Category: Uncategorized

When you are little, you are excited to go to sleep the night before your birthday in desperation for that clock to strike 12, to wake up to birthday banners, balloons, and presents.

But as you get older, it just becomes another day. Another year older. As you get older, you are more thankful for life, for another year, over the materialistic things.

But somehow you still have an ache every birthday. You ache over the loved ones, or those that don’t appreciate you, don’t celebrate you, and don’t acknowledge you.

You ache because even though it is just another day to you, it became that because of the silent signs that showed you that people truly don’t care as much as you had hoped.

You get judgement for not prioritising your loved ones’ birthdays, but a birthday just became another trauma.

It wasn’t a happy day full of celebration; it was you realising it was another year, stuck in pause mode and not quite knowing what your next move will be.

You feel far behind everyone else, like you just are not doing enough, but in reality you are doing all that you can. Not that you can’t do more, but it’s all you can emotionally and mentally cope with.

And now, when someone does remember you and truly shows their appreciation for you on the day you were born, your eyes immediately fill up with tears and you cry, and they wonder why, but it is because you are not used to this. You are not used to those unplanned surprises that you were completely unaware of. You didn’t expect someone to see your value, your worth, especially not from someone who has only known you for the smallest amount of time compared to those who have known you your entire life.

I have many names: the selfish daughter that only cares about herself, not interested in family, never comes over, never invites.

Her reality doesn’t match ours, so it doesn’t exist. I was the best daughter when I was faking a smile, plastering the walkways with it.

I made the effort that no one else would make for me, and still I was expected to do more. Consumed with the thought of being a bad daughter, but in reality, I never was.

I wasn’t the version of myself they wanted, the one who would simply accept the pain from the people who are ‘supposed’ to be family, just because we share blood. They believe that being related gives them the right to hurt you without consequences.

Always told to open up, but each time I did, those very words would be used against me in the next argument that wasn’t a matter of if, but when.

I was the angry daughter who found peace in my own independence, in my own loneliness, because at least then I wasn’t screaming at a wall that would never open up to listen to me.

I was the lonely daughter who got used to being secluded from family events that I was never invited to, and somehow that would always remain my fault.

I am the daughter that no longer feels obligated to satisfy people who won’t take accountability for themselves. They see me as ‘changed’ and wonder why. The truth is, I had to change to survive. I had to, or I would have drowned as the family burden the one they blame for everything, the one whose pain they called weakness. I am not their slave anymore.

Empathy is a strange word. You go through your whole life feeling the pain of others, putting yourself in their position. But how long can you keep doing that when it never seems to be reciprocated? It often feels like a word used to attack your entire character, as if you don’t care about anyone and only put yourself first. But that’s not the truth. The truth is, you just got too tired of doing it. Too exhausted in a way that drained your entire being, to the point where you had nothing left to give.

Now, if that makes me selfish, then I apologise. But I cannot keep living in the shadows of others, purely pleasing them while I suffer in silence. And when you finally choose yourself in certain areas of your life, you’re told you only care about yourself when in reality, you were forced into that choice by difficult situations that tore your heart apart. Situations where, if you didn’t choose yourself, you wouldn’t make it out alive.

And yet you sit there, still thinking of how others would feel. But no one sees that when you are alone, you are distraught by the thought of not being able to do things right for everyone. And it consumes you to the point you look like you don’t have empathy, because you’ve exhausted yourself in the dark to be able to show it in the light.

Have you ever felt like you are living someone else’s life? You feel like you are existing but not living. You live life on a fight or flight response, but you are never truly at peace and I mean, who is? Life is full of obstacles you need to tackle, and life isn’t what it’s like in the movies. But oh, we sure can wish it was.

You feel like you are watching everyone else’s life, while yours is passing by ever so slowly. You see everyone else around you doing something with their lives, even though they are facing their own demons in silence, but you just can’t seem to be able to balance both. You try and you try, but it only pulls you deeper into that dark place that you have tried so hard to pull yourself out from.

You try your best to get to the next level, but there is something keeping you from that and you will never know what that may be until things do begin to go right. And that is when you will maybe be thankful for this delay. Maybe you are not receiving that one thing you need because God is trying to push you towards putting yourself first, to help yourself because of all those years where you neglected yourself, only to lead back to the same place time and time again. And you wonder why this is happening. Why you keep coming back to the same place.

Now, that is the question only you can answer. And when you have maybe, just maybe then you will see that the delay was not to punish you, but to help you actually dig deep into your soul to see what you desperately need and kept ignoring all these years.

They say death is the most natural and certain thing in this life. But no matter how certain death is, it never quite prepares you for that moment. The smell, the coldness, the eyes that were once filled with light, now glazed and empty. I told you before you took your last breaths that if you need to go, you can, we will be okay, I will be okay. But seconds later I was rushing to feel a pulse in your wrist, laid my head upon your chest, fallen to my knees, trying to keep quiet so no one else could hear my pain. I sat there for ten minutes alone with your body before me, now departed from this world.

