Love where you live?!

 On my way to work, I came across a tent on the University Campus. It had "Love where you live" written in caps. Which got me to think, do I really love where I live? 

The story goes back to 2014. When I had come here as a Master's student. A part me of remembers that version of me as the effortlessly sexiest version of myself. I had great hair back then, a body to absolutely kill for, a sky-rocketing confidence, friends who adored me for simply being me. It was much easier to fall in love with this place back then than it is now. 

In 2023, I spend each month, struggling with my inch tape, hiding away my weighing machine by kicking it further inside the bed, avoiding mirrors, and switching off the video button in video calls. The place is the same, the me - isn't. What happened in these 9 years! Well, life happened in these 9 years, love happened in these 9 years, bad bosses happened in these 9 years, heartbreaks, eating disorders, a miscarriage, and the list goes on. All these things, they made this new version of me who is trying so hard to love herself every day and failing miserably at it. For the past couple of nights, I have been dreaming of someone I shouldn't. And a part of me is well aware of why am I dreaming of him.

As a young girl in high school, I was chubby. It has got to do something with the genes on my mom's side. I was never pretty. I was very studious. I buried myself in books to hide myself so that I could be invisible, which I already was. But then I fell in love. A love that crushed my soul and to this day, I fear it. I heard someone come up to me and say to me what he had said to them about me. I don't wish to repeat it here but all my life I have been seeing myself as the version of what he described me to be. It was an ugly choice of words and I am still seeing myself as her. I lost all the weight after school, became stick thin, became my drop dead gorgeous self, and still, my worst fear was always, what if I cross paths with him someday and I am not looking my best. He will get to have the last laugh. All these years down the line, I am still terrified at the thought of him seeing me and saying all those hurtful things to me. 

I am happily married now. As far away from everything as I can be. I don't even live in London, where there still might be a chance of bumping into someone. But I am a shell of myself. Too demotivated to do anything about the way I look now. My husband hates my negative self-talk. Anyone would. But I don't really like myself anymore. No amount of happy pictures can help me see me my beauty, if at all there is any left. 

At my absolute best, I was not enough, at my absolute worst, I have someone who loves and adores me like crazy. I wish I could say the same about myself. 

Now, coming back to where I started from - Love where you live? It was never about the place to begin with, it was always about the body, the mind, the heart, the soul. I live in me. My fears, my dreams, my hopes, my laughter, my smile, my quirks, they are all mine. I am my own house, my own pincode, my own streets before I belong to a place. And if I am really not happy being here, how can I be happy in the one place I have always dreamed of to be in the last 10 years. 

Signing off with a heavy heart hoping the next time I write, I have something better to share. Hope I stop getting those dreams. Btw, something nice just happened, while I was super busy complaining. I am now a full time teaching assistant at my University. So apart from my PhD, I will be teaching hydraulics to undergrads. Maybe I am not as unworthy as I think. At least some areas of my life, my looks don't really matter. My brain does. 

Love (now that I have found my happily ever after love, I am finally learning to love myself),

Aaliyah 

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