Turn to Yourself

Too many people I care about dearly have been feeling abused by their lives. They’ve been feeling unhappy, and extremely helpless with no control of the circumstances causing their unhappiness. This is for you if you feel this way.

Nothing feeds unhappiness as much as feeling helpless. Every time you take a look around yourself and think there is nothing I can do, you are choosing to solidify your sadness. I understand that your life is horrible, I understand that your circumstances are making you miserable. I can see clearly how it is not your fault that any of what is happening is happening, and that you cannot stop it from punching and kicking at you. But here is my question to you; what if your life never gets better? What if you continue being patient and waiting on life to stop abusing you, and instead all it does is move from kicking to cutting, and from cutting to stabbing? What happens then?

Will you spend your entire life being miserable? Will you carry that stone sitting on your chest for the rest of your life? Will your heart always be heavy, will your mind forever remain shackled by life’s abuse?

I want you to close your eyes and think for a single moment. I want you to think of everything happening in your life, and you will find that we always have a choice. The choice may be horrible, between two things each worse than the other –but the choice is always ours. We can choose to quit and live the misery of being without a job, with no money and no hope for it, or we can choose to stay at our dreadful jobs where a sliver of hope exists. We can choose to surrender to the beating, or we can choose to fight back and get hurt. There is always a choice, stop robbing yourself of that truth. You are in control, and when offered the choice between bitter and sour you chose which one you will withstand.

You are not helpless. Life happens the way it happens and sometimes we cannot help what is being thrown at us, but that does not make us helpless. God granted us the gift of ultimate control, he granted us the very weapon we can use against life’s abuse, but we choose not to use it. We are raised to believe happiness comes from without. Happiness is money, a present, it is travel, a smooth ride, new things, games, friends, family, good food –happiness is a good life. None of that is true. I dare you to bring forth a single person, whose life you actually know all the details of, and tell me their life is perfect. A perfect life does not exist. Just as ever present light does not exist. Our world was created on the very basis of opposites co-existing. Life is chaotic, it is a neverending gamble full of ups and downs. So stop expecting the world to grant you the impossible, stop expecting your life to suddenly turn around and go from bad to good just because you were patient. I can tell you right now that that will never happen.

Use what God gave you, that weapon he embedded in all our minds, the one rusting away in a corner under a pile of false beliefs. Take control of your own self. You have the power that no other creature was born with, the power of a mind strong enough to override itself. You have the power to rewrite your expectations, the power to take a step back and actually see who you are and edit every single aspect of yourself. You cannot force life to bend to your will, but by God you can bend your mind to your will and force it to find happiness amidst your misery.

Accept that patience is not the answer, waiting for things to get better is not the way to find happiness. You find what you look for in life, if you are waiting for things to get better so you can be happy, then all you will find are the bad things that are robbing you your joy. Shut life out, take a day and be with your mind and find your happiness in there. Happiness is hope against doubt, it is a smile bursting among the tears. Happiness is possibilities, it is dreams and an imagination, happiness is taking life as it comes while you work for the life you want. Happiness is comfort, it is faith, it is taking control of yourself and celebrating inside achievements, it is working to improve your life and yourself –whether those improvements pay off or not. Happiness is, above all else, nothing but acceptance. Accepting life’s imperfections, accepting that our choices are difficult ones, accepting that bad is a part of good.

My life was in ruins for years, and the day I decided to stop fixating on my life and fixate on my own self instead was the day my life got better. If I choose to, I can still see how none of it has been truly fixed, the negatives plaguing  my past still exist, and yet all I see is positives. No one found happiness by looking for it outside, no one found it by trying to create it in their lives. It can only be found by working on your insides, and when you are fixed you will see that while you were busy within yourself, your without got busy getting fixed. 

Twenty-Six

All my life I had been postponing living, postponing any dream, wish or goal I had “until”. I pushed everything back in order to focus on my studies, and all that got me was that at twenty-five years old I realized that I hadn’t done a single thing I wanted to do. All I did was focus on a future that refused to come, and wait on living until my life had passed. I was supposed to have everything I ever wanted by 2015, and instead I had absolutely nothing. Twenty-five was the year I decided to put a stop to that, the year I decided that I would live today and never postpone anything for any reason ever again.