Two years later and I still wake up in a sweat, trying to catch my breath, reliving those four moments.

We have all lost someone. But actually witnessing it their cold touch, their blackened eyes, their stiff hands that used to be so soft to touch it does something to you that you can’t quite recover from. So you move forward, you try to remove it from your memory. But once something happens to you, it can take a lifetime to recover. And by that time, it has become your turn to return to where all humans must go.

For now, I am weighed down by the feeling of a heart I cannot remember when it was last whole.

For as long as I can remember, my heart has always felt as though something is missing. I’ve struggled all my life to find that missing piece, which I have not yet found but I hope to one day find that one piece that makes my heart feel complete and no longer aching.

We have all been through deeply painful events at one point in our lives. Some cut deeper than others, but all of it leaves a mark. You would think that because we have all experienced hardship, we would be sympathetic to others’ pain but unfortunately, some are not. Some will abuse their power and use your most vulnerable moments against you. The worst part? They will place the blame on you and say it was somehow your fault that it happened. Even if they have lived through the exact same kind of suffering, they will claim theirs was worse, based on nothing but technicalities.

Some people carry their pain as fuel to move forward, determined never to endure it again. Others let it freeze them in place, and from that stillness, they lash out at the ones they love. Not because they are beyond saving, but because they never sought the help and guidance they truly needed and they refuse to recognise that, or take any accountability.

What you have been through is valid. Regardless of its form or intensity, it is real. If someone blames you for the pain you never asked for the hurt someone else decided you deserved, do not listen. Those people carry their own wounds, but instead of healing, they use their past to attack others. They turn it into a competition, as if the validity of a person’s suffering can be measured and ranked. It only makes them feel better about their own.

Because unlike you, you can recognise your flaws and your faults. But theirs? They will always remain in the shadows visible enough for others to see, but never enough for them to look inward and take accountability. They refuse to see that though they have suffered, they are now becoming part of someone else’s painful story. They do this by blaming you for what another person did to you.

We live in a time when war is not a rare thing. As we speak, war is happening in many countries. In discussing these matters, I often hear from those who are not directly affected say, “If there was no religion, there would be no wars, and we would be at peace with each other.” This is a common statement from those who do not follow religion. But this could not be further from the truth.

There is proof that life without religion would not bring peace. We see it in governments and among those in the higher hierarchy: without religion, they are corrupt, committing acts so devilish that they go against not only religion, but against humanity itself. Look at the secular regimes of the past century the dictatorships, the genocides, the wars fought over land and power. None of those were caused by religion. They were caused by men who put themselves above everyone else. So when people say religion is the problem, they ignore the fact that some of the worst atrocities in history happened without religion playing any part at all.

Religion does not exist to divide us; it is actually there to help us live in peace. Religion teaches us that not everyone is the same, and the beauty of it is that we can all live together regardless of our faith. In Islam, for example, we are taught that diversity is part of God’s plan. The Quran says that God created us into different nations and tribes so that we may come to know one another, not so that we may fight. That is the foundation of peace.

Those who see religion as a weapon, rather than something that can bring us closer as mankind, tend to be people who are lost and choose to focus on the negativity in religion. When you try to educate them, they continue to hold onto false information because they want to believe that religion is the cause of all things. And I understand that religion can be twisted by people to justify bad things. That happens. But that is not the fault of the religion itself. That is the fault of humans who corrupt what is good for their own purposes.

In reality, it is the government that is the cause of these wars. They are the reason countries are failing, as they have put their own selfishness above creating a better world for everyone. They start conflicts over resources, over money, over power. And when people ask why the world is the way it is, instead of taking responsibility, they place the blame on religion. And the one religion that is commonly targeted with hate is Islam.

If you look into Islam, you’ll see that it’s a religion rooted in justice, kindness, respect, and peaceful coexistence. Muslims believe Islam is the true faith, but that doesn’t mean they should mistreat people of other beliefs. They’re taught to honor the dignity of every person and live peacefully with those who don’t oppose them. The problem is not the faith. The problem is those who misuse it, and those who blame it for things they do not understand.

They say all humans bleed the same, and that may be a scientific truth. But if you look deeper, you will find that it isn’t completely fact.

Some bleed, and they get an automatic response. Immediate care, concern and urgency. Where others bleed, it is ignored. It isn’t blood worthy of a response. It is shrugged off, like their blood isn’t as important as the blood of those who decide who is worthy and who is not.

Now, this isn’t about the blood that runs in our veins. It is about how cruel humans can be if you are not deemed worthy enough.

It is about the invisible line that divides those who matter and those who are forgotten, all based on a judgement passed by others who believe they are superior.