As salaam alaikum,
For some reason, it suddenly smells like tangerines in here. Tangerines or peaches, I can't tell.
Today is really the first day of the rest of my life. This was the first day that I didn't think about B every hour or so and end up scowling. I thought about him a couple of times today, sure, but I didn't get angry. I didn't wonder why. I think it was because this morning I came to ultimate peace about the whole thing. No matter if it was because he thought I was fat and was no longer "physically" attracted to me or any other number of dumb factors...in the end, it all indicates that he wasn't ready for the type of relationship I wanted.
Poor fool is in for the surprise of his life when he discovers that I was actually one of the best ones out there, and it's going to take him a long time (if not years) to find a deal as good as me. And you know what, she may be even bigger than I am! That he gave me up tells me he really didn't appreciate what he had.
At the same time, this all liberates me, and lets me be free. It teaches me more what I want and allows me to dream big. I'm not sacrificing anything for a man ever again until after we sign the marriage contract. And I'm not talking about just sexual things...I'm talking about spiritual things, excessive time, energy, emotion, all of those things I expended on B's behalf that he apparently didn't appreciate. When we're good with God, we're good to go!
But I'm California-bound for the second time in my life. I'll be praying for it, but I think I want to go to UCSF for my family medicine residency. If I could live in Oakland, that would be awesome, but I think I'll just have to get used to layering all year round, suck it up, and head to SF.
Time for me to make that happen.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
[uncensored]: What Makes a Good Man
As salaam alaikum,
I wanted Sunday's entry to be the last one about B, but I have a little bit more to say. I was going to sleep happy after watching several YouTube videos about talking birds (I want one in my life! Maybe after residency...) and I sat up suddenly and thought to email my friend's fiance, who is friends with B. I just suddenly thought about B and my time together, and the way he used to look at me, and touch me, and I realized...this weight claim was not always true. He didn't always care about it. Something happened in February and he became the monster that he is now. And, he's given up on his aspirations to teach and take his work down to underprivileged kids in the US. For his birthday, I bought him 501 Spanish Words because he indicated to me that he was trying to learn Spanish.
And while I don't think he's making up his aversion to me because of my weight that occurred in our last month together, this abrupt change that no one can make sense of is just that, an abrupt change. I think he's having a personal crisis and he found a way to push me, the closest person he's ever been to, completely away. He no longer has feelings for me, and he's become an unfeeling bastard.
It's no longer my place, though. I'm not sticking around to try to save him or waiting up for him. He has issues and God is the only remedy, but with the way he humiliated me, I'm not going to be the one. If he wanted space away from me, this is what he got.
So anyway, I emailed my friend's fiance, who is friends with him, and let him know that I think his situation is dire, and though I don't want to be within a one mile radius of him, I think that he needs a friend. Dude is getting married in the month so probably does not have time to really look out for his friend, but hopefully he reaches out to him.
Depression is a bitch, I know it first hand. But I also know that Major Depression as we know it was invented in 1980 in DSM-III. Depression is an artifact of physical diseases, of life circumstances and spiritual voids most of the time. My mother brings up a good point. She's like, "How did black people survive slavery?"
Think about all of the stressful events people have endured before modern psychopharrmacology. Sure, some people were depressed and had suicidal ideation, but I mean, if you were a slave, don't you think the likelihood that you have suicidal ideation increases? How many suicides are actually prevented by SSRIs and the like?
Anyway, I digress. Depression, suicide and this world are issues for a whole other post.
B tore his ass with me, and I would be a fool to go back to talking to him ever again. Anyone who throws away what we had and disregards the sacrifices I made and spiritual revolution I endured to be with him over something like weight is not my friend.
And of course, the only reason I even still emailed his friend is because yes, though everyone I know would slap me in the face for this (so I'm not telling them), I still care about him. He was a beautiful man, but he has issues like whoa. He needs to check himself before he wrecks himself, essentially.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about today, although it took up so much time.
