A New Chapter

Here begins a new chapter.

The hardest thing I ever had to do was to leave everything and go. To be honest, my life right before I left was perfect, I had everything I wanted, everything I needed, I had reached the peak of my happiness right before I had to leave, and it was tough.

But I am extremely excited, to leave everything I love for a while, and go on a journey of loving myself. This is not going to be about studying, or working, or meeting new people to me. This is going to be a trip inside my own mind, getting to know myself and what I am capable of, mentally and physically. This is where I learn to respect myself more because honestly self-love is something I lack.

This will change a lot about me, but I’ll always be the same person. Just more mature and experienced.

I have packed my everything and have moved out to a small town in Germany called Wiesbaden. I chose this town out of free will, I saw its pictures, I’ve read and heard about it and it just seemed right. I really didn’t want a big city like Berlin or Köln, I wanted something that had a homey family spirit cause I knew that if I went to a big city I was going to lose myself instead of finding it.

Wiesbaden... How much effort I’ve put into you. But the moment I saw you I knew you were worth it.

Wiesbaden was closed and it was not one of the options when we were given a list of cities to choose from, but I wanted it anyway. We arranged a letter of recommendation from my university to the RheinMain university here in Wiesbaden, I put together a portfolio and sent it in hopes of getting a seat. A couple of weeks later I got the acceptance letter. And that was the first challenge done.

Wiesbaden surprised me with ‘shared room’ dorms for students, and if you know anything about me you’d know that me sharing a living space with a stranger is impossible. And here is where my second challenge started, as I started looking for a single room apartment. I send around 88 requests, for 88 different people, and I got 3 replies back. The three said they were full. I came to Wiesbaden still not having a roof over my head. But thankfully I had my parents with me, and a miracle happened and I found a beautiful single apartment. And this was the second challenge done.

I am aware that those challenges are going to sound simple in a few months, I am aware that what I am going to encounter is not going to be simple, but I am fully ready.

It is beautiful counting down days, it is beautiful that I have a life to come back for back home. It’s exciting that I have loved ones waiting for me.

It is beautiful this chance, this experience. I am vey lucky to get to try this, and I will make the best of it.

And of course living alone is going to put so many thoughts in my head, so here is where I’ll be sharing. I honestly don’t know how often I’ll be posting, just when I feel like it, nothing fixed, nothing to stick to.

So.. Until next time...

The Day I Turned 21

It was less than a normal day, I woke up, had breakfast, then stayed in bed from 11 till 6:30. When my mum came to me and told me to go pick my little sister up from her friend's house. I got up, after twenty minutes of trying to, wondering if it's worth it to change from my pyjama pants to jeans, and I believe it was written that I change, thankfully. I put on the first hijab I laid my hand on when I opened the drawer. Looking like the most bored person on earth my sister walked in, 'I want to come' she said. I looked at her, dressed up in her best, looking fancy and all, I smirked. Of course, her being my sister understood that I couldn't understand why she is that dressed up like she could have left in her pyjamas too. 'I wore the first thing I saw' she, lamely, explained. I was too bored to stress on that and we just left.

I came home and my mum was standing at the door, she seemed fishy but I didn't have the time to think it through. she walked inside and I followed. Now a tip about me, I get scared easily. Still not expecting a single damn thing, I jumped off my feet as I heard a whole bunch of people singing 'happy birthday'. My adrenaline kicked in and I ran into the kitchen and back.

There they were, my favourite people in the world, all there in one room. And of course with the best looking cake ever.

After shaking and not processing what has happened for about 5 minutes, we cut the cake and sat down to eat. At this point, I was having the best time I've ever had. My father and mother, my sisters and best friend, all of my friends and beloved around one table. I just disconnected from the world for a couple of minutes, looking around me, my heart pounding fast, I felt my soul dancing inside my body. I felt truly blessed. I wasn't talking, I wasn't listening, I was just thinking 'El HamduleAllah, El HamduleAllah El HamduleAllah'.

I could say a lot about that night. I could speak of that night forever. And the memory of that night is something that would never leave my mind. It is something I can look back on that would make me smile in seconds, but for hours.

The Future

You know, sometimes you come up with those great plans that you could do, plans to reach a certain goal, plans to help your family, plans to serve your nation, just whatever plans.. Like those things you think of late at night when you can't fall asleep, that moment at night when everything is reachable and you feel like you own the world, those plans, those big dreams, go for them! Don't just feel silly in the morning, or feel stoppable, the minutes are passing and you only have one life, get a pencil and a paper and write them down, think them through, how can you get to them? And most importantly what is stopping you? Can what's stopping you be fixed? Go fix it!

Every day we end up saying: 'tomorrow', 'today I don't feel like it', 'it's going to complicate things', 'I can't do this alone', 'not in this country'.. those are all in your mind! Remember the plans you had when you were ten that you kept for when you're twenty? Well, you are twenty and planing for things for when you're thirty. Well, I'm telling you now, when you're thirty you'll be planning for fifty and those dreams will be lost once again. And when you are sixty, you'll just wish you were ten again to do everything you can't do anymore.

Be naive, be stupid, make mistakes, fail, do things you'd look back to in ten years and be ashamed of yourself because right then you'd know; at least you did something.

Today I did something.

After going to the dentist and finding out that my wisdom teeth had flipped and no longer needed surgery my family and I headed to my childhood best friends, or shall I say childhood's second family's home to see their latest four days old family member. It was my first time meeting Ali, he is incredibly tiny and very cute! His mom and I have big photography plans for the future.

After that I went to Starbucks with my friends, and no, not just to hangout. We are forming a small 'organisation' if that's what I may call it, and we had set our goals and hopes to help our nation rise up instead of waiting for older people to take action. We are the youth, we are the future, and we are capable. Some of our plans for the future may be bigger than us, but we are all in for achieving them, and we will not quit. Stay tuned for more details.