And so, twenty-five was the year I surrendered to the present and said yes to every opportunity. It was the year I stopped fighting the current, and started swimming right along it. It was the year I found the self I’d lost, the year I created countless memories full of love, laughter and smiles. It was the year I gave a Tedx talk, the year I scratched things off my bucket list. Twenty-five was the year I re-invented my entire view of my future, the year I found happiness and content. Twenty-five was the year I changed my own life, and it was nothing short of miraculous.

Twenty-five gave me so much, and until the very last hours it continued and it gave me ideas for the gifts I traditionally give myself before a new year of my life begins. First and foremost, I give myself the gift of opportunities. If life won’t present you with that which you seek, go out and create it yourself. I give myself the gift of taking control, and creating my own opportunities and my own good fortune and luck.

My second gift is a promise. I promise myself that twenty-six will be even better than twenty-five. I promise myself a year that fills me with pride, a year of achievement and making a name for myself. I promise that my past will never be my present again, and that the future will not ruin my now in any way.

And finally, for my birthday, I give myself the gift of good advice. You made the mistake of focusing on the now that will lead to the future you want, and exiling everything else once before. Do not make that same mistake again. But do not commit a crime against your dreams in the name of avoiding the mistake. You have a vision, you have a dream –make them into a plan. Work today as though you have nothing to wait on in order to reach those dreams. Start creating that future, not just by studying, but by actually beginning the long and grueling building process now. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have the required ingredients yet, it doesn’t matter that you don’t have your degree or the means to make it all real. Build it, build it now, today.. that is the only way it can ever be built. When your dream is unreal, the path you take will surely leave reality behind.

Trust in yourself, in your deepest goals and in Allah. You’re driving blindly, but he can see –let him lead the way. Follow the path, and along the road begin to build your dreams. And while you’re at it, I strongly suggest you enjoy the ride. Life is not the station we’re driving towards, life is the ride.

Happy birthday.. 

Everlasting Suns

All my life they have been at the center and outer edges of everything that ever mattered. They were the sun from the moment I opened my eyes, and all I loved gravitated around them and existed because they did. My life has two shining bright suns, and through the years I was too busy to notice that as I grew so did they. 

I felt them so strongly with senses other than sight that I never felt the need to truly look. I felt an aura of strength the likes of which I have never felt before or since. I felt love and warmth so big they kept two entire galaxies afloat. I felt smiles, laughter and care. I felt hugs that felt so timeless there was no way they would ever waver or change. I felt two spirits that burn with the entire life force of both sides of my family. They are strong enough to have kept me blind and secure, knowing that something this bright could never age and be anything other than everlasting. 

My blissful blinds came off this past year, and I realized that spirits don't change but bodies do. Limbs can age, cells can slow down, eyes can change color and skin can wrinkle and thin. Suns burn with the same strength but the shells that contain them age and grow on. I was so blinded by how they made me feel that I missed the changing point. I went from being dazzled by two magnificent women who led long, full and inspiring lives to suddenly realizing that they are older than I ever thought they were. 

It scares the living daylight out of me to see them so frail when they are at the heart of my definition of strength. But then I close my eyes and realize that they feel just the same as they ever did. My grandmothers burn just as bright as they have my whole life, and no amount of aging their bodies can do will ever change that. Spirits are everlasting, and sight is overrated. So I will keep my eyes closed and feel my grandmothers. And I will pray to Allah that no matter what my eyes try to tell me today or in the years to come I never stop feeling them everywhere I turn and in everything I do. I have loved them long before I knew what love was, and I will love them longer than forever can dream to reach. They are my everlasting suns, and that is something that time and old age cannot and will not change. 

Strength, Courage and Wisdom

I have always believed that unsaid words have power over us, and that by saying whatever it is that we shy away from out loud we steal away its power. Strength is doing that which is harder, and weakness is succumbing to the simpler path of hiding from unpleasant things and pretending they do not exist. Seeing through a veil of denial to admit a truth you wish you could bury away is at the center of true strength. And what better way to acknowledge what you have denied than to say it and wear it proudly on your sleeve until it can be slain?

