My Alternate Universe
Panting on top of a yoga mat, I let the layer of sweat on my body evaporate and take me away with a shiver. I stare at the ceiling, my body adapts, and the salty water slowly penetrates my eyes and leaves behind a faint burn. I am told to lie down and close my eyes for a second time, I lie down but still keep the eyes open.
Lights from the street reflect off the dark concrete. One car, then another, and another.
Thousands of miles away and almost two decades ago, street lights danced on my grandmother’s bedroom’s ceiling. Once in a while, my parents would be on duty at the hospital on the same night which meant that I had to go to my grandparents’. It also meant supreme pizza from Pizza Hut (without onions) and Coca Cola that my mom did not really buy at our house. It also meant sharing the old couple’s double bed with my grandma on one side and an old velvet chair on the other so that I didn’t fall in my sleep.
Those nights, I lied in bed dead-still because whenever I moved, I either hit my grandma or the wooden edges of the antique dining chair. “You’re jittering too much, Deniz,” she always said even after a tiny twitch. For years, she said she slept like a bird; she woke up to every single sound and motion — but I’ve definitely heard her snore a few times.
Each night, her bird sleep time came around 10 pm once her husband started snoring while watching TV. She kicked him out to my mother’s old room where he snored loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear. Then, like Dracula, she lied in bed next to me. I wanted to look out the window. Yet, I was only allowed to watch the moving shadows.
One car, then another, and another.
On a Sunday afternoon, I am fixated on a foreign ceiling, wasting the last few minutes of an unreasonably expensive yoga class by not meditating. My face muscles tight and my eye lids stretched out, I try to create some space in my head but instead I fall into a void, instigated by the flashing lights that remind me of the depths of my childhood. I remember the sleepless nights and that one of my childhood friends — and my first crush — is getting married tomorrow. I won’t be at the wedding; as a matter of fact, I don’t even know when I’ll see him next. Wherever I go, I feel like I’m always missing out.
A teardrop slides down my cheek, then another, and another.
I watch as my friends back home get older. Every single time we see each other, there is something different in their eyes. Maybe it’s the high of being in your 20s, maybe it’s a tiny bit of wisdom, maybe it’s simply age, or maybe it’s something I make up to be able to feel like I can spot a special spark in them even though I left their lives six years ago, and don’t know them that well anymore.
I watch as my parents get older, and it hurts. I wake my mom up with impromptu Facetime calls early in the morning just to remind her that I exist. She wakes up out of breath, her curly hair all over her face, and underneath the curls, she greets me with panicky eyes. She, of course, thinks I’m a patient about to give birth at 6 am — but no, it’s just her daughter calling from New York.
“Why are you not here, mom?” I complained the other day. “Well, you’re the one who’s not here,” she said.
If you jump on a plane as a 19-year-old and somehow never make up your mind to fly back to where you started, a part of you always feels out of place — no matter where you are. It always feels like you are not spending the time you should with the people who love you more than you’ve ever loved anyone. It always feels like the choice you made to be free and explore the world was maybe the one that paralyzed you the most because you always wish you were at two places at the same time. It takes you a while to acknowledge that that will never be possible. A choice feels imminent.
“God, when will this whole visa struggle end, Deniz?” my mom recently asked me. The answer is; I don’t know.
Thinking of all the days I didn’t leave because I wanted to stay, of all the days I felt like I missed out on an alternate universe, of all the days I pretended that I did not miss home because I was so frustrated at my country, of all the times a visa application kept me behind and on the same block, I ask myself: Am I free in America or just stuck?
I guess it’s a bit of both.
August 2017, Chelsea
