so am i

"hello" seems too formal, and "remember me?" seems ridiculous. i know you remember me, because i remember you. that was never going to be in question. the bigger challenge was whether we’d ever be able to forget.

i haven’t thought of you every day. but i haven’t never thought of you, either. when i do, it isn’t the kind of recollection that feels wispy or comforting. it's visceral, the clean cut of a sword. one moment you are not in my mind and the next, you are so sharp and intense that all my attention is focused there.

so you see, even after all this time, you take my breath away.

time is a construct. our brains take 80 milliseconds to process information, did you know that? anyone who tells you to live in the here and now is a liar. by the time you pin the present down, it’s already the past.

if you had asked me back then where we would be 10 years later, i would've laughed and asked why, when we had today? i wouldn't have admitted to you, to anyone, that every now and then when i lifted my head from your shoulder and peered into the future, i could imagine you, and me, but not us.

i guess that’s the part no one ever tells you. you can love someone so much your teeth ache, so much that it feels like he is carrying your heart in his own rib cage, but none of it matters if you can’t find a practical way to be together. it’s like learning that you would be immortal if you could breathe nitrogen, but knowing you are bound to the oxygen of earth.

i was the meteor that crashed into your life when you were already living it. i didn’t have any more control over my landing than you did when you froze, looking up at the inevitable sky. you had a past and a plan and responsibilities. you had someone who already loved you. we were gasoline poured onto fire. with you i burned twice as high and hot.

for a while i was angry at you, because i had almost missed this.. someone i didn’t just want to be with, but someone i wanted to be more like. you were the bright shiny thing at the corner of my consciousness. i made myself look away.

well, none of this matter anymore now. but because you're reading this, i know that as long as you’re here, so am i. 

Live by Desire

 it can be difficult to separate what you truly desire from what you've been taught to want, particularly when it comes to love. do you wanna get married because you see it as a chance to create a meaningful commitment, or because you feel a peer pressure to? do you wanna have a baby because you long to be a mother, or because you assume it’s a box that has to be ticked in order to be happy? 

sometimes, even when we think we're making these decisions from a true place, there are cultural expectations & assumptions & family histories pressed up against our thoughts, which can make it tricky to figure out what we really desire for ourselves.

what i learned is that it's all about living by your desire. and it's important to figure out what your desire is, whether that's to marry & have kids or to create a new circle, & to stop making decisions based on the boxes that are already there.

Moving Past Heartbreak

how do you get over heartbreak?

my short answer? you don't. you never do.

here's the long answer:

every heartbreak is different, of course. one of my closest friends got over a lost love by simply ignoring the hurt until it went away. another wrote about it, talked about it, and ached over it until the pain finally dulled. the next time her heart broke, it felt easier. muscle memory, i told her.

heartbreak can strike in the span of a second, or it can scratch at you slowly, over months or years, a gradual etching away at your insides until you feel completely carved out. i've felt it both ways, and i'm not sure which is worse. how could heartbreak ever be better or worse?

honestly, the "getting over it" phase has never really been my strong suit (understatement of the century). i'm not exactly a feel-and-let-go kind of person, not in any aspect of my life. i hold onto people and places and memories as if they'll float away without my desperate, determined grip. sometimes it's a great strength, and sometimes it's an awful, miserable flaw. either way, it has helped me learn.

you can't dodge the heartbreak. you can't try to outsmart it or duck behind it because you have to trudge through it, through the heavy, dirty muck of it until that one strange day when you're driving down a hill, the sun's setting, the air tastes like salt, and you suddenly realize that you're in the clear. you realize that you've made it to the other side, but the heartbreak isn't in your wake. you didn't leave it behind. no, you're carrying it with you, you're wearing it, breathing it, feeling it in small doses at random moments, on random days. it has become part of you.

the point is, then, that you don't get over heartbreak. you embrace it. right? 

Hello, 30s

What changed? My perspective as i realized prioritizing the present is the only way to go. Celebrating 30 years of existence is no small feat. It means i've survived the 1st round of adulthood, i've successfully made the transition from childhood to a grown-up with responsibilities, debt, & rational thinking. I'm grateful for the lessons learned & what life brought me even if some of it were bitter & hard to go through at times.