Strength is not the lack of emotion, courage is not the lack of fear and wisdom is not the lack of foolishness. If you do not feel then you have not defeated feelings; you cannot battle and outlast that which does not exist. In order for you to be strong you must feel. The more you feel the bigger your opportunity to be strong. If you are able to withstand a mountain's worth of feelings and still go through life unhinged and un-singed then and only then can you call yourself strong. But hiding away from things that exist and pretending you don't feel them in the name of strength is at the heart of weakness.

In the same way courage cannot exist if fear does not. How can you be courageous if you have no foe from within attempting to hold you back? Courage and bravery can only be found in the face of great fear, and if you go around screaming I do not fear anything then you are foolish and a coward who is too afraid to admit that they are afraid. No one fears nothing, but everyone pretends to themselves that they do not.

I can go on and on about my philosophy on opposites and how the presence of one proves the other, but suffice to say that strength, courage and wisdom cannot exist without pain and fear. If you are afraid then you are wise and have known enough life to know that fear is sometimes the epitome of logic, you are brave for acting against your fear and you are strong for being in its presence.

So in the name of saying words aloud in order to steal away their power, and in the name of admitting difficult truths and facing them head on, herein lies my confession. I fell, rose, battled, lost, rose, scarred, bruised, fell, rose and eventually won. I am not as whole as I once was, but I am stronger and with thicker skin. And at the end of all of that, even though in all the true meanings of the word I am fine, a deeper truth remains -I am traumatized.

There. 

Of Writing..

A few years back I reached a point where I could not write. There was no lack of substance, no lack of desire for it and yet try as I might no words would come out. Anything I managed to produce was forced, it was literally pushed letter by letter and none of it sounded anything like my voice. My block was so bad that eventually I gave up trying and for two years I lost my favorite hobby and only escape.

The cycle broke when I stumbled across a blog post called "this shade of green". I read through that piece three electrifying times back to back, and the long dead candle flared to life inside me. I went through the whole blog, reading entries as far back as three years old right after reading that first piece. My candle roared into a fire. It screamed its pent up energy into the void that had stolen its breath and it lived, it became. I was inspired by someone whose words I related to and whose writing reminded me of what I was becoming before the block took hold. I was inspired by beautiful language and complex thoughts put into simple and yet intricate sentences sown into place by threads of coherence that pulled you in long before you realized they had a pull.

Two and a half years ago a stranger's words ignited a part of me I had given up on, and I wrote for the first time in years. My words rushed through my fingertips with the pent up energy of years of soulless letters. I wrote and the relief was immediate and intense. I started my blog then. Not under a pseudonym this time, not somewhere to write my thoughts but a place where I would pour my feelings -heart, soul and all into. I wrote until the current flowed freely and it took no force to will metaphysical into solid letters and stitch a small reflection of my inside onto a page. It was both exhilarating and frightening to expose myself, but though the two battled I was always cheering for the exhilaration to win.

My flame dimmed as life attacked, and soon it was just a candle fighting an ocean of darkness. The candle lost, and the void took hold once more. I have been trying to force my letters to carry my soul but they refuse. I have not written, truly written, in more than five months. I am overwhelmed with the need to articulate on a daily basis but the words just won't flow. My writing no longer carries pieces of my soul, I can't paint images that empty the negatives inside me and so they stay where they can fight the positives. I am out of sorts, but the void is too strong and I have no oxygen and no spark of inspiration is strong enough to bring my candle back to life.

I wrote because I had something else to write about but I could not force it out. I wrote this instead. I miss writing. 

Pain is Pain

When we're in pain, it's easy to shrink in on ourselves and think that the people around us, the ones trying to listen and help, don't feel as we do. It's part of the pain to make us feel like we aren't understood, like we're alone suffering in its clutches and no one can possibly know what it's like. So we push people away and hide with our pain, it clinging to us and us clinging to it.

But if we can break free of that circle, if we can find the strength to look beyond what our suffering wants us to see. Then we'll realize that hurt is hurt, pain is pain and that everyone out there has tried its bitter taste one way or another. We are never alone in pain, just as we are never alone in living and breathing.

Some people might forget the exact flavor, they might be insensitive, they might lack compassion.. But underneath all those personality traits everybody knows. We all do. You are not alone. Don't let the pain lie to you. You are understood, and we know how you feel. 