This whole situation has made me rethink several things. For one, it's made me reanalyze my reasons for wanting to lose weight. I lost 20 pounds last year and wanted to continue to lose weight. I stopped for several reasons...one, that I hurt my ankle on a date with B once and that threw off my momentum. Also, my public health school schedule inhibited me from doing my morning workouts for a while. And, I thought that B liked the way I looked...
And I realize...while part of my desire to lose weight is my own, a large part of it is irremediably interwoven with my idea of what a man would want in my body. I assume that a man would want what he sees on the television or in the movies. Part of my desire to lose weight was to fit into a body shape that more men would want...increase the pool, so to speak.
But then I look at all of my sisters who call themselves thick who those in the medical profession would call morbidly obese (no joke)...and there are men who like that, too.
So why should I have to change myself for men? Shouldn't there be men out there who like my body just the way it is?
And didn't I say, anyway, that I didn't want a man who was just fixated on my physical appearance?
But that apparently is an oxymoron. Men are attracted to women physically first, and then they (may) get to know them. Men, men, all men...I've never heard a man deny this being true. So while I was not wrong to bat away the men I did (because I had a feeling that they were just interested in sex, and umm yeah, not happening with this Muslimah)...I can't fault a man for being a man.
Can I?
But before, I couldn't separate any part of my being from wanting to be wanted by a man...from the way that I dress (even in the days of hijab) to the way that I behave around men. To my weight. My weight.
I have to think, if there were no men...I think I'd still want to lose weight. But not for myself. So doctors would get off my damn back about my weight, honestly. I like being a larger woman. It's been a part of me so long, and while I would like to see what I'd look like slimmer, I think I'd always prefer my larger body. I want to lose weight so I no longer have to prove to my doctors that, in spite of my weight, I am still healthy...because I am healthy. I want to lose weight so that when my time comes insha'Allah to bear children, I won't become obese in the process.
And I think that last reason is the main reason that I'm going to go ahead and continue to lose weight. It's going to be for the sake of my future pregnancies. Not for men and not for my doctors, I'm going to do it for me...not even for my future babies. They would be quite comfortable nursing and resting on the fat of Mama's belly. It is for me, what I want in my life, and how I want to be.
I have reached weights that were uncomfortable for me. I basically do not ever want to be bigger than I am right now in my life.
So, forward I go.
But still, I haven't answered my main question...what makes a good man? I really don't know. I think I gave men in the past a lot more credit than they deserved.
Men are attracted to women for physical reasons primarily, who they actually are secondarily. I do not find that admirable, but I guess that's a moot point, because that's how they were made. A good man, then, is not determined by who he finds attractive or what physical traits he "tolerates" in a woman. I guess a good man may legitimately not be attracted to women who are overweight. But a good man is woman who, after that physical attraction aspect, really gets to know the woman for who she is, all who she is, and from there is able to build a foundation of love, commitment, compromise and mutual life.
A good man is one who can hold onto that even as a woman goes through the physical changes of life.
I think about my father. He's been with my mother from the time she was 99 pounds to a time when she was 218. He actually preferred her when she was 150 in her middle age, but that didn't stop him from marrying her at 99, and it didn't get him to leave her when she dropped to 135. He was with her through long, straight hair to short, kinky hair and everything in between. He was with her in her youth and he's with her in older age. He was with her through several stages of her life cycle, through a change in her religious fervor, through changes in her own sexual physiology after her hysterectomy. And my father doesn't say things like I love you but I know he does from the way he talks about my mother, from their little routines...they both take marriage seriously, and they fit together.
I know men who want their women to be a certain weight, to have a certain hair length, to dress a certain way. That's not my father.
So there are good men out there, I guess.
I'm just so disillusioned that most of them are assholes, even more than I thought were before.
