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[gracefullyodd]

12.19.2022

just now i was thinking about something devin said at the posse event last fall. he was the one running it all and i told him that i wasn’t sure if i was supposed to actually be attending, because my actual internship wasn’t until 2023. i wouldn’t be able to ever meet a lot of people at the event. he told me that i shouldn’t worry about when my internship was, and that i should view these events as OTHER peoples chances and opportunity to get to know me.

i never put myself on a pedestal like that ever before and it was so refreshing to hear that from someone else, lol. i’ve worked a lot harder and created a more neutral sense of self compared to the times when i was in high schooler and a teenager. which makes me feel much better as i transition into my 20s. i still have a TON more to work on, despite making immense progress in 2022. 

one of my main focuses for today was thinking of the way that i navigate my close relationships. i was thinking of things that seem obvious to me now at 19, yet were ideas that i would've never considered in my young teens. the idea of relationships coming and going. in part it has to be the naïvety of being a child lol, but i think part of it was my upbringing itself that contributed to how i dealt with friends/individuals coming in and out of my life.

a really core part of myself thinks very fondly of people coming into my lives and leaving as they please. it truly makes me happy that people can find their way back to me, and bittersweet when i realize that it's time for us to part. but i know that it happens in accord with the divine timing of Allah, which of course i have no part in other than making contributions via prayer. aside from prayer, all i can do is smile and accept that friends come and go.

it really does start with the smallest of things, i still remember when iw was like 4 years old crying to mama about a girl named Rhea in my kindergarten class LOL. she was really close to me and was a really kind girl and it hit me sooooo hard that she'd be gone and i'd have to make some new friends. and then, after she left, it was emily who was switching schools just a year later. like it was very normal for people to be leaving my life, and me having to adapt to that, making new friends and meeting new people in turn of the ones that had left. i'm really grateful that God gave me such a good ability to bounce back and adapt from things that are emotionally tough.

as i started reaching puberty though, things took a bit sharper of a turn. i leaned towards more pessimistic ways of thinking, partly because of the way i was treated by my parents, but more so just because i was becoming conscious of the world around me. when i turned 12, i started having a lot of the thoughts and viewpoints that i still hold today. bit of a side track - it's actually crazy to think about, girls grow up insanely quickly. ESPECIALLY immigrant daughters. i love my parents for giving me the opportunities that they did but there were really some questionable parenting techniques used lmfaoo.

but as i was saying, the course of my life began to change a lot quickly when i began puberty, which was at about 12 years old. i gained a sense of consciousness, and in a way became a "woman". i became increasingly conscious about my personality, my looks and body (as do most girls in puberty), and the amount of (figurative) space i took up. this in turn lead to me wanting to please the people around me even more, and thus clinging to people who i felt i needed to prove myself worthy to. my parents remained a figure i needed to prove myself to, no matter if i was 5 years old or 15 years old. but the way people came into my life became more and more different as i progressed further and further through puberty. i can literally think of each person that came into my life and left, and as the years pass on by, each person i develop i close relationship with, i have an even more intense connection with than the last.

tiny me was obsessed with her friends but she did NOT even know what was coming next LMAOO. i think i might type another post about that, because i'm pretty tired rn. gn :)

p.s.

something a little different :-) i never knew how comfortable i’d be really speaking my mind honestly on the internet. i realized that a lot of my more intimate thoughts are worth putting out there though, just for the sake of documenting memories, and seeing if anyone else in my life relates. though i probably will just keep this tucked away somewhere a bit deeper out of embarassment lol