Puppet

It's like my heartbeat. The sound. That voice. It's just like my pulse. Just as constant. Just as persistent. Just as loud. It thuds in my chest, it pounds in my mind, it stretches throughout my body and presses me.

No. No, I won't. I'm stronger. I can win. I won't succumb. It can pound all it wants. I won't go there. I am not a puppet. The voice doesn't control me. It's a part of me. It screams from within my own body. It battles its will against mine from inside my own skull. The voice is mine. I own it. It is my slave. I can shut it up.

Silence.

There. There. I knew I could win. I knew I was strong. I made it stop thudding. I made it pull out of my skin. I can breathe! I'm so happy. I didn't fall. I didn't succumb. I won. I have peace. My will won.

Now that I won, that I proved I can master my own self.. Perhaps I deserve a reward? I lasted longer than ever before. Surely.. Surely I deserve a break?

I sound convincing. So convincing that I inch closer to my favorite friend and my worst enemy. I move towards it, my heart loud and elated. My whole being feels lighter just knowing that it will fill my veins in mere seconds. I'm going to.. NO! No, no, no! It's a trap. The voice spoke like my own voice. It nearly tricked me like it always does.

I stop in my tracks. I stop and it hurts. I feel it now. The ache. The unquenched desire burning through my flesh. It feels like the lack of air. It feels like heaviness. It feels like gravity. It feels stronger. It feels like crying sand. It feels like swallowing jagged rocks. God, I can't. I need to. I have to.

No, no, no, no. I moan it out loud. I clutch my head and will myself to find the will to fight. It can't win. You can't let it win. You're stronger. It hurts. No, it doesn't. I can't breathe. Yes, you can. Fight. Fight, damn it, fight.

I pull in a lungful of air. I pull it in despite the hands squeezing my lungs. But there's no oxygen. Oh my god. I can't. I can. I'm losing. I'm winning. I'm sweating need. I'm shaking need. It's all I need. The world turns into a void. Nothing can break through the wall of lack pressing in on me. There's no joy. There's no.. There's nothing. I can't feel. I can't feel anything. I am need.

NO! I'll fight. I don't have to. I'm stronger. Please, God, please let me be stronger. I want to be stronger. I want to stop. I have to stop. I'm weeping. I'm shaking. I'm dying.

.. Why? The voice whispers seductively. Why do this to yourself? Is it really so bad? It's wonderful. It feels like a jolt of pure joy. It brings the lack into focus and fills it with shape. This is who you are. This is who you are.

No. I won't.. Even as I say it my legs betray me. Even as I try to drop it, my hands succumbs. The voice drags me under. I fall. I feel. I finally feel. Joy and relief course through me. I am filled with it as I weep my despair. The world turns bright. The pressure recedes from my ears. I can hear. God, I can breathe. There's air. There's air. I wish there wasn't. I wish I was strong. I wish I wasn't a puppet. But I am. I am my own slave. I wish that I was not.

- Empathy series..

Asocial

Trying to explain how being asocial works to the social is like trying to describe colors to the blind. See, to them talking to people and socializing comes naturally as breathing. To them asocial means shy, self-conscious and lacking in confidence. Explaining what it's truly like to be asocial is like trying to bridge two worlds with nothing but words. But let me try anyway, let me give it a shot.

I am asocial. I am not shy in the least, and there isn't a self-conscious bone in my body. Anyone that has seen me truly speak can tell that I am confident and perfectly comfortable in my own skin. What marks me as asocial? What makes me brand myself this way? I am incapable of initiating casual conversations, of conducting small talk and of achieving any human form of passing greeting. In theory, I know what small talk is like, but in practice my brain blanks out and I realize the futility of exchanging simple pleasantries. I have no need, and no speck of desire to engage strangers in meaningless chatter.

My conversations are the exact opposite of small talk. I don't look to make friends, or to get to know people unless they truly interest me. I don't fake enthusiasm, and I am only ever enthusiastic for worldly discussions. Passing by individuals I feel no need to utter a single word. I enjoy silence and the company of the inside of my head more than any random chit chat. Socializing utilizes active expenditure of my energy, wherein I spend a huge mental effort trying to maintain a conversation I have no desire in maintaining and finding words to string together and utter in a form similar to social humans'.

