March came in like a lion

steeped by samia no.38 | 03.24.25
an examination of anxiety, spring, and the lions in our heads.

In December 2021, my best friend-cousin Safa and I took a drive to spend the night at our relative’s house about 45 minutes away. We were doing a girls night and sleepover with our cousins. The drive was beautiful, with lush hillsides painted by recent rains. Safa had just gotten her license a few months prior and doing an amazing job at this long drive. She asked me something along the lines of, “Do you see yourself living anywhere other than the Bay in the future?”

I remember this being a lethargic period of time.

Looking back at my previous journal, I wrote in October 2021:

I’ve been putting off journaling about my anxiety. These past two months have been rough. My mental health and physical health have been in this constant loop that’s making it so hard for me to feel motivated to work on any of my goals or just enjoy life…On the bright side, I’ve been letting myself feel what I’m feeling and saying “no” to things when I’m not feeling well…I’m hoping this will pass with time. It’s like I’m grieving something yet to come.

At the end of 2021, I finished up my role at Kulfi, and I had been in a strange head space. We had no idea that, in two to three month’s time, cancer cells would be detected in my dad’s blood.

Sitting next to Safa in the passenger seat, I must have told her something along the line of, “I’m not sure. It’s hard for me to give myself permission to even imagine living somewhere different. But I’ve always loved the Bay; I could see myself in Berkeley or Oakland.”

(I adore Safa; through it all, being best friend-cousins with her helps me see so many possibilities and excitements in charting your course in life.)

It occurred to me that this disallowance is linked to one of my deepest disbeliefs.

I could call this a deep, dark secret, but disbelief seems more accurate. It’s something I’m fighting as I get older. I’m okay with telling you about it. Acknowledging it is important in itself. My disbelief is this: I don’t deserve to be selfish and act on my dreams — to just get up and decide to go on a three month world-wide trip, or get my Master’s degree, or to start from scratch again, or move somewhere brand new, or do something radically different with my life.

You’ll read this and immediately say, “That’s not true, Samia, you deserve everything and more.” or “…oh, that makes a lot of sense about you.” I want you to take this disbelief with a grain of salt, though, because it’s more of a feeling that doesn’t tie up in a neat little bow of words. This feeling has sunk into my soul, wedging itself like a husk of popcorn you can’t pick out of your gum line. I’ve come to link this to things like living at home and being a listener and not having any baby pictures and my self-critic being lethargic and lulling.

When I feel like people are secretly pitying me, if what they see of me doesn’t match up with a past version of me that they used to know, I tend to disconnect from them.

When the dentist doesn’t ask me about my job or what I do, but rather, comments in disbelief that I’m 26 and not 16, this elicits a wince in my soul. I want to proudly tell you that I’m a writer and I work with really cool South Asian women-owned businesses. That I got to write a piece for Eater SF, that my work is scattered in corners across the internet, even mentioned in Vogue. That I get to create worlds and experiences. (I love my dentist, though, she’s great.)

These past few years have been heavy. There are no words, really, to describe it.

One layer: The impact of COVID-19 is baked into many things. Mental health, our attention spans, our grief, our perceptions of work, the prevalence of long COVID that goes unacknowledged by many but is life-altering-ly real for those who have it.

Another layer: The systematic and agonizing genocide of Palestine by Israel is something we can’t disconnect from, that we can’t feel jaded by — yet doesn’t always match up with our actions, when it comes down to it.

And another layer: I started college with Trump’s election, and we’re back there once again, and it’s worse than ever. *Deep sigh*

You can see where this kind of disbelief emerges from. And, there is, no doubt, that many people are not okay and have their own adjacent soul-residing disbeliefs, making it in a world where basic needs and safety are not a right.

I first heard the phrase “March comes in like a lion” from the title of an anime I don’t think I had finished.

The anime follows an orphaned boy who is really good at Shogi (a type of Japanese chess) and follows his life wading through emotions like loneliness and grief, plus adult responsibilities. I would consider it a slow anime, with beautiful faded kaleidoscopic art depicting every day moments of this boy’s life and finding humanity and healing in chosen family.

The AI overview thing on Google Search tells me that the phrase “March comes in like a lion” is linked to the unpredictability and heaviness of March weather riddled with “false spring” days. A very apt title for this anime and blog post, I will say. I’ve always liked this phrase. It’s turning over and over in my mind right now — seeing as it’s March and that it came in like a lion, lol.

It’s also Ramadan: a time of being present and detaching from worldly desires and being a better person and seeking community and spiritual alignment.

I often talk to my friend Nivita about the growing pains of life: how we sometimes feels like we take two steps forward and three steps back, how we’re coping with it all and taming the lions in our heads.

Here in the South Bay, it’s been some days of rain and gloom and some scattered days of sun that’s making me look forward to longer summer days and boba dates and picnics, all the sunshine-y things. I can feel my toes defrosting, nearing the end, hopefully, of a long, not-fun chilblain cycle. The skin on my toes is new and sensitive, with a few dry and scabbed patches that will flake off very soon.

It was written that I was born in the Springtime,

When my chilblain cycle naturally comes to a close with warmer weather. When it’s lush and vibrant with cherry blossoms and the perfume of star jasmine. It’s not too cold, not too hot. My friends Farial and Renuka often talk about how spring feels like the right time to solidify goals and to go for it with gusto, following Nowruz (and Ramadan this year). In comparison to New Year’s Resolutions that should start right away in January.

I’ve always loved spring but don’t think I fully appreciated it until now —

Spring transforms the dryness of the South Bay. Or rather, the rainy days of winter walk so that spring can run. The Ohlone hills rippling with super-blooms of golden orange poppies, overlooking the marshlands. The waterfalls re-energized at Uvas and Alum Rock. The bunnies amongst the fennel fronds at Byxbee. The earthiness of the redwood trees in Big Basin and Bear Creek. I’m so grateful for this nature and its gentle yet pronounced reminders of life.

Come Easter every year, we would volunteer at the city easter egg hunt for Youth Commission. Snacking on donuts, manning booths and bouncy slides, spreading bags filled with tiny pastel plastic eggs on the baseball field for it to be picked over by kids in seconds. After the event, and for many days later, I’d keep an eye out for easter eggs on the way to the library. You were more likely to find half of a plastic shell covered in grass and dirt, kicked into some bush.

I’m sitting on the floor after school against the classroom wall with my “first crush.” It was parent-teacher conference week, and we were waiting for our parents. We’re in third or fourth grade. Every year, we’d get a See’s Candies ad in our Wednesday Envelopes. We were looking at the beautiful flyer, at the dome-shaped chocolates piped with pastel flowers, chatting about chocolate we liked and didn’t like. The simple sweetness of Candy Land and rainy day recess. Oh, he’s married and a father now.

Spring is a beautiful reset. And through the anxieties of life and all of it, really, I remind myself that I’m here, that that I’m so very whole, that I’m so very blessed, that I’ve already made it in my own way. And I’ll repeat this over and over. Because there is so much life to live, embarking on my 27th year very soon. — S.A.

🔗 Steep On This:

💫 Catch Up:  

02.26.25 | Those whimsical gardens are not just in real life

STEEPED BY SAMIA #37: There are places of wonder so close by us, yet so far away. but I’m sure some version of you is experiencing them.

💌 About This Blog:

Steeped by Samia is a space where I can simmer on thoughts & curiosities about life, liminal spaces, digital culture, & more. Far too often, my writing ideas fizzle out in energy; I never get to see them to their full potential. While building my rhythm with writing, I want to share these stories with you. 

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