#but sometimes we have our moments

[kashmirichaiwithmehr]

.

[mokeonn]

Before I go to sleep I leave you all with this piece of advice: sometimes you don't actually have to answer big political questions, sometimes you can just say "I am not smart enough to know that, I just know the small things I do to help." Like you can often times completely avoid making a fool of yourself if you just say you don't know.

[ultimaid]

seeking advice on how to not borrow grief from the future. preemptive grief is exhausting and useless.

[murdleandmarot]

The dichotomy of listening to moments of happiness really is just “Oh, I want to live forever” directly followed by “I am going to fucking kill myself.”

[hanaasbananas]

on arranged marriages

it's funny. mums been in the whatsapp rishta groups for years looking for someone i might marry. she'll send me a profile once in a while and ask what i think, if she should contact his parents or not and most of the time i say yeah, alright. nothing ever comes of it though, so when my dad calls me after work and says mum spoke to him about a rishta she's thinking of moving forward with i'm intrigued, but not particularly invested.

mum's really picky, i tell him. this probably won't go anywhere but we may as well see it through, right? dad is hesitant, but agrees when i say that i do want an arranged marriage.

but then things do move forward and the next thing i know, he is going to visit us with his parents. on the day, my uncle picks me up from work so i don't have to walk. you don't have to make a decision today, he tells me. this is just a first visit. my cousin helps me get ready and i am reminded of the similar scene in the movie vivah. nothing has to happen today, she tells me you guys are just meeting today. the thought does nothing to settle the nerves roiling in my stomach and i try to go back to my room three times instead of going downstairs until my cousin practically shoves me down them.

i enjoy meeting his mum, even though she immediately clocks my nervous clasping and unclasping of my bracelet. she hugs me as if i'm her own daughter and is so happy to see me that my heart lightens. eventually, we go to the other sitting room where the men are sitting-where he is. my nerves flare up again but he doesn't look up from his hands clasped in his lap when we walk in.

too nervous to speak, i only answer say anything when a question is directed at me and try to sneak quick glances at him across the room instead. his mum catches me more than once and smiles knowingly at me. we meet each others eyes only once for a split second and it makes my heart pound rapidly in my chest. when he speaks, i force myself to look at anyone other than him. he has a nice voice, my brain whispers and i bite my tongue, hard.

they leave, and we say they'll know our decision after a couple months. i know what my answer will be though. later, when they get back home and his mum calls my mum, i stand outside the door to eavesdrop, my heart in my throat but i can't stop my grin when i hear his mum say he's happy to go ahead with this, because there was a part of me that still worried he'd see me in person and go NOPE. she suggests that we get to know each other over the next few months and i silently beg my mum to agree. i know that where she is from, in her tradition, the bride and groom speak once or twice before the wedding if they're lucky, and that things are still done that way back home, but just as im gearing up to argue against that, she agrees. it's a miracle!

of course, chronically shy person that i am, the thought of our first conversation taking place on our mums phones is terrifying so instead i ask to get his number so we can text first. she sends his number but theres no way i'm texting first so i send them my number and thankfully he gets the hint and texts me first. i hope you don't mind me texting, i'm just shy still. i say. that's fine, he reassures me. we have time.

time, as it turns out. flies. it doesn't take long to move from texts to voice notes, to phone calls. he really does have a nice voice, i find out, and its not as awkward as i thought it would be. i didn't actually think that we'd talk that much, maybe once a week at most and yet...

i almost cried last night because we were talking about going to Pakistan together next summer and I remembered how when I was a teenager I used to daydream about going to Pakistan with my spouse and visiting all my family with him.

then over the years I sort of gave up on that idea because I'm not the type to go out and meet someone and in the desi arranged marriage market whose gonna choose me?

and now I'm 26, and we talk multiple times a day and when I catch myself thinking oh he isn't really interested, he's just talking to me because he has to to get to know me, why would anyone actually like me?? I find myself countering with well actually if that was the case why would he start calling you every day? how come you went from one call a day ending with 'i'll talk to you tomorrow' to him calling you on his way home from work and 'i'll call you after dinner' when he gets home to a THIRD call after maghrib right before bed? those are not the actions of a man who is uninterested!!