My brain draws arbitrary conclusions regarding which people I find comfortable and can loosen the knot of "closing in on myself" around. For reasons that are beyond my knowing I find myself able to have a menial conversation with specific persons with relative ease. And when I say relative ease I mean instead of using the mental energy equivalent of lifting a load equal to my body weight, it's more like I am lifting a quarter of my body weight. For those same unidentifiable reasons, I find myself incapable of finding a single word in my full-to-the-brim mind to say to a select few.

I hope this draws an image that my social friends can understand. I understand what it's like to be you; I see the ease with which you talk to complete strangers and how fast you make new friends. I watch you talk to someone you just met the same way you talk to your best friends, and I see your jokes and the laughter that bubbles easily out of your lips. I know these are all effortless to you -as effortless as staying quiet, alone and separate is to me. Forcing you to hold your tongue around people would be ten times easier than forcing me to socialize. I hope that gives you something to think about the next time you blame me for being me. 

Twenty-Five

Twenty-four was better than twenty three. It was full of downs, but it had its share of ups. I cried for all the right reasons, and for some of the wrong ones as well. It was interesting, tormenting, character building and full.

I've always felt old. Down in my blood and in the makings of my soul I feel old. My twenty-five feels closer to fifty-two twice over. I have felt this way for years, but today is the day I let go of that thought. The number I am at is not old. It is full of youth, it is the prime of my life and if I feel old now, what will become of me when my number agrees? So gifts, then -for my twenty fifth birthday, I first give myself the gift of life. And I mean life at my own age for the first time in twenty five years. I give myself the gift of living my age, and appreciating how young I am.

My second gift is a promise. I promise that twenty-five will be my best year yet. I promise to hold on to hope with my teeth if I must. I promise to find it even when it hides, and I promise to keep hold of it even when reality tries to steal it away. I promise myself a new outlook, and a perspective that believes in reasons that have yet to show.

And finally, for my birthday, I give myself the gift of good advice. Go easy on yourself, on your ambitions and your demands of your life. You planned to be so much more than what you are at this age, but just because you didn't meet your goals doesn't mean you've failed. Perhaps your goal was faulty, the timeline was off and your plans were shortsighted. Think beyond the scope of what you pictured back when. See with the eyes of an adult that knows more of life today than she did even yesterday. Your end goal is so great and farfetched that you can't reach it in any way you think you can. When your dream is unreal, the path you take will surely leave plans and reality behind.

Trust in yourself, in your deepest dream and in Allah. You're driving blindly, but he can see -let him lead the way. And while you're at it, I strongly suggest you enjoy the ride. Life is not the stations we stop at, life is the drive.

Happy Birthday.. 

Stethoscope

When I was a child I got sick a lot. Clinics were as familiar as my own home, and doctors were the miracle workers that made my hurt go away -but more importantly they explained it. They looked into my mouth, listened to my chest and tummy and knew things. Doctors made me feel better, simply by caring, smiling and placing a stethoscope on my skin.

From the very first memories I possess I was in love with a stethoscope -the truest representation of everything good in the world. I knew that I wanted to one day don a steth and spend my time and energy giving people more time and energy. I loved stethoscopes with a silent ferocity that I held at the very center of my heart.

As I grew older my love only grew. I sank my curiously hungry mind into reading all about that world I so desperately wanted to join. But one thing I never so much as approached was anything related to steths. I didn't look for their proper name, what they did or how they were used. I didn't ask my doctor to let me so much as touch his, and I even avoided the toy ones.

I loved them more than to approach them as a silly child with a crush would. I had an adult brain in my nowhere near adult body and I was too deeply in love to squander my first touch. I would not learn what I desperately wanted to learn until I earned it. When I knew enough medicine to truly understand I would seek this knowledge. When my papers said medical student I would touch and try it. I would marry my love when I was officially married to medicine.

After three years of medical school I was asked to buy a steth. I touched it for the first time in a pharmacy, and tested its name on my tongue. Stethoscope. My stethoscope. I finally had one of my own and I finally understood everything about it. I was happy.

My stethoscope now lies hidden on a seldom used shelf in my closet. It's twisted and carries the weight of a hundred nick-knacks. It is not abused, it is hidden for its own good. It is hidden because it hurts too much to see it knowing I had let it down. My stethoscope deserves better than bitter tears from a heavy heart.

