Hello Old Friend,

 This blog is 10 years old.

I started it in my senior year of high school, back when I was still young, confused, and brimming with potential. Torn between pursuing my passion of becoming a writer, or following the traditional path of getting a degree in the medical field.

Well, the degree happened. I never used it, but I did get it.

I wonder what 18 year-old me would have thought if she knew that 28 year-old me would still be writing here, but also working as a full-time writer.

I'm nothing special, though. There are like 50 more of me at my workplace and some of them are unbelievably good at what they do. But I'm okay with it. I'm okay with not being the best.

Yeah. After years of struggling with what I want to be versus what everyone else expected of me. Years of fighting with all my power just to stay afloat and keep my head above water. Years of hopes and fears and disappointments. Years of gathering all my strength to prevent myself from becoming another cog in this magnificent, grinding machine.

I just let it happen. I stopped grasping at straws and let myself be what I was always meant to be; just another person.

It's crazy but it also isn't. To think how the decisions that 18-year-old made are what brought me to this point of my life where I'm so at peace with being mediocre and seeing it as a positive thing. 

I stopped trying to stand out when swimming against the current for so long absolutely damaged me. Instead, ways to fit in became everything I hoped and dreamed to find. 

It wasn't that hard, either. In fact, it was one of the most liberating things to have ever happened to me, precisely because it happened to me, I had no incentive or hand in doing it.

How funny is it that I'm writing about this without bursting into tears, though? The worst thing I could have imagined happening to me ten years ago is exactly why I'm so at peace today.

Hope that's how I'll be looking at things in 10 years, though.

Left Behind

 Lately I've been contemplating the feeling of being at a stand still, considering the fact that before last year, all I ever did was move within channels that were cut out for me ever since I was born. I was always doing something, fulfilling an expectation or chasing achievement without really looking twice to check whether I want to be doing whatever it is I was doing or not. I finished school, graduated from university, worked an internship for a year, during which I wound up finding my life partner. We got engaged then married, faced (and are still facing) a global pandemic together, while trying to figure out what to do in these rapidly changing times that aren't really kind to us. 

It's funny that during all of this I'm moving so fast, ageing, growing, making plans and remaking them after life has plans of its own, yet the one feeling I've been consistently having is being stationary. I mean, sure, the fact that I'm currently -barely- working from home is a big part of it, but I made a conscious choice to leave my field of work for the time being because it poses an immense threat to the health and safety of my loved ones before it does me. And in all honesty, I wasn't really eager to work as a dentist even before the dangerously perilous Covid-19. But something about being home at all times is making me feel almost...not there? Like I only exist to the people I interact with daily, and this circle is tightening by the day. 

I was never really a social butterfly, and when the stakes are that high, I wouldn't risk being social over this odd feeling of slowly vanishing. But for someone who's always had a loud, anxious inner voice dictate what they can and can't do, sitting still away from the loudness of everyday life brings about a whole slew of other, equally unpleasant feelings. Hah, it's funny that unpleasant feelings is all I seem to talk about on here.

I still struggle with my mental health though it seems to be less vicious nowadays, for which I'm very thankful. I just hope I can think my way out of feeling redundant, stagnant, left behind.

Young and Beautiful

The thought of growing old scares me. And in that, I join the billions of people who are naturally anxious of advancing in age with all the potential health risks and the loss of loved ones and so on.

I just think it's more than that for me. For example, I'm terrified of the inevitable loneliness I'll experience more with the passing of years. And I'm not talking about not having people around, I mean the entrapment in my own psyche that will increase the older I get. How I'll stop being flexible and accepting of new ideas, How difficult it will be changing and adapting to harsh situations that my idealistic self simply wishes away. How simple it will be to hide my fears and hopes to escape ridicule or avoid conflict.

I'm also not really excited about my body aging. I can see how a year can make a difference now that I can see the pounds piling up, or how a cold doesn't go away as fast as it did before, or even the fine lines that are making a statement on my forehead to remind me I'll enjoy wrinkles for the upcoming three fourths of my life.

I'm scared of becoming less desirable...not just as a woman, but also as a person. I can see the way teenagers of 15 look at me now like I'm an old lady when I try to joke with them. It's funny sometimes, but leaves a bitter aftertaste. I'm especially reminded of it when I think a guy is cute just to find out he's a couple (or more) years younger than me, then look myself in the mirror to realize I look even older than my own age. Such a treat finding out people guess my age at 25 when I'm not yet 22.

I could rant about how youth and beauty are overrated, but they're really not. Just ask people who go under the knife to have their sagging skin tightened, or those who get into relationships with others as young as their own children. I feel like I'm spending the prime of my life laden with such thoughts, that I'll look back on it and regret not enjoying youth and beauty while I had them. But what am I to do when I feel like I have them not, even now?

10 Things I Learned As A Short-haired Girl

I have really curly hair (3b on the curl chart), but for my entire adolescent life, I did everything I could to mask it. I never went outside unless my hair was perfectly straightened or waved, and my poor hair was so co-operative that nobody would believe it when I told them my hair is actually very very curly. I recently got it cut, it's now 12-16 inches shorter in different places, and the plan is to almost never heat treat it; i.e. to go natural.

 Here is some of my newly acquired wisdom regarding hair length (and texture!) on girls...and why it's nobody's business but theirs. 

               

1. My hair before the cut was really really long. Longer than I thought it was due to damage and split ends.

2. All guys love long hair on girls.

3. Most girls wish they could chop all their hair off. They don't because of the former reason.

4. People stare at curly hair as if it were an anomaly, which truly is paradoxical since I live in an African, Middle Eastern country. Tells you a lot about beauty standards.

5. I really really like it. More than I thought I would.

6. Change is really easy for me to adapt to; I feel like I've had my hair this short since forever.

7. People who are really close to you won't filter out their opinions of your appearance. Which means getting a lot of "you're insane" and "you look 40."

8. I spend much less time worrying about how I look, whether I have stray locks or frizz. I know I do, I just don't really care about it anymore.

9. "Going natural" made me realize I can feel beautiful with no maintainance whatseoever. But it also made me appreciate how much effort women put into their looks. It's no easy task for a girl, you know.

10. Personal choices are easy to make if you don't think much about what people would say. If I had thought of every time people would look at my short hair with pity, I probably would have had second thoughts about it.

People still drop sour comments about it and some of them kind of sting, but at the end of the day, I look myself in the mirror feeling beautiful and feeling like myself. I wouldn't trade that for all the "good hair days" in the world if they don't give me that. smile emoticon