You Will Never Be a Good Person

Lost Pages from my Diary

Do you every get so hungry you end up on the other side of it?

Do you ever stay up so late you’re no longer tired, but wild?

Do you ever love someone so much, you can’t bear to see them?

---

by Fuco Ueda

---

Amman has gone cold. The leaves are falling, the wind is crisp. Waking up is one hell of a task. And then of course, there are the days, which shift to night too quickly, forcing you to watch the light fade from the window, in your perpetual after-work stuckness. You want to move, but you’re so tired. It’s bedtime so early.

Welcome, seasonal depression. Along with the cold, he always makes sure to visit me. I’ve given up trying to outrun him. Sometimes, we sit together on my couch, and I ask a series of questions, such as: Why me? Why me? I’ve tried my best to be a good person in this life.

Seasonal depression makes no sound. As usual. But in his eyes, I feel I can see the answer.

No one is good. All are flawed in different ways.

Your search for goodness is a never-ending cycle, and your exhaustion is proof of it.

To be a human is to be implicitly impure.

Embrace it.

I’ve written a lot about dropping yourself into the moment and the great taste of mundane joy it gives me. For a while there, bundled within the heat of summertime, surrounded by Amman’s golden sun, it was easier to do so. Now, whether it’s the cold, or mercury retrograde, or a series of unfortunate events, I’ve felt like I’ve been surrounded by little black holes, wherever I go. It seems everyone is angry, or sad, or at the very least - frustrated. And there are always the lines, of course, connecting me in and out of their lives, doorways open that swing shut. And eyes, everywhere. There is to respite. No pause.

I’m searching for a breath of relief, but the air never comes to me.

I don’t mean to keep complaining, but I have been stuck for a while. If you know, you know. These words came to me this morning, and I’m just trying to get through them.

My reader, I am addicted to people. To love, and people, and relationships, and all the thoughts that circle above them.

I am a writer, so I have a tendency to fall into my own world, and an even a stronger tendency to shape it into the story I want. When you dream up scenarios, you often end up disappointed - disappointed by the way people act, disappointed when they don’t hit their mark, disappointed when they don’t use your lines.

When I make wishes, they are mostly prayers that the people I love will be kind to me.

I dream kindness, but often the humanity bleeds out of them. I have a hard time accepting it.

For a while, in the summer time, I’d become good about taking care of myself - pushing myself forward and living life for me. There was a sweet-spot where I only thought of myself. But with the cold, I feel I have shrunken to a smaller version of who I’d become, tip-toeing around people again, hoping I don’t disturb them. With the air so static in this country, it feels too easy to set someone off. One wrong word, you’re in trouble.

This current phase of hypervigilance could be due to a myriad of factors. Multiple arguments with friends, several misunderstandings, being close to what is now three different warzones, walking into work with Al-Jazeera playing loud and red as soon as the elevators sift open. Black Friday eating up my paycheck. Yesterday’s flat tire. And the cats, well, they’re being impossible.

When I fall into my childhood habits, I notice them. But it’s always quite difficult to snap out of them.

You see, my obsession with goodness began early - when I took my place in my family as a caretaker, as the mediator. My family suffered a lot, and as the youngest, I felt it was my life’s work to make their lives easier, somehow. To be good and sweet has always been my end goal, but the trying to be good and sweet often leaves you eaten and bruised.

Sometimes, I go on autopilot, and I start behaving in ways I dislike but can’t stop. Or, I go hours without noticing and then once I pause, I realize Oh. This is not the girl I want to be.

Sometimes, I lay on my bed and stare up at my ceiling. My apartment has beautiful crown moldings, and often when I’m stuck in my thoughts my eyes grasp onto them. Rounded, like flower petals, decorating the walls all around. I like the vintage touch, I do, and it’s nice to look upwards and see a beautiful old thing, surrounding you like a halo. It develops a sweet taste in my tongue, at the mere thought of this having been a place my landlord shared so much love and life. They’d sectioned their home off into little apartments, and from my understanding, I believe I got the guest and dining room section.

I imagine the Christmas tree decorating the corner, and my landlords white hair and tired eyes still young and bright. Their kids, running about, shrieking at new toys. I imagine them sitting side by side at the dinner table, hands intertwined, listing the things they’re thankful for. I imagine the fights - perhaps they screamed at each other, said things they don’t mean. Then, some days later, discussed luck, and how lucky they were, to be together within these walls, sharing arguments, loves, conversations - an entire life.

I’m a romantic.

So my apartment has beautiful crown moldings, and often when I’m stuck in my thoughts my eyes grasp onto them. My thoughts are always how to be better. It seems my feelings have been cyclical, stuck to me since childhood. I want to be good, I think. I’d like to be loved.