So I hide it, pretending that not seeing it makes me love it less, and want it with less force. I hide it and pretend I can't feel both our disappointments at it not being used to save the world. 

Breathe..

Soften your heart, lend it some tenderness and let it truly beat. The only reason your mind and chest ache is in objection to the hardness you force onto yourself. Solid does not mean strong, a rock breaks but rubber stretches and resists. We harden our shell to protect ourselves, forgetting that hard is weak in its rigidity and soft is strong in its adaptability.

Soften your heart and let yourself feel. The more you fight your feelings and inject stiffness into yourself the worse you'll hurt. You cannot outrun emotions, they find a way to manifest and trust me when I say they won't leave you until you truly feel them. They are not scary. Being a still stone might give you an illusion of calm but it does not mean that you are alive. We are alive because we feel. Our hearts beat and our blood runs because they yield.

Soften your heart and let it fill with a hundred sentiments and more. Feel everything you've ever fought to keep yourself from feeling. The pain, the hurt, the guilt, the shame, the love, the joy, the relief and the grief. Let a spectrum of contradictions into yourself and let them fill you. They won't hurt worse than your physical pain ever does. There is relief to be found in allowing yourself the freedom to truly be human. If you keep your insides "strong" then you outrun the positive but give the negative room to hunt you down and hurt you worse.

Soften your heart and lend it the tenderness it needs to beat with ease. I will give you directions on how to turn all your rigid into strong soft. Close your eyes and breathe. Let the darkness of your sight calm your jumpy nerves and breathe once more. Bring your shields down and surrender to your every thought. Scream every thought that should come with a feeling but doesn't at yourself a hundred times until you feel. Speak the words out loud. Tell yourself what you should feel. Say it again and again and again until you feel it filling you. Smile as you cry and tell your heart that you are setting it free. Remember that feelings mean you are alive and human, and that soft means you are durable and strong. Breathe, and allow your heart some room to breathe.

For my idiot.. 

Computerized Mind

I wish my mind was a computer, and the inside of my head had a control panel. I wish there was a keyboard attached to my skull, and a command center that responded to my every keystroke. I would simply let my fingers fly across a series of pre-labeled buttons and have my mind do as it's told.

My thoughts would no longer ricochet off the inside of my head and bounce around in games of catch me if you can. The flighty contemplations and the endless nagging of my mind would lose their power and yield to my every command. The ocean of feelings that lies beyond my control and washes over me in tidal waves that shake my core, and stormy rage that is my undoing would disappear at the mere click of Alt and F4. The maze of memories that haunts the back of my lids and courses ache through my veins would leave my consciousness when I order the process to end. Instead of spending days stuck amidst the chaotic pounding of losing past and future I would reorganize everything into neat folders that await my touch before they can release the chaos they hold within.

If my mind was a computer then I could shut it down knowing that with a tiny click I could bring it back. I would lie in my bed and send the command and wait as all my tasks and processes slowly got ticked off and my insides went blank. If my mind was a computer life would be simpler by tenfold. When my pieces broke and I got lost within the firing of my own neurons I would smile and order the faulty drive to backup and format. When I feel the virus of living death clawing its way through my soul I would restore my entire being to the last point I was functional. Time would rewind and my insides would rearrange until my past becomes my present and I am once again new and whole. If I was a computer I would lull my feelings into hibernation and restore the rest of me back to full strength.

Dark Through Light

November 12, 2015

If there is one thing I've learned in the past few years it's that sometimes we have no control. Sometimes no matter how hard you work, how much you try, how often you pray and will something into being it doesn't work out. That's just the way of the world. It spins even if you want it to stop. Life does things you don't want, and takes things you do.

We can't always have what we want or what makes us happy. I know as much, I've always known as much. But I've only recently realized that I am foolish, and that I let myself love so deeply that I dared want what I knew I wouldn't be allowed to have. I fell for peace of mind and comfort. I fell for having a purpose. I fell for things I haven't had in years. I fell for learning, and I fell for a home away from my real home.

But what does the world care? I am getting ripped from them anyway. I have to keep saying goodbye -but you know what? The fact that I keep saying goodbye just means that I keep coming back. Maybe not coming to stay, but I still manage to get a dose of my home, however minute it might be.

