Flowers4ladan

It’s been an uncomfortable year of uncomfortable truths.

I just feel like I don’t know who I am anymore.

I lost a part of myself when I moved to Texas, 

and I can’t seem to embrace this new version of myself.

You can’t grow without grieving. Who knew that all it took was just leaving? 

I see myself differently now. I  think I love myself more now more than ever, 

which is scary and rewarding to say.

I miss the old artistic me.

I keep chasing that old part of me.

Is it ever going to come back?

I just submitted to my first film festival, and I didn’t make the cut. 

Another rejection while submitting my art is honestly discouraging, 

I hope that this doesn’t stop me from submitting like last time.

 It’s hard to bounce back.

I’m not around creative people anymore or spaces. 

Lately, I’ve been feeling creatively blocked 

and haven’t been feeling like an artist anymore.

 I barely write and when I do get the inspiration, it evaporates into thin air. 

I don’t get the same urgency to express myself like I used to. It gets silenced, buried, and forgotten. Who am I anymore, if I’m not creating? It’s a question I ask myself all the time now.

This year, anxiety ran my life.

Burnout came in and took all the joy I had at my full time job. 

Depression had me doom scrolling and replaying all my negative thoughts.

I’ve had to learn how to regulate my emotions again. I’ve had to dust off all my therapy tricks because I was really struggled mentally this year. 

Growing in my faith has increased the joy in my heart and has helped my mental health tremendously. Going to masjid regularly feels like a spiritual cleanse and mood booster. It’s made me realize how much I want to enroll in classes to learn the deen and Quran in the future, inshallah. 

This year has felt long yet fast at the same time.

 I turned 34 this year, and it feels serious because next year I will be in my mid-thirties. 

It feels strange to be here, because if you told me life would look this way, I wouldn’t believe you. 

I am 50 pounds down, and the confidence this year is crazy because of it.

I really am feeling myself in the most cocky way.

Alhamdulillah, by the grace of God, I’ve kept it off. Staying consistent with my routine has really paid off.

I had to stop doing a calorie deficit because it was stressing me out, and then Ramadan came.

I’ve had to get rid of a lot of clothes and buy new ones,which is hard because I get attached to my clothes. I look back at my old photos and I wonder why nobody told me I was so big. Oh wait- hooyo did, over and over. My biggest fear is gaining it all back. I know that with my busier schedule it will be harder to maintain it. 

I’ve talked to a lot of men for marriage this year, and zero made the final cut.

Another year single, I guess.
I’ve decided to make dua and istikhara earlier on in the talking stages, and Allah has been removing them one by one.
The candidates have been getting worse, and I’ve been less patient with men not meeting what I’m looking for.

In 2026, I won’t have time for love, so it better find me because I won’t be looking.
I’m not giving up hope, but I am giving up looking.
It’s just too time-consuming, frustrating, and disappointing.

I do have a crush right now, though, and I even got the courage to tell him.

I asked him, “Are you looking for someone right now?”
He replied, “I’m not really ready for someone right now.”
I replied back, “Oh, you’re on your Eat Pray Love shit right now, huh?”
He replied, “Yup..and it’s not a rejection.”

I respected his answer because it showed self-awareness and how respectful he was toward others.
I know our paths cross, but a girl can dream right?

I went back to school for the first time in almost ten years.
At first, I worried about funding school, and that dua got answered.
School and work at the same time were challenging. It was a difficult adjustment, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.

I worried about learning how to be a student again. Allah answered that dua.
I really didn’t know how to do anything. I had to relearn everything from scratch.
It was embarrassing and uncomfortable.

Now I’m worried about balancing an internship, a job, and school.
I’m trusting that Allah will once again take care of my fears.
I just hope I make it to the finish line and can maintain some sort of balance.

Teaching as a substitute is very challenging, exciting, and draining.
I’m struggling to keep my immune system intact because these kids won’t stop touching me.
Mask on and six feet, please.
Y’all don’t remember the pandemic happened, huh?

Friendships this year have really changed and are now rooted in the masjid.

Seeing friends in person more frequently has been very good for my mental health.
My heart still aches when I think about my old friends back in Portland who I don’t speak to anymore.

Their pictures pop up, reminding me of a time eight years ago when their cousin got married.
They appear in my dreams sometimes, and I remember that I won’t have a memory like that with them in the future.
Grieving people who are still alive is a strange thing to me, but it reminds me they were written for that time.
I’ve changed a lot, and so have they.
I do wish them the best because they really made my life better at the time.

America is getting more difficult to live in, and I wonder every day how it will be when my kids join this world.
I don’t want to live in America anymore, yet my family is here, my job is here, and my whole life is here.
There’s no balance in America. You work to survive and don’t have time to enjoy your life.
I also don’t want to be in another country alone by myself; I’ve heard too many stories of women being in danger.

America is a dictatorship.
America is on fire.
America is funding a genocide.

America is expensive.

The obsession with Somalis this year has been an insane show to watch from tax fraud, ICE raids, and daycare raids to Israel trying to recognize Somaliland.
Now Project 2025 is talking about recognizing Somaliland as well, which feels like a fight for imperial control over our resources.
Project 2025 wants to undo everything America has given us.

The environment is also in a dire state, and it makes me sick to my stomach to think about all that Trump is undoing.

I want to live in a Muslim country so I can maintain my Friday prayers and have time to learn my deen through halaqas.
2025 felt like a continuation of 2020, which was a fever dream of a year. It was unpredictable, constantly changing, and under the same chaotic leadership.
May Allah protect us in the year 2026.
May Allah make it a year of joy and ease. Ameen.