It is not my right to say that I have come to conclusions about everything in life. However, there is a thing that keeps me always alert about relationships. It is a simple but very delicate thing called trust. There is always a part of our heart that goes with the person we trust to. Here I do not mean only our life partner or friends. Our siblings, parents, blood relatives, and all people we have known for the longest time could be the people we end up concealing our feelings from. Things like we crave to share, meanwhile realizing they will misunderstand us. Ironically, we trust our feelings or thoughts to some strangers on social media by sharing Instagram stories about our state of mind, composing heartfelt posts on Facebook, or via other means of social communication. Some of us block a family member on social media in the first place just because we do not want to explain the reasons why we do not trust them. Sometimes, the people we care about the most turn out to be the people we cannot wholly trust. Just think about it.
Although friends are not our relatives or don't live with us in our homes, don't share material things with us but they do play a major role in our lives. Friendship is a companionship where two people, mostly going through similar conditions in life or having something in common share a bond of closeness, warmth and support. It is an undeniable fact that the influence of friends is huge on our thoughts, point of views and personality overall. Hence we are always asked to stay cautious while making friends or getting close to people as at times we might seem to have a very unique click with a person and the person might be having similar views or common situations in life but other factors should be kept in mind while being emotionally attached to someone. People would judge me when I'll write here that friends should always be made according to financial status and social background. People might criticise me on the viewpoint that elite class should be friends with elites, middles class with similar ones and lower class with lower ones. I am not against equal treatment and am totally against any sort of discrimination in keeping friendly ties and terms with people or in any other field or aspect, but when it comes to spending time and sharing views, interests and liberties, two people (if they belong to the status of sharp differences) they would have judgments about others which might not necessarily be true, their interests would be different and when a person from elite class would discuss his/her international family trips and tours, the favourite continental cuisine, favourite brands of dresses and apparels, the other person might indulge in an inferiority complex and may start getting envious for not having all those things in life. This complex would make the other person thankless for the blessings he/she has got in life and would automatically start comparing his/her life with their elite friends...ending up complaining about things unavailable for them and going in mental restlessness and depression. On the other hand, the friend from the elite class might have to filter out some views or experiences just so that the other person does not feel low or underprivileged. This would, in turn, make them feel restricted in sharing views and experiences which eventually becomes the reason behind barriers in communication. Thus, I am of a strong opinion that friends should be made in a similar social or status circle so that both people can understand each other without feeling low or lesser than the other person. On the other hand, I won't deny the fact that social exposure helps a person in knowing the social culture and human psyche deeply and closely. The age gap is also the factor that creates misunderstandings as having very elder friends or very junior ones as friends might make things vague and complicated as both people have different mental level and knowledge.
Long ago, my health became detrimental to normal life. First intermittent, now it's more often having escalated at a city shelter. I could no longer continue to work or finish my university studies pending health changes. Shelter food made me choke, vomit or sent me to the loo. It affects me daily. Every meal is sheer torture: I never know if I'll keep it down. A fluoroscopy confirmed that frequent up-chucking has narrowed and scarred my esophagus irreversibly. These dark times must pass. Like a boa constrictor who regurgitates barely-digested animals complete with that sticky gelatinous saliva, my choking is a lengthy painful process. Unfortunately, my constant throwing up isn't seen as an ingenious way of avoiding danger. The turkey vulture purposefully pukes up an entire stomach's wing-heavy contents, so that a rare predator will turn away from the maggot-infested stinky shit and rotting carcasses. My purging is just plain embarrassing and uncontrollable. Like boas who feed on rodents, songbirds, lizards and other small mammals, my normal diet is varied. My favorite meal is fish/seafood, rice/risotto and grilled vegetables. I like chicken, beef, lamb, and pork but can't consume these proteins without painful hard swallows. I can relate to captive boas prone to Inclusion Body Disease characterized by chronic regurgitation and abnormal painful postural positions: their challenges are like mine with Eosinophilic Esophagitis and other serious ills. Like a non-venomous boa, I wrap my coils around my faith. With God around me, I trust that things will improve henceforth. Also coiling myself around my friends, church family and sister, they act as the editors of my life and writings. Like the monogamous vulture, I'm fiercely loyal to those I love. Now others need to stick by me through thick and thin. Dark days must soon pass. Like boas whose habitat is threatened, so is mine, as Toronto's housing crisis means rising costs and limited affordable accessibility. As boas have adapted their perambulation to a straight line, I adjust to the times. Extinction threatens vultures too: they are poisoned by eating dead livestock given medication toxic to them. Shelters have fed me food months-to-a-year-beyond-expiration dates, poisonous to my now-delicate system. By picking dead carcasses clean, unsuspecting environmentalist turkey vultures are on clean-up and recycling duty to prevent the spread of disease. Their acute sense of smell has helped gas companies detect gas leaks as vultures circled attracted to the smell of gas also found in dead animals. Concerned with the environment, I enter contests funding tree plantings, clean-ups, and literacy programs. When migrating or searching for food, vultures congregate in ‘kettles' flocks of several hundred. I feed off the Salvation Army Bible study groups, kettle-crazed too. Like a baby boa, I was immediately independent, somehow discerning appropriate food without instruction. According to my father, I was ‘contrary' from birth refusing to drink my ‘milkies' and spewing up formula. My parents fed me pediatrician-recommended melted ice-cream. Somehow, I survived my first year, lactose intolerance then unknown. Again, I puke up constantly: it's hard to get nutrients into me. I'm not like others. I never thought as others do. Research is in my blood. An independent thinker, I can figure out most things with little or no instruction. Nowadays, Google becomes my first line of defense when faced with an unknown. Similar to boas and turkey vultures I hiss if threatened or encountering social injustice or iniquities upon the vulnerable. My sometimes-biting words are intended to propel others to act. Now I observe people's movements and utterances. Like an eagle-eyed vulture, I wait for the next juicy story. I write stories for contests. I may win one or not. But either way I'm the better for honing my observational, research and writing skills. Contests keep me alive. Everyday I write to achieve self-imposed entry deadlines. Too busy to worry about all the exigent conditions around me, including my own life's horrors, I focus elsewhere. Dark periods will lift someday. Till then, I keep my mind active even when my body fails me. Sometimes I write in floods like the expulsion of a boa's or vulture's stomach contents. Virginia Woolf's stream-of-consciousness. Other times I hover, searching for words. Like a vulture circling its prey from high to low altitudes, I scavenge for details to fuel my stories by people-watching. My prey is not physically dead. Yet like the city's forgotten vulnerable many are dead in prospects, motivations, hopes and dreams. Like the turkey vulture circling overhead, I hope for that tasty tidbit. Rather than with menacing size, I want my writings to stand out shining a light on social injustice. I want to change minds - ‘What ifs” to ‘right now.' I'm different. Boa-Turkey-Vulture Me.