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This is a part I have always wanted to document and share but I never found the right words for it. it is the scariest feeling I have ever experienced, and it is mainly composed of fear. but it is also confusing in a way that, unless untangled slowly and honestly, it will remain confusing forever.
The story goes back to 2023 when I was a student at the University of Khartoum. I wrote about that period before in a draft called days that I still do not understand . during that time, I was packed with fear. I was shaking for no obvious reason, living inside something I could not explain. I kept saying it was my sympathetic nervous system reacting because I was grinding too hard, as if my body had decided to pull the emergency brake for me. but that explanation slowly started to feel shallow. what triggered my nervous system in the first place? why was I already tense before the collapse? why was I restless long before everything fell apart?
This question is by far the hardest for me to answer. I’ve tried for years, and every attempt was prone to failure. A big part of the struggle wasn’t just about identity itself, but about how strange my relationships were, unstable, confusing, always shifting. It’s hard to know who you are when the people around you don’t stay long enough , for you to see your reflection in them.
You’re just forgetful.
There is one attribute that almost all the people around me seem to know about, because I keep talking about it a lot: I find it difficult to remember both people and places, I forget things very easily.
I remember coming back to Sudan from Saudi Arabia when Abd Alwahab told me he had secured a scholarship in India and might travel to pursue it. After a lifelong friendship, growing up in the same district our entire lives, the time had finally come for him to leave for his undergraduate degree. I don’t recall thinking deeply about it at first, because it seemed that he hadn’t fully made up his mind yet. When I returned to Sudan, I got busy with university, and suddenly things became real on his side.
Last selife
I was waiting so badly to join university, high school had not been kind to me. It was not catastrophic, but it was deeply unpleasing. I did not feel at home there. I felt like I was passing through something I had to endure rather than something I could grow inside. I didn’t like it at all.
There is a famous Viktor Frankl quote:
“When a man can’t find a deep sense of meaning, he distracts himself with pleasure.”