I should be the best that I can be, so I can be loved.

---

---

Maybe this is where I have it wrong, but love to me is somewhat of a currency. I give a handful out and hope to be given in return. But what I’ve learned is that we all have different prices for different things. A kiss to me is 16 loves, but to him it’s a mere 4. A hand on your shoulder is 7, but to her it’s about 3 loves, and sometimes less, depending on her mood. A homecooked meal is 15 loves, ordered food a solid 8. And, you know, once my ex boyfriend left some flowers from his garden on the door of my car, and I found that to be 20 loves, an amount that satiated me for months.

I wonder what number he’d have given them.

I’ve rarely found relationships where we exchanged love at the same speed - this has been my lifelong conundrum.

Often I find myself trying to calculate the cost of love from others. I try to see which currency they use - is theirs texting, photos, meals? Is theirs helping me with my car or giving me rides? Do they tend to go for hugs more often than not?

But humans, they keep surprising me. Sometimes they’ll do a small thing - like hold my things for me while I try to get the door unlocked - and I realize they’d given me a piece. With everything we do, it seems, there is always, always, at least 1 love within it.

But we are flawed. Of course we are. And the biggest issue I have is that I keep trying not to be. My rushing towards being a good person is for naught, because truthfully, I never will be. I will never be completely pure, completely kind, completely without mistake. I will always carry with me some kind of sin - both of the past and the future. I will not get to the end of my life without having been dirtied. There will never be a lake in which I can sit, that will make me pure.

Perhaps this is the beauty of life. That it is impossible to get through it without being ruined. That you can’t cleanse yourself of past mistakes - and even if you did, you would erase what these mistakes have taught you, what they’ve made of you. In my disregard for this pivotal part of being alive, I have lost the true meaning of breathing and living and surviving. I have made myself incapable of doing what I perceive others may perceive to be wrong or bad.

My challenge this month has been to do everything wrong - or at least to not panic and always try to do right.

It’s been a bit stressful, but I’ve come to learn that the world isn’t so black and white, after all. Most decisions are very grey, in fact.

The most rewarding part is always the journey, no?

And unfortunately, I have to tell both you and I, that neither of us will ever be good. We will never scrape by the pain of this world without adding to it, somehow. And you will never always choose the right option, when the multiple choice bubble arises in your minds' eye. You will do so much wrong.

But so much right, too.

You’ll give out so much light.

Light you only knew how to give because of all the pain that made you who you are.

Is there beauty in there, somewhere, somehow?

I think yes.

"some days,
my gender is a nameless grave

I am trying to soften my steel
be less howl or full moon

I am trying to write
a poem in which I am neither a monster nor a martyr

Today,
I will not apologize
when I do not know
who I am playing

MASON O’HERN

I’ve never loved perfect people, I realize now. Every person I’ve ever loved, I loved because of their imperfections. Certainly, for their cleverness or humor, but what has always softened me to those around me is their utter humanity. And yet I have choked myself to near-death, because I assume perfections is what gets you love. But it really isn’t. My own thoughts are an example:

I love pimples.

I love stretch marks.

I love lisps.

I love clumsiness.

I love the loud, daring laughs.

I love honesty.

I love talking, even when you stumble over your words.

I love stumbling.

I love giggling.

I love harsh truths that you give because the person you love deserves it.

I love fighting with boyfriends then reaching for their hands.

I love fighting with my friends and laughing about it months later.

I love streaks of white hair.

I love wrinkles.

I love scars, so much.

I love beauty marks on bodies, peppered in like constellations. I like to kiss them.

I love red cheeks.

I love overworn clothes.

I love when someone’s unintentionally mean, then they quickly apologize.

I love arguments whose baseline is that we both care.

I love long paragraphs of never-ending complaining.

I love secret-sharing.

I love gossiping.

I love everything that has made the people I love who they are.

I love everything that has made humans so human.

So why wouldn’t I love everything that has made me who I am?

I'd be appalled if I saw you ever try to be a saint
I wouldn't fall for someone I thought couldn't misbehave

With love,
Amal

When you subscribe, you’ll become my pen-pal, and I will mail you about four letters a month, ranging between:

• Essay/personal essay

• Stream of consciousness

• Poetry

Don’t forget to write me back! You can comment below, reply to my email to send me a private message, or send me a tellonym anonymously here.

---

I have kickstarted an initiative to highlight Middle Eastern voices, named Thawra Collective. If you’re interested, please do check it out, and if you’re Arab, I’d love to share your voice with the world!