May & June

a rollercoaster two months

Jul 11, 2022

At times, this newsletter might be emotionally heavy. Make sure you have the emotional space before/if you read this. Your warning is here 😊

These have been the hardest months of my life. In the first week of May, I lost a friend to cancer. Two days later someone close to me got diagnosed with cancer. The rest of May was a rollercoaster as my emotions skyrocketed to highs and tumbled to lows, leaving me frazzled as I tried to sift through this salad of feelings. And then June came and went in a surreal blur of things happening and the only way I stayed sane was by constantly telling myself to “be where your feet are”—to find comfort in the present moment.

But what they don’t tell you about the present moment is that the present is not a static place; it, too, is moving into the future, anchored by events or feelings of the past. Although I did find peace in the present moment—in breathing, travelling, running, reading, friendship—things of the not-present would occasionally spill through the cracks, drawing me out of the here and now.

To use my favourite word of April 2021 (back when I was writing my dissertation😬☠️), I am at an interregnum: that point where present is being hastily wrapped and left behind in the storage room of the past and the future has not yet been born.

On death & doing good

When you are healthy and alive and wrapped in the tangle of the day-to-day, it is not often that you acknowledge the reality of your own impending death. Over the last year, three people of around my age have been taken from me too soon. I wrestled with these bare realities, utterly confused by the unfairness of the world and of the fragility of existence.

In early May, I woke up to news of the third death. A mutual friend texted to ask if I had time to talk and I instantly knew what had happened. In my mind, pictures of our last moments and memories of our last conversations began to play in my head. Then the weight of guilt slowly sank in. Why did I take so long to reply to their last message? Why didn’t I make a greater effort to find time to speak? Why didn’t I communicate my love and affection more often?

I went to work that morning but the day went by in a blur. My normally easy walk to work suddenly demanded the mobilisation of every ounce of energy in my body. The thing about death is that you never know when exactly it will take. You can never be fully prepared for the knowledge that someone is no longer contactable, reachable, or touchable—a jarring realisation in our age of hyper-connectivity, when most people are merely a call or text away.

The next morning at 6:30am, I dialled into a Zoom funeral. My screen was split into a dozen squares, each showing the face of one of her many friends. It felt simultaneously intrusive and cathartic watching people sobbing. The funeral itself was, in the truest sense of the cliché, a “celebration of life”. Numerous friends, family members, and other close relations shared their memories of her, and it really stuck with me how, again and again, people would share that she had changed their life or inspired them to do something more with their lives, whether in the big societal sense or smaller (but equally important) relational sense. My friend was an incredibly outspoken LGBTQ+ activist in a country where this was illegal; she had a dark sense of humour and was unafraid to see the light in her situation (even going viral on TikTok talking about her cancer); and fiercely loyal, warm, and nurturing, always providing a space for a hug, chat, or bowl of soup. I left the funeral feeling somewhat lighter and inspired by the fact that you don’t have to do something humongous like fix climate change or solve inequality to “do something good” in the world. It reminded me that the good starts in the everyday in our relationships and interactions; in lifting people up and being a stepping stone towards the light.

I ran a half marathon (almost)

it was 800m short of a half…but we’ll let it count 😉

Why did you do a half marathon?

A half marathon has always been on my “I hope to do one day” list and became a reality when I met Laura. On our first “date”, she told me about how she’d run the Seville marathon with her dad and how it had been fantastic—the energy of the race, the endorphins post-race, the whole experience! That night, I saw an advert for the 20km de Bruxelles on Facebook and it ✨felt like a sign✨ (or maybe my phone was just listening to me…) and I sent Laura a link to the website. She signed up, I signed up, and that was that. 👏🏼

Okay cool, but on a deeper level, why did you do a half marathon?

Despite being active my whole life (gymnastics for a good 6-7 years, touch rugby, running), I’d never seen myself as “sporty”. Whether this was because my friends in high school were all extremely sporty—winning regional competitions and sports scholarships, or being voted MVP or Coach’s Choice at sports awards—or due to internalised racism/stereotypes, I’d always viewed myself as someone who was “bad at sports”. So doing this half, in a way, was a chance to prove to myself that I could be “sporty” if I wanted to. My goal not to make a certain time or run at a specific pace, but simply to cross the finish line.