I wanted Sunday's entry to be the last one about B, but I have a little bit more to say. I was going to sleep happy after watching several YouTube videos about talking birds (I want one in my life! Maybe after residency...) and I sat up suddenly and thought to email my friend's fiance, who is friends with B. I just suddenly thought about B and my time together, and the way he used to look at me, and touch me, and I realized...this weight claim was not always true. He didn't always care about it. Something happened in February and he became the monster that he is now. And, he's given up on his aspirations to teach and take his work down to underprivileged kids in the US. For his birthday, I bought him 501 Spanish Words because he indicated to me that he was trying to learn Spanish.
And while I don't think he's making up his aversion to me because of my weight that occurred in our last month together, this abrupt change that no one can make sense of is just that, an abrupt change. I think he's having a personal crisis and he found a way to push me, the closest person he's ever been to, completely away. He no longer has feelings for me, and he's become an unfeeling bastard.
It's no longer my place, though. I'm not sticking around to try to save him or waiting up for him. He has issues and God is the only remedy, but with the way he humiliated me, I'm not going to be the one. If he wanted space away from me, this is what he got.
So anyway, I emailed my friend's fiance, who is friends with him, and let him know that I think his situation is dire, and though I don't want to be within a one mile radius of him, I think that he needs a friend. Dude is getting married in the month so probably does not have time to really look out for his friend, but hopefully he reaches out to him.
Depression is a bitch, I know it first hand. But I also know that Major Depression as we know it was invented in 1980 in DSM-III. Depression is an artifact of physical diseases, of life circumstances and spiritual voids most of the time. My mother brings up a good point. She's like, "How did black people survive slavery?"
Think about all of the stressful events people have endured before modern psychopharrmacology. Sure, some people were depressed and had suicidal ideation, but I mean, if you were a slave, don't you think the likelihood that you have suicidal ideation increases? How many suicides are actually prevented by SSRIs and the like?
Anyway, I digress. Depression, suicide and this world are issues for a whole other post.
B tore his ass with me, and I would be a fool to go back to talking to him ever again. Anyone who throws away what we had and disregards the sacrifices I made and spiritual revolution I endured to be with him over something like weight is not my friend.
And of course, the only reason I even still emailed his friend is because yes, though everyone I know would slap me in the face for this (so I'm not telling them), I still care about him. He was a beautiful man, but he has issues like whoa. He needs to check himself before he wrecks himself, essentially.
But that's not what I wanted to talk about today, although it took up so much time.
This whole situation has made me rethink several things. For one, it's made me reanalyze my reasons for wanting to lose weight. I lost 20 pounds last year and wanted to continue to lose weight. I stopped for several reasons...one, that I hurt my ankle on a date with B once and that threw off my momentum. Also, my public health school schedule inhibited me from doing my morning workouts for a while. And, I thought that B liked the way I looked...
And I realize...while part of my desire to lose weight is my own, a large part of it is irremediably interwoven with my idea of what a man would want in my body. I assume that a man would want what he sees on the television or in the movies. Part of my desire to lose weight was to fit into a body shape that more men would want...increase the pool, so to speak.
But then I look at all of my sisters who call themselves thick who those in the medical profession would call morbidly obese (no joke)...and there are men who like that, too.
So why should I have to change myself for men? Shouldn't there be men out there who like my body just the way it is?
And didn't I say, anyway, that I didn't want a man who was just fixated on my physical appearance?
But that apparently is an oxymoron. Men are attracted to women physically first, and then they (may) get to know them. Men, men, all men...I've never heard a man deny this being true. So while I was not wrong to bat away the men I did (because I had a feeling that they were just interested in sex, and umm yeah, not happening with this Muslimah)...I can't fault a man for being a man.
Can I?
But before, I couldn't separate any part of my being from wanting to be wanted by a man...from the way that I dress (even in the days of hijab) to the way that I behave around men. To my weight. My weight.
