Sea and salt

Alyaa I stood in front of the mirror the other day trying to find out my true complexion. I stood embracing myself to realise my skin from head to toe is all different colours. My hand itself is of six different shades. For me, all these shades of skin tones represent the chapters of my journey. They compile to speak how I have grown to become what I am now. They say wrinkles stands as the mark of one’s experience. In my case, these shades of beige and sand stand to mark my experience. Every shade tells a story. 8 years ago I was sitting in Muscat airport staring at my new laptop which had a small damage because of an ignorant airport staff who thrashed hand baggages through the baggage screen despite of asking to be gentle while handing my laptop bag. Even though his act made me angry but I was too tired to make a complaint. I checked my emails and messages for a while and informed my parents, who were back home that I was doing okay. I was travelling to Chittagong from Qatar and had an hour transit in Oman. Though Chittagong is my hometown, Qatar has been my home from the day I was born. I lived my whole life there. I am not familiar with my hometown much as we stayed less than a month when we visited. And now I am to stay there for about six years till I get my medical degree. As I strolled to get some souvenirs, I was reminded every bit of home wondering how will I adapt to a new environment when I reach Ctg. Will I be able to make friends there? Soon an announcement was made calling the passengers to Chittagong to the boarding gate. My plane had arrived twenty minutes early. Before boarding I got myself a key chain which had three beautiful charms, one sword, two palm trees criss-crossed and a camel which had engraved 'I love Oman'. I also grabbed some caramel popcorn and Doritos listening to my stomach growl. I took a deep breaths, taking inside the beautiful Middle Eastern scent, the beautiful scent of Oud and headed towards my flight. I took my window seat in the business class and relaxed a bit. My adjacent seat was empty, thank God! I like travelling alone and chatty seat mates are ones I dislike. So this was going to be it. This was going to be the first journey to my new chapter. A tear dropped as the plane moved in the runway. Quick flashes of home, friends and family appeared. I was going to miss home. I was already missing it. Six hours flight trip and two hours ride to home from airport drained all my energy. I was tired, my face was puffy and I had to greet a bunch of relatives who never bothered about my existence before. I was going to live with my maternal grandmother for the time being and now I here observing my relatives and their fake affection. It was very noticeable that they weren't from their heart. I never liked my relatives. They were very greedy. All of them. From both my parent's side. After a while,I excused myself of being tired from the journey and moved to my room to have some sleep. As I rest my head in the pillow, a bunch of my little cousins rushed inside and sat on my bed doing there things. I forgot that I was not going to have any privacy. That freedom was gone. Things here were communal and I had to accept it. Tears dropped and after sometime I was lost in deep sleep. It had been two weeks and my relatives were still behaving nicely with me. This was getting creepy. Their maximum tolerance of putting an act was about a week. My grandmother was proudly speaking to her friends about how her grandchild got into med school. I was the first one amongst both my paternal and maternal family to get into med school. My cousins are school drop outs or married or enjoying gap years. They never bothered to have higher education as both my paternal and maternal families were rich. Rich and greedy and dumb. My orientation program was dated the next day. I was excited as this is the first time I will get to see the lecture halls and the labs. A part of my soul was screaming like a crazy teen behind my head. The next morning I got up extra early, took a long shower, sat in front of my vanity in a delimma whether to apply make up or not. I chose to only stick with moisturiser and dressed up for a forty five min trip to my medical college. I never knew it was this far. As I reached my institution, a couple of seniors stood out handing roses and welcoming the freshers. Most of them where guys. This was going to be weird. I took one smiling without making eye contact and walked past as I could here whispers from the back, a flash from behind startled me. Did someone take a picture? I walked quickly to the lecture Hall two following the fresher in front of me. The hall was big but I expected a lot. I expected like how it would be similar to the institutions in Qatar. Studying medicine in Qatar was a lot of money. I didn't want to be entangled with student loan. Hence we opted here since it's much cheaper and what mattered was knowledge and experience. As I took a quick glimpse of the hall, everyone around me look so matured, so big,. It looked as if they all were two years or more elder to me. I was so overwhelmed with everything that my head was feeling heavy. I only met this girl who sat beside me during the program. She was acting out of her age and talking with a lot of dominance. Damn, did I portray me self weak? As I got back home, sleep is the only thing I could think of. I changed into pajamas and not long after my cousins came to my room howling. b***h!