The dreaded Sundays. I mean Sundays were already awful, to begin with since it was the end of a wonderful weekend and the start of another mundane week. Sundays felt like the world was stopping and the only thing humming was silence. That’s the best way to put it. I particularly hated Sundays because they were hair oiling days on top of the endless amount of homework, I had to do that made it dreadful as is. Hair oiling is a rite of passage for South Asian girls. My mom would warm her hands with coconut oil and lather up my hair. I hated the feeling because it made me look weighed down and greasy. My scalp would feel hot, I don’t know whether it was the fact that I didn’t want my hair to be oiled or the actual oil making me heated. She would work in the oil and nag at me about an endless number of things. That added to the torture. I would try my hardest trying to scrub the oil out in the shower by shampooing over and over. Emulsifying the shampoo and working a lather. No matter how much I tried to wash it out it remained.

I wish more memories of things remained the way the awful ones do. Traditions are funny because no matter how much you hate them, you don’t know whether to pass them down or not. I hated my mother oiling my hair then, but I would give anything to keep that around forever. Almost as long as that oil still remains in my hair to this day.

S.A.D (Haiku)

Grey, blank stares harbor

Winter air, frosted hair glare

cold stare with despair

The fear of being alone can consume you until you actually experience being alone and realize it isn’t so bad. It’s like wanting to dip your feet in water for the first time but you’re worried that it might be too cold. But you dip your feet in and somehow the water is cold, but the cold grows on you and all you ever want to do anymore is just stand there in the growing warmth of the once cold water with your feet touching the ocean floor. The sad songs play through your headphones on a loop while you lay in bed with your eyes glued to the ceiling wanting to know when you’ll start feeling less alone. Then you realize to overcome things you have to claim them on your own. What I mean by this is that you must own those feelings and make them your own. That’s what I did two February ago. Scrolling In bed on the laptop I am currently typing on now with the same two fingers as before because I haven’t managed to type with all ten fingers yet. I know, quite sad. That’s beside the point. The thought had entered my brain that I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself because pity doesn’t buy you much regarding self-worth. So, my hand dug around my purse and grabbed my wallet to then grab the card that has accepted me so much happiness. I clicked away to buy myself a gym membership. Now was the hard part, I put on my leggings after fighting and tugging to get them on. Packed my bags with the same lock I’ve had since middle school, put on my running shoes, and took a deep breath preparing myself for the challenge of being alone. I walked on what was a warm day and the sun was beaming, and the snow on the street was finally melting. When I reached the doors of the gym, I knew there wasn’t any turning back. I walked in and the smell of sweat hit my nose as it defrosted from the cold. That was the first and last time I was afraid of being alone. Putting myself in a place where I knew I had so much to be judged for allowing me to realize nobody cares as much as I thought they did.

One thing I know about New York City and almost everyone who either lives here or doesn’t know is that NYC will take your wallet out of your hands. Recently I read a New York Times article titled, “Why Black Families Are Leaving New York, and What It Means for the City” by Troy Closson and Nicole Hong. The title speaks for itself. While reading the article I couldn’t help but feel numerous emotions coursing through my veins, especially negative ones. I feel sad that the city is changing before us and the group that has created the most culture for NYC is now being shifted away from here. The article mentions the rising prices of NYC are what is sending Black families in NYC to shift down south, the percentage of black families in NYC from 2000-2020 has gone down by 200,000 (Hong, Closson 2023). That number is only growing. While, on the other hand, the increase of Hispanic and Asian families has increased within that time. As a fellow Asian myself, I am glad to see our numbers grow but I still understand how gentrification can be caused by other POC*. Upon further research on the topic due to my own personal interest, I have found that Asian Americans are moving to East Harlem, a Latino neighborhood according to a Bloomberg post by Amy Lee. This made me think about how living in NYC there is only so much space to host certain groups of people at a time. The city may be huge, but it truly is a man-eats-man world and one group will eventually kill out another in cycles. We see this all throughout NYC history and each neighborhood changes from culture to culture throughout the decades. NYC is a melting pot, but with rising prices and limited space, the pot might just stop melting.

Citations:

Closson, Troy, and Nicole Hong. “Why Black Families Are Leaving New York, and What It Means for the City.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 31 Jan. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/nyregion/black-residents-nyc.html.

Yee, Amy. “Why Asian Americans Are Moving to NYC’s East Harlem.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 3 Feb. 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-03/why-asian-americans-are-moving-to-nyc-s-east-harlem.