High school years, where time flows without knowing the way, sometimes stopping as it pleases, dragging me along with a pull on my soul, sometimes tearing me from earth and sky and leaving me bewildered, hide many fractures about me in their bundle. I am still in the arms of this journey, where even glass walls, ceilings, and the hills I walk have been shattered—it is not over yet. While a part of me begs for it to end, another part is in turmoil. I built myself within these uncertain years, as obscure as what came before and what will come after, and now I fear that if I fall from this embrace, I will lose myself too.
When I turn my face back to the beginning, I realize that what I lived through was not unique at all, and it horrifies me. Perhaps what I felt were things every young person faces when torn away from their family and all they are familiar with, left only with themselves. Maybe, like anyone thrown for the first time into the chaos of Istanbul, regardless of age. Or like anyone who, for the first time, made their own decisions, embraced an intention completely, and stubbornly insisted on an unstoppable desire. With every decision comes things we give up in exchange for what we choose to gain. High school was my first real decision. And I understood that in decisions made entirely for oneself, one is alone. Only we are responsible for their consequences. The fear I felt when I realized this responsibility was bigger than high school—it belonged to life itself. We are utterly alone inside our minds, and the truth that life is a solo journey can be interpreted however we wish. I realized that I could bend reality, that the same reasons could lead to entirely different outcomes, and therefore I had to shape my life with my own hands.
I think I learned this even before I reached school, while still on the road. After leaving home, new departures kept following the closing of my room's door. I learned to leave behind dreams I built and walk toward new ones, to leave people, to leave cities. Thus, I wrestled with all kinds of farewells and later realized that I never believed in permanence. I got used to change, made what changed ordinary. Because even my mind hadn't settled into a home, no one would stay in anyone. There was only me. People, feelings, places would pass by like time. Only I would remain. I would hold on to myself. I embarked on a strange life, where sorrow mingled with joy, loneliness filled with crowds, and my heart was both free and imprisoned by conscience—all without leaning on anyone. Boarding house rooms were filled with people like me. At a turning point, we were youth reaching out to the unknown. We were at one of the sharpest transitional stages of a life cycle. One had to comprehend it first to accept it, and when you lived this school truly, the effect of that transition became even clearer. Our walls began to shatter as we collided with one another. Mine tore down my prejudices too. Every crack rewrote the rules. It erased what I knew and opened a clean page, to keep the old from mixing with the new.
I had encounters in corners with strangers who, like me, had rushed to where they are from completely different lives. People I met without warning, those I bled with from similar wounds, those I struggled with for similar desires. Stories that described a life I wasn’t involved in but could still understand as part of me, crossed my path over and over. I was thrown from one end to another with each new life story. Finding balance without wandering the extremes seemed impossible; in any case, one had to get lost at least once. Some of my losses in others were blurry—traces remained even if I tried to erase them. Some were like fresh air—when I breathed too deeply, I suffocated. In the end, I was in the process of building a life of my own. I tore down what I built, and rebuilt as I tore down. Forced to accept unpleasant memories as they were, I sought hope in new creations after every ruin, with constant repetitions. A home—whether a dream, a goal, a person, or an intention—had to be something greater than finding and staying. My future had to be something grander and more fulfilling, worthy of all this effort.
Sometimes I exceeded the limits of love, excitement, passion. Things that exceeded limits always turned into their opposites. Moreover, I displayed whatever was in my heart on my face as if in a showcase. Youth was filled with firsts. With falling in love. With falling out of the path, from clouds into seas, headlong into life’s hands. Filled with falling defeated to people, and most inevitably, falling defeated to myself. Of course, there were times I went too far, lost my will, made mistakes, told lies. That’s why I always reminded myself and others who wished me well that one must also meet with evil. Even in pursuit of a harmless, bright life, I know I caused sadness and pain unintentionally. I never made the mistake of blaming anyone for any mark left behind. Everyone was wild, everyone’s hem was stained with evil. But it could be washed away; none of it was irreversible. We should only not refuse to see the evil. To ignore evil would be a disaster. It was more real than anything else. And how could someone who is far from truth ever learn to live? Crowds showed me that nothing can be entirely good or bad. Regardless of language, belief, nationality, name, or gender, I was never wrong about anyone. Everyone had sides I condemned, hidden right next to their brightest parts. We are all infinite dimensions. Everyone both burned under the sun and hid in cold shadows.
Since growing up is something that happens constantly, moment by moment, and inevitably, I cannot count it as a novelty. As I grew, so did my small world. The important thing was to grow my world enough to fit inside. The real matter was the maturity knocking on my door throughout this process. I don't think I can say I have changed—one must be whole to change, and since no part of me is yet complete, I cannot claim to have changed. I don’t think a lifetime is enough to fully create a personality. Without realizing it, I’ve dedicated these fluctuating crises to this discovery. Now, in the final days of high school, I’ve stopped the rush to complete myself. Every effort I started in a hurry, as if to catch up with someone, ended up blocking my own path. There was no point in trying to keep up with anyone. When I stopped comparing, I found peace. No one deserves to be battered in a race with neither a fair start nor finish. The more I gave up harshness, the calmer my waters became. I’ve seen such incredible lives that, before even reaching adulthood, I realized life was not just about my own truths. Some of us could barely hold our pieces together, while others seemed to dominate life. Some tried to fit into life in this dreadful city, while for others, life itself was trying to fit into them.
Every experience I’ve gained in the past few years has greatly helped me to step outside of myself and examine this chaos with genuine thoughts, as if through a third eye. Back then, I would lose my words, and the knots inside me would always remain silent. Now, as they begin to untangle on their own, I find I can finally speak of some things. As my world expanded, I realized the difference between being taught by others and learning on my own. It was as if every person had their own unique language from the very beginning. And it was the people who spoke my language who had taught me as well. Perhaps that’s why the same harvest would come from my garden every season. What I saw would never stray beyond the colors of the canvas in front of me—just a few notes from the songs I kept memorized. And though there were endless streets leading to the sea, I knew only one of them. And for some reason, I always found myself heading for the sea, as if there was nowhere else left to go, as if every person weren’t a world of their own. It was never the formal education of high school that troubled me, but rather the fear of not being able to decipher the language of the voices I had been hearing since the day I arrived here—of remaining utterly foreign to all that was outside my own world. I think I’ve managed to quiet that anger; otherwise, I might have gone mad amidst all the empty noise. When I graduate from this vast school that holds within it miniature versions of life itself, perhaps one day, I will be able to write poems in as many languages as the people I have met.
Şevval Nur Karpuzcu
Yücel Cultural Foundation
Voluntary Author
YKV Content:1565