self-made family

13.04.2022

Song: Fourth of July – Sufjan Stevens

I'm in this karaoke bar, all by myself, because people I get to call friends are having a "cig" outside, and they just left me alone. Some guy on stage is singing a Disney song. I'm just thinking to myself, how do I find "my crowd?"

I've been feeling this weird type of way lately. It's that feeling you get when you think you've used just about everyone; no one has been able to stick around. Everyone's been like, "Wow, you're a bit much. I'm going to peace out", and oof, what a feeling when someone you think is in it for the long haul with you, just leaves you. It's the worst, but it really teaches you something about yourself. It teaches you how to be truly alone, and I remember when I moved out of my parents' house into my shoebox apartment. I also went through a friendship breakup at the same time; I remember just so many evenings of sitting alone in my house feeling like the silence was just going to smack off the wall and kill me; God, it was so grim.

I met Rey and Nadjim when I first moved to Germany. I was this moon-eyed kid, who had no clue how to live on his own. They came into my life so unexpectedly. I've never met people quite like them. They were funny, loving, caring, and sincere. I thought to myself, "well, a hell lotta people have those qualities," but it looked so effortless for them. They were always there to congratulate me and my shortlist of accomplishments. Every tiny bit of generosity they showed me made me believe that all the friendships I had made up until that point were just…vain.

Rey was and still is different from any person in my life. She was the first friend I made in Cologne. Nothing luckier has ever happened in my life than the day I sat next to her on the first day of orientation. She was, and remains, quite the opposite of me. She plans and schedules everything; I leave everything to the last minute. She loves order; I'm inclined more towards the mess. She is without ego, and I think my thought of the day is worth sharing on three different social media platforms. She is very present and focused on the tasks at hand, whereas I'm mainly in this weird bubble over my head, watching myself trying to stay afloat. But somehow, we work.

Nadjim was a rigid box to crack. What I most regret about our friendship is that I don't actually remember the exact time I realised he was never going to leave my side. It might be around one of those "rare" moments where I would accidentally almost commit a crime. And he would save my ass every single goddamn time from possibly going to prison. (Germany has the weirdest laws.) (p.s: one of the many reasons why I dropped out of law school.)

Back then, it was so easy to finish those disposable cameras. I would have to buy them every other month. But I loved it. I would take pictures of them every time we would go out so that I get to remember almost every memory we made. Those photos ended up being great material for me to look at now when I cry about how I miss them. (gotta look at it from the bright side, folks) Most of the time, we would just end up finding ourselves on our way to a McDonald's or a Burger King to get fries after getting out of a club. Even though none of us actually drank, we would go out with other people, and I remember always being so confused with drunk Germans after every bar crawl because it would be night-time, and I would just be too exhausted to actually understand what they were talking about. So, either one of them would link arms with me and walk with me to our French fries place of the night. They would always make sure that I made it home. They didn't have to, because I was a "grown man", but they still did, every single time.

Up until this point, my close friends in Germany made me feel more fulfilled, especially when it came to my birthdays, milestones, or when I was sick. I never thought I needed to draw this line of friendship where now I have to have surface-level friendships. People that I can only have fun with, I can only be around them when I'm happy and healthy; otherwise, I'm a "bit too much" for their fragile mental health. I miss the little family that I made in Cologne. I remember flying back home for Christmas break and showing my mom pictures of Rey and Nadjim and telling her, "This is my self-made family. I found them all on my own. It's little but still good. Yeah. Still good." This was a line from Lilo & Stitch but she didn't need to know that. Anyways, the point was that, the harder I tried to replace them, the more I realised how irreplicable they were.

Almost a year after having that conversation with mom, she and I were talking about how she regrets not talking to her friends from her teenage years. And she turned to me and said, "You know you're one of those lucky kids, right? Not only have you found one but two of them, every time their names are mentioned in any conversation, your face just lights up. It reminds me of the little Mert, the one that was always happy, I miss him a lot, and they bring out that part of you."

Then I moved out and found myself in Sheffield. I bought two disposable cameras before coming to the city. I was able to finish one of them in 6 months -half the photos being street art and random places in the city that I thought were cool- and the other one sits in my room somewhere. Along the way of yearning for good qualities in people, what I realised is that I spent years keeping the title of making a family out of friendships so sacred from people in my life that when one day, I turned around and was just alone. In my life, difficult times revealed that almost all I had were surface-level friends. Most people seem to have that "dark night of the soul", and it sure is a hell of a lonesome night, friends.

-M