I also wanted to challenge myself mentally. In sixth form, I remember running 2k’s and thinking that 5k’s were impossible; then lockdown hit and I would use my government-approved daily hour of outdoor exercise time to run 5-8k’s, unable to break through the mental barrier and reach 10k; then finals hit and weekly 10k’s became a much needed coping mechanism to give my brain a break from hours of thinking and writing. Reflecting on this journey, I saw that the slowness of my running progression was not due to a lack of physical ability, but my own mental beliefs about what I could do. I wanted to push past the 10k boundary, and I knew that signing up for a half marathon would provide me with the motivation and structure for training, as well as a fun way to celebrate this achievement with others.

What was the training like?

Standard advice says to train for at least 12-14 weeks if this is your first half-marathon. When I signed up at the start of April, we were eight weeks out, so I knew that every day counted. I’ve definitely had runs where I’ve felt breathless, tired, and counting down the kilometres to home. I wanted the 20k to feel physically easy or at least physically possible, and it was this that motivated me to train whenever I didn’t want to. Every run now would make the 20k a tiny bit easier.

I found a random 8 week training programme online, and complemented this with a strength training programme designed by the fantastic Edana to bulletproof my legs and avoid shin splints. I put it all into a spreadsheet (yes, I’m a virgo).

EZ = easy runs where you want to feel chilled; LR = long runs which are about distance not time; Wednesdays = speed work. Green = completed; yellow = missed. You can see the full programme here (I made a template of it for my friend Pimmy!).

Training was where I strengthened physically and mentally. I had not run consistently since graduating in June 2021, so my body was confused about why I was suddenly making it run while its partner in crime, the mind, would try to find excuses out of running. But as it is with most things, it got easier over time.

Doing this 20k taught me that strength comes from discipline and from doing things when you really don’t want to. There were a number of times where I did not feel like running and so I would tell myself to do a mini 10 minute jog around the block and continue on if I felt like it. No surprises here: once you start running and get into it, you don’t want to give up—sometimes starting is the hardest part. At the same time, I became aware of the need to balance discipline with awareness and kindness. Going inwards and away from the chatter and excuses of the mind, I found a space of honesty, where I sometimes found that I actually did need to rest and that I wasn’t being lazy. One thing is for sure: the kindness/discipline balance is not an easy one to navigate.

What was the run experience like?

The evening before the race, Pimmy, Flore and I had a pasta party where we cooked half a kilogram of zoo animal shaped pasta in tomato sauce (easy to digest), watched an episode of Old Enough, then went to bed. The next morning, I had a good breakfast of banana oats and water 2.5 hours before the run, did some stretching, and then took the tram to the race with Laura and her mum.

The run itself felt like a city-wide festival with live music every few kilometres. There were bands playing pop classics (a lot of ABBA) and ensembles playing everything from Caribbean steel drums to brass instruments to African drums. Many people came to cheer us on along our route: kids stuck out their hands to high five runners, people brought out speakers to blast motivational tunes, families banged pots and pans from their balconies. It felt like the whole city was rooting for you to finish.

At around the 9km mark, my motivation began to dwindle and I contemplated taking a short walking break. But then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a fantastically cheerful figure waving and shouting “Yasmin! Yasmin!” and it was my friend Flore! I felt so happy to see her and my energetic reserves were immediately topped up, powering me through the final 11km to the finish line. This showed me the power of mind and mood, emphasising once again how running is largely mental.

It was also blessing to have my best friend Pimmy there to cheer me on, especially because she is one of my aforementioned #eliteathlete friends. She was a Godsend. She tracked my location using Find My Friends and picked up my waterproof layer about 5km into the race; coordinated with Flore who came to cheer later on in the race; and brought me a banana and the Team Shrewsbury shirt to wear post-race. She was also voted Sportswoman of the Year during high school, and how many people can say that they have their own personal Sportswoman of the Year cheering you on?!