I have to think, if there were no men...I think I'd still want to lose weight. But not for myself. So doctors would get off my damn back about my weight, honestly. I like being a larger woman. It's been a part of me so long, and while I would like to see what I'd look like slimmer, I think I'd always prefer my larger body. I want to lose weight so I no longer have to prove to my doctors that, in spite of my weight, I am still healthy...because I am healthy. I want to lose weight so that when my time comes insha'Allah to bear children, I won't become obese in the process.
And I think that last reason is the main reason that I'm going to go ahead and continue to lose weight. It's going to be for the sake of my future pregnancies. Not for men and not for my doctors, I'm going to do it for me...not even for my future babies. They would be quite comfortable nursing and resting on the fat of Mama's belly. It is for me, what I want in my life, and how I want to be.
I have reached weights that were uncomfortable for me. I basically do not ever want to be bigger than I am right now in my life.
So, forward I go.
But still, I haven't answered my main question...what makes a good man? I really don't know. I think I gave men in the past a lot more credit than they deserved.
Men are attracted to women for physical reasons primarily, who they actually are secondarily. I do not find that admirable, but I guess that's a moot point, because that's how they were made. A good man, then, is not determined by who he finds attractive or what physical traits he "tolerates" in a woman. I guess a good man may legitimately not be attracted to women who are overweight. But a good man is woman who, after that physical attraction aspect, really gets to know the woman for who she is, all who she is, and from there is able to build a foundation of love, commitment, compromise and mutual life.
A good man is one who can hold onto that even as a woman goes through the physical changes of life.
I think about my father. He's been with my mother from the time she was 99 pounds to a time when she was 218. He actually preferred her when she was 150 in her middle age, but that didn't stop him from marrying her at 99, and it didn't get him to leave her when she dropped to 135. He was with her through long, straight hair to short, kinky hair and everything in between. He was with her in her youth and he's with her in older age. He was with her through several stages of her life cycle, through a change in her religious fervor, through changes in her own sexual physiology after her hysterectomy. And my father doesn't say things like I love you but I know he does from the way he talks about my mother, from their little routines...they both take marriage seriously, and they fit together.
I know men who want their women to be a certain weight, to have a certain hair length, to dress a certain way. That's not my father.
So there are good men out there, I guess.
I'm just so disillusioned that most of them are assholes, even more than I thought were before.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
If I let another man into my life...
(As salaam alaikum),
...it'll be too soon.
I just found out that B broke up with me because he was no longer attracted to me because of my weight. My weight.
I don't trust men. I don't trust anyone whose primary reasons for wanting to be with someone is physical attraction. That my weight (and I'm not even obese...I am overweight, yes, 20 pounds so, but still) is such a turnoff that you don't want to be with someone...no, he's said enough.
He was totally unworthy of the time and love I gave him. Totally unworthy. So I told him that. Yep, I feel bad, I've never said such mean things to someone in my life before, but I don't know how he thought that would end but badly. He couldn't have exited gracefully and said that he realized he no longer wanted to be with a Muslim. That would have been so easy! But no, he said it was weight. Just me, being fat to him. And that's worth throwing away what he had, which he apparently felt little for...
No more! Let him stick around for all of the women that are not knocking on his door.
I think I called him a name in the email though. May God forgive me. I will say one last prayer for him, and then I'm outtie!
...it'll be too soon.
I just found out that B broke up with me because he was no longer attracted to me because of my weight. My weight.
I don't trust men. I don't trust anyone whose primary reasons for wanting to be with someone is physical attraction. That my weight (and I'm not even obese...I am overweight, yes, 20 pounds so, but still) is such a turnoff that you don't want to be with someone...no, he's said enough.
He was totally unworthy of the time and love I gave him. Totally unworthy. So I told him that. Yep, I feel bad, I've never said such mean things to someone in my life before, but I don't know how he thought that would end but badly. He couldn't have exited gracefully and said that he realized he no longer wanted to be with a Muslim. That would have been so easy! But no, he said it was weight. Just me, being fat to him. And that's worth throwing away what he had, which he apparently felt little for...