I thought i'd have the same dread as when i turned 20 coz turning 20 meant letting go of being a child & whimsical girlhood dreams. See, this is my problem. I have the tendency to over-reflect & long for the days of yesteryear, to long for the comfort of familiarity. In reality, i'd feel out of place if i were to magically re-experience my early to mid-20s. Like an old, too-tight pair of jeans from high school, that time in life just wouldn't fit anymore.

As a result, a huge lesson i’ve had to swallow lately has been to remind myself to live in the now. There’s no use on dwelling over a past that we have no control over, we only have control over what we do today. Every time my brain tries to wander to the past, i have to be intentional in redirecting my awareness to the present. Which hasn’t been easy when my early 20s are abundant with regret for not making better decisions. 

When I think about it, i realize there are so many out there who didn’t make it to 30, whose lives were unfairly cut short. So, why should i complain about growing up or throw myself down the rabbit hole of existential dread? No. I’m choosing now, i’m choosing today. & whether that’s at 29 or 30, i know life will be better for it when i continue to live in the moment.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen in this next decade. I have hopes & dreams for what it’ll be like. But I can’t really count on those things happening. Obstacles could pop up along the way, realizations that i want other things, or maybe Allah has something else in store for me. 

One thing that brings me reassurance is that my core values have never changed. I've consistently been guided by my strong intuition, empathy, sense of humor & love for others. So i don't think that will change all that much when i'm 39 & reflecting back on my 30s. I’ll promise my 39-year-old self that i’ll try my best to live thoughtfully & intentionally so she'll have minimal regrets in the future, insyaAllah. 

As I enter this new decade i’ll be armed with the lessons from my 20-somethings & i thank Allah for my 20s. For pushing me through the wringer, for allowing me to fail. For showing me what love is & what love isn’t. For the laughs, the long nights & close bonds i've developed. For the growth that’s made me that much stronger, kinder & wiser. For my husband & my daughter. 

I doubt i'll get much sleep tonight as this buzzing anxious anticipation morphs into buzzing joyous anticipation. 30s, i'm ready for u. Are u ready for me? 🤭

A Bid for Connection

Recently i read an article by some psychologists about this small moment called ‘a bid for connection’. 

They found the way in which we respond to these bids can determine whether a relationship lasts. If u notice & turn towards your partner around 86% of the time, u're building on your connection, trust & intimacy. But if u turn away & only respond to them around 33% of the time, u're inviting distance into your relationship.

U'll probably find these bids for connection in your relationships every day. Your partner might ask u to look out the window at a bird, or try to start a conversation about an article they’ve read & loved. They might begin to tell u a story about a colleague at work while u're uploading a photo to ig, or replying to a friend's whatsapp. It wasn’t until i started reading the article that i understood how, if they're ignored, these small bids can stack up into bigger resentments.

I remember when i was pregnant, at my parents', hubby called to me to look at something outside. It was early evening. I was on the sofa, heavily pregnant, which meant hoisting myself off the sofa would be a big effort. I would've stayed inside on the sofa, sweating and scrolling online, using my swollen body as an excuse not to go out into the garden. Instead i waddled outside & there it was, what he wanted to share with me: a colorful rainbow at sunset in a pink sky. 

How my mood could flip like a coin. We stared up, talked & in that moment, we were teenagers with no responsibilities, not 2 adults getting ready to bring another person into the world. I thought about how much i'd miss moments like these, just the 2 of us, but how ready we were to share them too. To add 'parents' to the many different selves we encountered in each other. Perhaps when sleep-deprivation threatened to pry us apart i'd remember this feeling & try to find a way to be teenagers together again (i did but things have been so much better when Qayla's around). 

I could've missed this, i thought. And for what? Another 10 minutes scrolling through twitter. It’s frightening how carelessly & unknowingly we cut ourselves off from these small, shining fragments of life. I'm sharing this just as a reminder to notice these bids for connection from the people u love & then to turn towards them. They might seem small. U might be busy. But perhaps, if u pay attention, a tiny moment will open up into an opportunity for love that u'll be glad u didn't miss.