On listening and being

When I attended a conflict resolution workshop at the age of 16, I came away with my mind blown by the concept of “active listening” and have since tried to incorporate this into my own relationships. “Active listening” challenges our normative idea of what listening is—i.e., “an automatic process about which there is not a lot to say: in the same category as digestion, or blinking” (source)—by arguing that questioning and communicating are part and parcel of listening. It is about understanding the facts and feelings of what is being said and assisting the speaker in working through their own thinking and/or issues.

However, while “active listening” is extremely important, so is simply holding space. A belief I hold, which has strengthened with time, is that most people know how to solve their own problems. It is the emotional feelings of overwhelm, fear, stress, or anxiety which get in the way of allowing people to properly grasp these solutions which already sit waiting in the palm of their hands.

During these months, I found a lot of comfort in simply being listened to; in having my confusing muddle of feelings untangled and explained back to me—without any kind of attempt at solving the problem. Holding space can be enough.

Little nuggets of joy

MY BESTIE PIMMY CAME TO VISIT ME!!!!! I posted an insta reel documenting those special times with my lover <3
I got to reunite with Anna, a friend I hadn’t seen since 2019, who visited me for the day from The Hague. Despite so much time passing, I felt like we got on better than ever before.
I visited Taste Tibet in Oxford and was given a free curry after the owner/chef Yeshi recognised me. I worked for them at balls and markets a few times in Oxford in my first year (2018-19) and was touched to know that they still remembered me.
My childhood friend, Jo-lie, visited for a couple of days from Finland
Laura and I found more friends—Flore and Staz—to hang out with, beckoning a crazy two-three weeks of gnocchi making, birthday celebrations, and pub quiz nights. It is nice to have friends!
I was invited and went to my first Bat Mitzvah
I went to Leuven for the day to visit Joshua, a friend from Brussels in 2020
I went to a live comedy show for the first time, thanks to a new friend I had made called Jakob who had spare tickets. The show was obviously very funny, but also informative. It was quite shocking to learn that adopted chi ldren in Ireland cannot easily access their birth certificates which, in my eyes, fundamentally restricts knowledge about key things like identity and history.

Us running into Dara Ó Briain at a bar after the show

I attended my first poetry festival, reuniting with an old Oxford friend (the poet) for the first time in two years. I got to stay with her in her hotel and felt like her exclusive assistant, taking photos of her, carrying her things, and possibly leaching off her free food and drink tokens…

I spent a beautiful couple of days in Cambridge with Pimmy, two weeks after she visited me. Controversial opinion but I think it’s prettier than Oxford…
Jack’s gelato is pengerzzzz
I spent a weekend and a bit in Palermo, Sicily with Anya. The highlight has to be when we cycled 8km for the best gelato I’ve ever had and then a further 2km to Virgine Maria beach. The beach itself was beautiful, with pristine aquamarine waters, but the best part was the people. The other beachgoers were probably confused about why these two English speakers were at their very non-touristy and local beach, but were very kind to offer us their beer and snacks.

Sailing the seas again

July, like November, will be a month of change. It will begin in Brussels with a visit from my second-year housemates, continue with a brief 3 day visit to the UK for Wimbledon, and then stop for a week in Bangkok before dipping its toes for just under a day in Singapore and finally anchoring in Perth, Australia for who knows how long…

Things I enjoyed and recommend

side note: i realise that i speak in a lot of superlatives

A TV show for my fellow humans with tiny attention spans (on Netflix)

this recipe of mine which PEOPLE ARE LOVING and RECREATING (I may or may not have a loyal Cambridge following 😗)

A short story on refugees in the UK written by someone I met at the hostel in Palermo

The poem that got me through it all (thanks Rachel <3)

An excellent album

The easiest and yummiest dinner

How have I only just discovered this Frank Ocean song??

Let us bow at her feet

Best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever (super easy)

Manifesting this energy