No more! Let him stick around for all of the women that are not knocking on his door.
I think I called him a name in the email though. May God forgive me. I will say one last prayer for him, and then I'm outtie!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
I'm Mad I Missed This!
As salaam alaikum,
That's right, black Muslims represent!
I'm soooo angry that no one on HLM-list posted about this when it was in Boston in February! I'm going to see if I can find it online, bootleg now...probably not, but anyway.
Yes!
It gives me courage to revise RMD into something better, to better tell the story I want to tell...
I'm feeling better today than yesterday. I will take care to never live for the whims of a man who is mere creation and at best just a submitter like I am!
I'm metamorphosing. We'll see where I am at the end of it all. Alhamdulillah, I think it's for the best...
That's right, black Muslims represent!
I'm soooo angry that no one on HLM-list posted about this when it was in Boston in February! I'm going to see if I can find it online, bootleg now...probably not, but anyway.
Yes!
It gives me courage to revise RMD into something better, to better tell the story I want to tell...
I'm feeling better today than yesterday. I will take care to never live for the whims of a man who is mere creation and at best just a submitter like I am!
I'm metamorphosing. We'll see where I am at the end of it all. Alhamdulillah, I think it's for the best...
Friday, March 25, 2011
Woman in this World
As salaam alaikum,
Is there more trying a role than being a woman in this world? I don't think so.
And I'm not talking about me. No. For all of the pain of heartbreak, disillusion and dysmenorrhea, no, I count myself among the most blessed, like the top 0.1% of the world, if not a percentage less than that. Because not only do I have all of the comforts of the world wherever I go, not only am I pursuing a career that I know will please God, but I believe in God. I'm working on believing Him, but I believe in Him, and He told me that as long as I continue on this path, of believing, of striving, of doing good deeds, that I'll be all right.
And I have a comfortable bed, constant water to drink and in which to bathe, and comfortable and clean sanitary products. I have clothes on my back and food to eat, and no where that I go do I want of these things.
I can't say so much for my sisters, though. My sisters in what? Not just my sisters in Islam, but my sisters in this world.
Women. Women in this world.
Since I'm in public health school, I hear more about the horrors that women and girls face in this word than I ever did before, although many of them I knew about. My sisters are in danger from the moment their sex becomes apparent in conception to the time of their deaths. I'm talking female infanticide, genital mutilation, rape, rape in the time of war, rape anywhere, rape just because, physical violence, psychological abuse, sterilization, intimate partner abuse...the list goes on.
And all I have is a little heartbreak. I'm sitting here on my soft bed, looking out of an apartment with a view of the river and I've been crying all day because a man who said with so many words that he loved me suddenly had no more feelings for me, and told me so. I was ready to change my life to fit his in so many ways, and though it was a blessing that things went no farther, it still hurts.
Will I deny my pain because there is obviously greater hurt than this? No, I will not deny my pain. It still hurts.
And even privileged women suffer in this world. In this country, and not just the poorer among us. Like all humankind, we have Satan in front and behind us, to the right and the left of us. We are relegated by our partner gender (and each other) from in front and behind, from the right and to the left. Our mode of dress is the easy example. Are we naked and sexy to show the world our beauty or are we in all black to guard our modesty from those voracious men?
But even in what we expect in the men in our lives...we are relegated. I've lived and sometimes I live both sides, sometimes simultaneously, so I can say it to be so. On the secular side of things, men expect to be able to have sex with me in short time. On the religious side of things, I'm not considered good enough for Muslim after Muslim man. I don't have a Muslim name, I don't wear hijab, I'm black, whatever, I'm not good enough.
I wouldn't care, and people tell me I should just go on with my life and not worry about men, but unfortunately, it's through men that I may be able to achieve what I want most in life, and always have...partnership in Islam and life, family, motherhood, children.
But because I'm relegated, I'm never enough. Never good enough. Not the pious wife one wants. Frigid, a prude, doesn't give it up.