So for now let me attempt to divert my mind from the pessimistic and redirect it to the optimistic. I am blessed. I am lucky far beyond many out there. I have two homes, and that is something no distance or time apart can ever shake or change. Where people are homeless, I am overcrowded with homes and I have somewhere to run to when I feel suffocated. I have two families, one that I was blessed with when I was born and one that I found all on my own and joined their blood to my veins. I have two sets of people that make me feel like I belong, and I have such abundant amounts of love filling my life that sometimes it feels too much.

I lived a good life. I lost a lot, but I've gained so much. I am living a good life. I am blessed with things that I can't lose. Somethings are under my control, and seeing the dark through light is a choice I will make right now. I am full of love, I am loved, and I have things that make all the bad I go through bearable. I have things to miss, I am so lucky that I am crying because I'm leaving one home to go to another.

I am blessed beyond belief. I love you, my home, until we meet again. 

I Miss Him

April 14, 2015

Everything feels surreal. Like my life has been one long nightmare for weeks, and my mind refuses to admit that the nightmare is reality and not a dream. When I sleep I see him get better, I see him leave the hospital and I see him smile and laugh off what happened. I see him assuring me that he's alive, telling me not to worry, that reality was the dream and this was what's real. And then I open my eyes and I'm in bed and the truth sits on my chest and keeps my lungs from expanding.

He is gone. He did not get better. I saw him for the last time lying in a hospital bed, his chest vibrating as the ventilators fought to keep him alive. The last I know of him is a number on a machine. The last I ever heard his voice -I can't remember what he said. It kills me that I can't remember. I've tried so hard, but I can't even remember what he was wearing on that last night, or what he said before he left.

I don't even know if he ever knew that I loved him more than I ever showed. I don't know if he knew that he mattered.

All that is left of him now are memories that hurt more than I can bear. All that is left are things he left undone, and words he left unsaid.

I miss him.

Empathy & Disdain

I used to be empathetic. That was one of my best qualities. I could put myself in other people's shoes as easily as I could breathe. But somewhere along the line my shell hardened, and my empathy turned into sympathy, from there to compassion, on to indifference until it finally became contempt and disdain. I used to appreciate everyone's struggles, be they big or small. But something has changed.

I am jaded. My once sensitive insides have grown hard and unfeeling. Life hacked away at me, and in my fighting back I ended up losing pieces of myself. My war was so terrible everything else began to pale in comparison. My battles were so deadly everything else began to seem trivial. I was so hurt and so busy in my own huge war that I forgot that the struggle is real no matter how small the fight.

I don't like what I've become. I don't appreciate losing what I once deemed my best quality. A change is necessary. Back when I was full of empathy, I used to imagine myself as another person and write from their perspective. Like an exercise of sorts, to see if I could get the feeling right, if I could truly feel what they feel as I put it on paper. That is my challenge -to immerse myself in others' feelings, until my empathy returns and I am once again who I used to be.

And so it begins. 

Falling, and Flying

Stop clawing madly at the air around you. Stop kicking and screaming, stop panicking. Stop trying to find a handhold, stop trying to somehow stop falling.

Just let go. For once in your life surrender. Allow yourself to fall with careless abandon. Cease all movement and let yourself feel the undeniable freedom of falling into unknowns. Let the air you cut through fill your lungs and let the speed of your fall force your heart to beat at a new rhythm. Feel the pull of gravity and allow it to render all your thoughts silent and speechless.

Stop thinking, consciously and subconsciously both. For once in your life find the will and strength to silence every part of your mind, even that distant corner that you believe lies beyond your control. Let the fall fill you with such wildness that you break free of the shackles that are your mind, your thoughts and your subconscious.

Surrender your precious control and accept your own helplessness and the inevitability of your limitations. Stop wondering why you're falling, stop wishing you had a rope to cling to, stop hoping to find a handhold, stop dreaming of a safety net and stop fearing the end of your fall. For once in your life shut your mind down and enjoy the moment, enjoy the freedom of being helpless and the lack of responsibility that comes with having zero control.

