and one I’ve even consciously sometimes thought about. Why the fear, irrational as it may seem? I guess partly because it links to moving backwards and in some ways feels like undoing a lot of years of growth. In other ways it feels like being binded by a lack of options, contradicting the lovely view I hold of the world. But does realism need to oppose optimism? In a personal perspective, I get to do both.
Hope is the strongest feeling in the world. So why would I want to lose hope, ever?
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Thank you to: Fatima AlJarman for inspiring me, to Alex McNabb for encouraging me, and to Uswah Firdous for making me believe in writing.