Who lives a life like the women in this world?
God is God, but I can't help feeling in this life that so much is at the mercy and whims of a man, or more than one man. And I don't understand God's will enough to rest assured that I won't hurt again, for the mistakes I made and the trust I put in a man. I don't understand God's will enough to rest assured that I'm going to marry, that I'll be with someone who actually loves me for His sake, who appreciates me, who will be a great husband and father to my children.
So as I spend the day crying, more disillusion than heartbreak this time, I think of my sisters around the world with hurts worse than mine, who called on the name of God and don't understand why they had to suffer as they did. My pains are small in comparison. I am blessed, nor am I using their pain in vain, to whip myself into a frenzy, to try to count my plight with theirs. That is not my aim.
But to be a woman in this world...I don't know.
God knows what I don't.
Is there more trying a role than being a woman in this world? I don't think so.
And I'm not talking about me. No. For all of the pain of heartbreak, disillusion and dysmenorrhea, no, I count myself among the most blessed, like the top 0.1% of the world, if not a percentage less than that. Because not only do I have all of the comforts of the world wherever I go, not only am I pursuing a career that I know will please God, but I believe in God. I'm working on believing Him, but I believe in Him, and He told me that as long as I continue on this path, of believing, of striving, of doing good deeds, that I'll be all right.
And I have a comfortable bed, constant water to drink and in which to bathe, and comfortable and clean sanitary products. I have clothes on my back and food to eat, and no where that I go do I want of these things.
I can't say so much for my sisters, though. My sisters in what? Not just my sisters in Islam, but my sisters in this world.
Women. Women in this world.
Since I'm in public health school, I hear more about the horrors that women and girls face in this word than I ever did before, although many of them I knew about. My sisters are in danger from the moment their sex becomes apparent in conception to the time of their deaths. I'm talking female infanticide, genital mutilation, rape, rape in the time of war, rape anywhere, rape just because, physical violence, psychological abuse, sterilization, intimate partner abuse...the list goes on.
And all I have is a little heartbreak. I'm sitting here on my soft bed, looking out of an apartment with a view of the river and I've been crying all day because a man who said with so many words that he loved me suddenly had no more feelings for me, and told me so. I was ready to change my life to fit his in so many ways, and though it was a blessing that things went no farther, it still hurts.
Will I deny my pain because there is obviously greater hurt than this? No, I will not deny my pain. It still hurts.
And even privileged women suffer in this world. In this country, and not just the poorer among us. Like all humankind, we have Satan in front and behind us, to the right and the left of us. We are relegated by our partner gender (and each other) from in front and behind, from the right and to the left. Our mode of dress is the easy example. Are we naked and sexy to show the world our beauty or are we in all black to guard our modesty from those voracious men?
But even in what we expect in the men in our lives...we are relegated. I've lived and sometimes I live both sides, sometimes simultaneously, so I can say it to be so. On the secular side of things, men expect to be able to have sex with me in short time. On the religious side of things, I'm not considered good enough for Muslim after Muslim man. I don't have a Muslim name, I don't wear hijab, I'm black, whatever, I'm not good enough.
I wouldn't care, and people tell me I should just go on with my life and not worry about men, but unfortunately, it's through men that I may be able to achieve what I want most in life, and always have...partnership in Islam and life, family, motherhood, children.
But because I'm relegated, I'm never enough. Never good enough. Not the pious wife one wants. Frigid, a prude, doesn't give it up.
Who lives a life like the women in this world?
God is God, but I can't help feeling in this life that so much is at the mercy and whims of a man, or more than one man. And I don't understand God's will enough to rest assured that I won't hurt again, for the mistakes I made and the trust I put in a man. I don't understand God's will enough to rest assured that I'm going to marry, that I'll be with someone who actually loves me for His sake, who appreciates me, who will be a great husband and father to my children.