The reality is that you are falling. Whether you struggle or not you are falling. Whether you fret and worry or not you are falling. If you think and fear you're falling and if you don't you're still falling. You're not in control, and there's nothing you can do to change what's happening. But if you fight it then you hurt yourself to no end. But if you let go, if you relax and surrender, then you'll realize that falling can feel exactly like flying. 

Silence & Solitude

Abandon me on an island and forget that I ever existed. Leave me where there are no distractions. Let me be among utter silence, somewhere where the only sounds piercing the quiet are those of nature. Waves, wind and creatures that aren't human. Abandon me with nothing but myself, and let the silence and solitude push me into tending to my insides.

The war has ended, and I lost in more ways than one. My mind is in ruins, and my soul is scattered. The debris left from all the battles is threatening to drown the last remnants of who I am. Everything printed on my outsides is foreign. Everything that is left of me is alien. Somewhere amidst the fighting I became things I'm not. I no longer recognize myself. I lost, and I am lost.

Abandon me on an island and forget that I ever existed. Leave me where there are no distractions to numb my pain. Let me be among utter silence, somewhere where the only sounds piercing the quiet come from within. Thoughts, recollections and decisions that need to be made. Abandon me with nothing but myself, and let the silence and solitude push me into finding the self I lost. 

Barren Land

I am choking on my "independence". I am falling on the two legs that hold me up. My "I function better alone" is constricting my throat, and my "I am an introvert" has sucked me dry. I have used up all the energy my "self" has to offer, and all the support my independence has to lend. I have fallen within my own armored shell, and the walls that protect me have become my dying cell. I craned my neck beyond my now evil walls, and all I saw around my shields was barren land. Perhaps the walls had no one to keep out, and all they were built for was to hold me in. 

Fire and Twine

The fraying twine breaks. The last bare thread holding the string together lets go, and with it the twine breaks. It crumbles to nothingness and the wave is released. I feel its awakening. I feel the mighty stretch it gives before spreading its limbs into every crevice of my mind. It is a never ending blanket that encompasses my very core, it is everything I am and everything I wish I am not. It laughs at the remnants of twine lying dead at its feet. It roars its joy at breaking free and spreads within me as nothing but a wave can.

I feel it filling me. I feel every inch of the spreading wave changing my thoughts and altering the very structure of my mind. It is fire coursing through me and setting me ablaze. It burns and blackens. It roars and explodes. My anger is alive, almighty and all consuming. It spreads within me and colors everything with its fire until nothing is left of me. I have so much of it pent up, held together by pieces of twine too thin to hold it back. It breaks free and consumes me. It fills me with blind rage, it covers my strength with anger and uses it as fuel. All my reservoirs go into fueling the flame and I have nothing to douse the rage and pull it back. It is like an infection, it sickens all the good and turns it into black. Try as I might to keep it locked within my flesh it escapes. It lashes at those around me, it burns them with my new fiery thoughts, it licks madly about and swallows anything that crosses its path. It is a sickness. It is who I am under layers of self-control. I am anger and rage.

The fire burns all its fuel and nothing remains but ash and ember. I knot the two pieces of twine together. I pull the beast back into my center. I put it back into its sound proof corner, and tie the locks with many knotted strings of twine. I sit by its side and lull it to sleep. It is satisfied with the carnage it reaped, and with a soft smile it goes to sleep. I search for more twine and add more knots. I tie it as tightly as I can. I sit by its prison and look at the ashy ruins of my mind. The wave burned through my every part. I am left amidst chaos and black ash. I look for water, but I find none. 

Dear Allah

Dear Allah,

I believe in miracles. I believe in them with every cell in my body. I believe in your mercy, I believe in your ability, I believe in your kindness. I believe in you against all logic and reality. I believe that you can fix what logic and reality say is a lost cause. I believe in you so much that I refuse to believe what my eyes see and what my mind tries to tell me.

I have faith in you beyond belief. I trust you so much I know that you are testing me, and that in the end I will get what I so desperately pray for. I believe in your promises to answer our prayers, and in your promise that you are what we believe you to be. I might break and cry sometimes, but that is only because I am human and I break, but my trust in you is infinite and unbreakable.

I trust you, I believe in you, I have faith and I have hope. Please let me be right, and let reality be wrong. Please don't make me out to be the idiot that held on when she should have let go. Please let me be the person that held on against doubt and got rewarded.

With Love.