hanaas insecurities- 0, hanaas logic- 1

anyway idk where this is going except i never thought i'd be this excited and happy when it came time for me to get married but here i am and it is SO SCARY to realise that i am maybe possibly (definitely) falling for him but wow, and like? (literally the other day i was telling him a story from when i was a kid and the story had such a silly ending but it was unexpected and he laughed really hard in surprise and it made my heart almost explode i swear its so fun to make him laugh)

but like there's SO MANY logistics i'm restarting my driving lessons so i can pass before i move and i literally just got my new job in april but i'm gonna have to give my notice lmao and i've already started looking for new jobs but GAH so much stuff is happening and yet at the same time i feel so calm about it all it's wild i'm just vibing trying to enjoy my summer holidays and having the highlights of my day being when he calls lmaooo

[queerplatonicdiaries]

squish ramble

this probably isn't gonna make much sense bc I'm kinda sleepy but I just. I love them so fucking much. we just called for like an hour an a half and for those moments everything else disappeared. all the stress, all the worries, it all seems so much lighter just because I know I have them in my life and we can talk about anything. that feeling of complete ease and comfort when we're together, even if it's over a patchy phone signal, there's nothing else in the world that could replace it. the feeling of being seen and heard and understood entirely, the knowledge that we have each other and we're going to be okay. I know we're still young, but I hope we have this for the rest of our lives. I think as long as I have them, everything else will be alright. I love them and I love loving them, it's the best feeling in the world <3

[hussyknee]

I've never been able to touch Beloved after finding out what happens in it. Especially the fact that it's based on a real incident. Which was a common occurrence among enslaved Black women.

Thinking about enslaved women killing their own children to save them from the horrors of slavery; the only way they had left to save their babies from being subjected to the kind of unthinkable brutality that left the mothers themselves seeking death as release. Thinking of Margaret Garner slitting her own toddler's throat while the slave catchers hammered at the doors, and then turning the butcher's knife on her remaining terrified, pleading little children. Thinking of her hurling her baby daughter off the slave ship and, though her own attempt at drowning herself failed, greeting the news that her baby had gone to a watery grave "with frantic joy". Remembering Eman Basher, running with her children from end to end through Gaza, watching them run out of food, water and shelter, seeing their friends and family and neighbours murdered every which way, tweeting hysterically whether she should kill her children because it was the only way she had left to "keep them safe".

The horrifying depth of a mother's love and tenderness, dear God. The unimaginable brutality and cruelty that forced their hands.

That quote found scrawled on the wall of a cell in a Nazi concentration camp is never far from my mind: "If God exists, He will have to beg my forgiveness."

[strawberry-peach]

I'm still not over him nor this character of his like holy fuck man

[braceletofteeth]

If you want to be happy, I hope it comes true.

I hope you will be happy too.

[glitterghost]

Trying a little sun, a little music, and a little iced coffee (espresso shot included) to shake out all the lingering fog.

[cursedthing]

.internet search how do we make it clear that our intent is never to win and instead to have fun because it looked like fun to us please pelase please pelase pelase +

[coquelicoq]

facing the fact that i am an adult and that if someone's behavior is bothering me and i would like them to change it, i am going to have to say that to them with my words, as opposed to just hiding in another room until they cease the behavior that they don't even know is bothering me.

[remyfire]

Writing something on my to-do list that I just finished so I can scratch it off and get the Final Fantasy Victory Fanfare to play in my head

[seiwas]

hi my sweet sel :3 i’m sneaking in w a fresh matcha for u to ask for a moot bingo card 🍵… i’m 2 curious i couldn’t resist </3

ari my beloved!!!! thank you for the matcha 🥺 i am sip sippin it while doing your bingo card (my feet are also kicking in the air behind me 🤭) pls sit with me, i am offering you a cookie!! 🍪

(c) xen-blank for the template!

send me an ask and i’ll fill up this bingo for you!! 🥺

[bread--quest]

i think its really funny how ive almost perfectly dodged cultural christian guilt about some things but am so aggressively not immune to others. i was the only person in my college class able to casually say "yeah i think this theory is encouraging women to do erotic or sexual writing". also i do believe every bad thing that happens to me is my fault and i have to perform labors to make up for it

[hawkhills]

talk to me about profound, formative events in adulthood impacting people's settled daemons. are their shapes set in stone? would a strong enough experience manage to cause a crack in their settled shape? is there such a thing as daemon dysphoria? do our daemons define us, or do we define them?