So as I spend the day crying, more disillusion than heartbreak this time, I think of my sisters around the world with hurts worse than mine, who called on the name of God and don't understand why they had to suffer as they did. My pains are small in comparison. I am blessed, nor am I using their pain in vain, to whip myself into a frenzy, to try to count my plight with theirs. That is not my aim.
But to be a woman in this world...I don't know.
God knows what I don't.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday Word Vomit
As salaam alikum,
Although I avoided making this thing student-y inasmuch as possible, I must say...aaaaahhh! To be done with that literature review is the sweetest feeling I've known in about one month's time. It was 17 pages of gold...well, not really. But it was 17 pages.
In other news, I keep writing zingers to B. Man oh man, if I do say so myself, when I'm going through stuff, I write very well. We gchatted and it was the first time we talked about the break up. He brought it up, saying that now that we're no longer together (whose fault is that, o senhor?) he needs to get out of Boston at least once-monthly. He didn't set up these trips when we were together. I then said aww, and told him I'd had a dream about him, and we were broken up in the dream.
He asked what happened. Why, I don't know, so I told him.
This is a true story.
In the dream, we were sitting together on the ground...either on the floor of my apartment or outside (I can't remember which). I didn't set up this part. Anyway, we were drawing a D on a piece of paper. And he mentioned something he wanted for "our kids." And then I reminded him that they were just his kids, that they weren't our kids anymore. And then he said, "Oh."
His gchat response? "I see."
I mean, dude, you asked! He knows my dreams very well by now. The first one that he was in, we switched genders, and he became the girl and I was the guy. Heh, he hated that dream, but it was because of his lack of taking initiative, something that I guess by being in a relationship with me he realized that he needed to do...
But anyway, I wrote him this awesome email that I would post, but since this thing is searchable I feel like I would increase the chance of him finding this site, if he hasn't already. But I liked it.
And after I wrote it, I just felt...even better than I'd already been feeling upon returning to Boston from my spring break. I felt relieved to talk about some of the things that I did with him, things that I felt like he should know. I illustrated him explicitly the process I'm going through to remove the little reminders of him from me, the way that he'd become enmeshed in my life. If we're going to be "friends," I can't have any secrets eating at me. By openly talking about us no longer being together, it gave me a voice to talk about how hard it was for me and that, even now, as I begin to move from my apartment, if I find small reminders of him here or there, it will give me pause, and I will reflect on it with a little sadness.
But then I said that it's little sadness that makes samba sweet. Then I hit him with the words of a samba that he liked from Djavan, when we went to the Djavan concert in one of our early outtings.
Mas não sei o que fez tudo mudar de vez. Onde foi que eu errei. Eu só sei que amei, que amei, que amei, que amei...
Which translates to, "But I don't know what happened for everything to change suddenly. Where did I make the mistake? I only know that I loved, that I loved, that I loved, that I loved..."
And I told him that I was glad that I loved, and the little bit of sadness makes my life more like samba, one of my preferred art forms.
A bit much? That wasn't the only thing that I included in the email, so it was even more.
But yes, this is Wednesday Word vomit...and I feel so relieved to get it all out!
I don't have class tomorrow, so I'll probably go in to my practicum site at 9:30am to meet with my lady at 10am. I'll get some work done for my practicum class as well as I'll work on my project a little bit, and then I plan to head home in the afternoon.
The bottom line of all of this is...there's a lot more work left to do for my practicum and this is only the tip of the iceberg, but at least I have two days of no class to do work, that I would take B back if I were convinced that he had direction in his life and that we could spiritually line up, but I'm unconvinced, so I'm not taking him back...and I'm back on the market!
Hahaha, this is a little tongue in cheek, but do any of you readers know of some brothers that may be interested? Or if you're brothers, are you interested? If so, there's another Muslimah available!
...emotionally, mentally and spiritually available for the first time maybe since I was 19, really.
End vomit.
Although I avoided making this thing student-y inasmuch as possible, I must say...aaaaahhh! To be done with that literature review is the sweetest feeling I've known in about one month's time. It was 17 pages of gold...well, not really. But it was 17 pages.
In other news, I keep writing zingers to B. Man oh man, if I do say so myself, when I'm going through stuff, I write very well. We gchatted and it was the first time we talked about the break up. He brought it up, saying that now that we're no longer together (whose fault is that, o senhor?) he needs to get out of Boston at least once-monthly. He didn't set up these trips when we were together. I then said aww, and told him I'd had a dream about him, and we were broken up in the dream.
He asked what happened. Why, I don't know, so I told him.
This is a true story.
In the dream, we were sitting together on the ground...either on the floor of my apartment or outside (I can't remember which). I didn't set up this part. Anyway, we were drawing a D on a piece of paper. And he mentioned something he wanted for "our kids." And then I reminded him that they were just his kids, that they weren't our kids anymore. And then he said, "Oh."
His gchat response? "I see."
I mean, dude, you asked! He knows my dreams very well by now. The first one that he was in, we switched genders, and he became the girl and I was the guy. Heh, he hated that dream, but it was because of his lack of taking initiative, something that I guess by being in a relationship with me he realized that he needed to do...
But anyway, I wrote him this awesome email that I would post, but since this thing is searchable I feel like I would increase the chance of him finding this site, if he hasn't already. But I liked it.
And after I wrote it, I just felt...even better than I'd already been feeling upon returning to Boston from my spring break. I felt relieved to talk about some of the things that I did with him, things that I felt like he should know. I illustrated him explicitly the process I'm going through to remove the little reminders of him from me, the way that he'd become enmeshed in my life. If we're going to be "friends," I can't have any secrets eating at me. By openly talking about us no longer being together, it gave me a voice to talk about how hard it was for me and that, even now, as I begin to move from my apartment, if I find small reminders of him here or there, it will give me pause, and I will reflect on it with a little sadness.
But then I said that it's little sadness that makes samba sweet. Then I hit him with the words of a samba that he liked from Djavan, when we went to the Djavan concert in one of our early outtings.
Mas não sei o que fez tudo mudar de vez. Onde foi que eu errei. Eu só sei que amei, que amei, que amei, que amei...
Which translates to, "But I don't know what happened for everything to change suddenly. Where did I make the mistake? I only know that I loved, that I loved, that I loved, that I loved..."
And I told him that I was glad that I loved, and the little bit of sadness makes my life more like samba, one of my preferred art forms.
A bit much? That wasn't the only thing that I included in the email, so it was even more.
But yes, this is Wednesday Word vomit...and I feel so relieved to get it all out!
I don't have class tomorrow, so I'll probably go in to my practicum site at 9:30am to meet with my lady at 10am. I'll get some work done for my practicum class as well as I'll work on my project a little bit, and then I plan to head home in the afternoon.
The bottom line of all of this is...there's a lot more work left to do for my practicum and this is only the tip of the iceberg, but at least I have two days of no class to do work, that I would take B back if I were convinced that he had direction in his life and that we could spiritually line up, but I'm unconvinced, so I'm not taking him back...and I'm back on the market!
Hahaha, this is a little tongue in cheek, but do any of you readers know of some brothers that may be interested? Or if you're brothers, are you interested? If so, there's another Muslimah available!
...emotionally, mentally and spiritually available for the first time maybe since I was 19, really.
End vomit.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Something Starts with S
As salaam alaikum,
Hehehehe...oh, first episode of Sesame Street...(watch this skit until the end).
!!
That God created in us the ability for humor is amazing. I pray that I'm able to laugh about something a little bit every day, even through the most painful times, as I feel so joyous now.
Hehehehe...oh, first episode of Sesame Street...(watch this skit until the end).
!!
That God created in us the ability for humor is amazing. I pray that I'm able to laugh about something a little bit every day, even through the most painful times, as I feel so joyous now.
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