Tag Archives: family

Personal

[From the Diaries]

I see you. Lurking. Watching. Every day.

It’s been fifteen years. Over ten since we last spoke. So why am I still on your mind? I know I am, because there you are, every single day, in my views.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how even a mild obsession could survive this much time. You didn’t want me, remember? I wasn’t good enough. That was clear.

I was the obsessed one. Deeply infatuated. It took me years to get over you. Years to unlearn you. But I did.

You were special, though. You shaped so much of who I became.

There’s this story I tell sometimes about the boy who made me start wearing makeup. You didn’t tell me to. But the way you ended things made me feel so ugly that I spiraled into an identity crisis. I was seventeen. Seventeen. And trying to rebuild myself because one boy decided I wasn’t enough.

I couldn’t forget you even if I wanted to. I remember how pathetic I must have looked. Calling nonstop. Fantasizing about you 24/7. Hoping for some dramatic run-in so we could fix everything. We eventually had one, but I’m sure to you I was just an annoying girl.

To me, you were my whole world.

I was young. Foolish. Dramatic. But my feelings were real. I don’t feel things like that anymore. Not that intensely. Not that blindly.

I was there whenever you needed me. And you disappeared whenever you felt like it. I was convenient. A drive-through when nothing else was open.

And that’s fine. That was then.

But why are you still watching?

It’s ironic, really. You were the one who sent me “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved” all those years back. It probably meant nothing to you. Just another song.

But are you the man who can’t be moved? Even after you moved on?

I’m just curious. Which corner of your mind do I haunt? What version of me still lingers there after all this time?

Because honestly, I never think of you anymore. Not really.

Unless your name pops up.

And lately, it does.

Every single day.

Standard
Personal

[From the Diaries]

I don’t want to write about what I’m going through now. So let’s write about something else. Something from a hundred years ago.

When I was 17, I fell in love. Madly. Deeply. Irrevocably.

It was love at first sight for me. I enjoy revisiting these details as I write, because it brings me closer to who I was then. This 17-year-old girl who was so messed up, yet had her whole life ahead of her.

There was this boy. We were separated by oceans.

One morning, around 4 AM, I was sleepless and scrolling Facebook when I came across his profile. And instantly, I fell in love with his smile. I am not even exaggerating when I say instantly. It was that quick.

I added him.

It was 2010. October 10. Yes, I am still weird enough to remember dates like that. He used to call me weird. In a good way. I think he added the “in a good way” part just to soften it. I don’t think he ever really liked me that much.

When I added him, he accepted. Then he messaged me.

And we started talking. Every night. Until almost morning.

We moved to messages because Facebook chat wasn’t what it is today. Then from Messenger to Skype. And the day I heard his voice, my heart skipped multiple beats. I was completely smitten. He sang me my favourite song.

Our affair was brief. Just over a month.

But he told me he loved me first. I said it back eventually.

Then, after a few days, he started changing.

Mind you, we had never met. This was all online.

He started distancing himself. I heard from him less and less. And then it was over.

And I shattered.

Nothing was the same anymore. I was alive, but the world felt grey. I didn’t go out for months. I bought book after book and stayed home reading. I changed my entire wardrobe. And for the first time in my life, I bought makeup.

I felt ugly. Like he left because I was ugly.

Of course I was 17. Of course I would think that.

That was also when I started journaling. I wrote about him. Constantly. I marked dates. Every interaction. Every message.

I still have that notebook.

For the next eight years of my life, no one saw me without makeup. I became addicted to it. I hated my bare face. That insecurity ran deep.

And I never really stopped loving him.

He left my life, but never my heart. I carried him with me constantly. There was rarely a moment I didn’t think about him. So much of it was unfinished. Unexplored. There was so much left to fantasize about. Like running into him for the first time.

A year later, we were both in Malé. We were not in contact.

Then we ran into each other.

And the love that had been living in a void suddenly became real. He was just as perfect as I had imagined.

I was doomed.

I was obsessed. Infatuated. I would call him over and over. He would barely pick up. He walked in and out of my life briefly. We never became anything real.

He told me he loved someone else. And I knew I wasn’t enough for him. But even then, whenever he buzzed, I was there.

We never did anything beyond kissing.

Not because I didn’t want to. But because I loved him so much that I knew if we crossed that line, I would crash. Because deep down, I knew he was never going to love me the way I loved him.

Eventually, we drifted.

He got a girlfriend. Then he got married. And we have never spoken since.

And eventually, my love for him was replaced by other people. Or maybe just layered over. I don’t know.

Now, fast forward to today.

It has been a few years now that I have noticed him viewing my stories. He does not follow me. But sometimes I see his name in my views.

And I wonder. Why?

The man whose attention I would have traded the world for once… now thinks of me every now and then.

God knows what purpose it serves for him.

But still.

How fascinating.

Standard
Personal

[From the Diaries]

We stayed back a few extra days after the family left.
It was supposed to be just us. A softer ending to the trip. A reset.

Instead, it became something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

Things between us have been rocky for a while. If I’m honest, maybe they’ve always been. We had already fought the day before my family left, and after that nothing felt steady. I’m not blameless. I know my attitude can be sharp. I know I react fast when I feel disrespected. I know I struggle to stay calm once I feel dismissed.

That part is mine.

But that night scared me.

It started over something so stupid it almost feels embarrassing to write.

We were playing Monopoly Deal. A game we’ve played a hundred times. Lately he’s been winning a lot, which is fine. It’s a game. But just as we started, I had no money and he had plenty. I asked for rent.

He said, “Just say no.”

I looked at him. “But you have money.”

“That’s what I want to do.”

It was small. Petty. Childish even. But something about the way he said it irritated me more than it should have. It felt unnecessary. Like he was enjoying denying me.

I threw the cards down. Game over.

He started justifying it. Saying he had to play a card. It didn’t make sense. It felt like backtracking just to prove he wasn’t wrong. I got more upset. I started tearing the cards. I was visibly angry now.

And then he said, “I should get this on video.”

I saw red.

I threw the cards at him, grabbed my phone, and started walking out. As I closed the door, I heard him shouting, “Why did you hit me? Why did you hit me?” over and over.

In my head I was thinking: because you tried to record me in my rage. For what? To use later? To show someone? To prove I’m unstable?

The moment I stepped outside, I heard chaos behind me. Loud chaos. Things being thrown. We were practically the only ones staying in that house. Every sound echoed. It wasn’t even our house. It was my brother’s in-laws’ family home.

I had face to lose.

I went down to the pool and sat on a lounge chair, hyperventilating. Angry. Embarrassed. Trying to calm down. I kept asking myself, what has this place become for us?

Then I heard more noise from upstairs.

Still him.

Still loud.

Still unapologetic.

What if someone hears? What if someone comes to check? The shame of that possibility felt suffocating.

Then the door slammed. Minutes later he was walking toward me, still furious. I could see it in his eyes. That deep, hot red anger.

“Why did you hit me?” he shouted again.

He didn’t care who heard.

“Because you tried to video me,” I said.

I don’t think he even heard me.

He kicked my flip-flops with his foot. Kicked the lounge chair I was sitting on. It wasn’t enough to hurt me. It was just enough to intimidate.

It was disrespectful in a way that made my stomach drop.

I stayed quiet.

When he walked away, I went back upstairs.

The room was worse than I imagined. Things everywhere. Not just messy. Thrown. I wanted to take pictures, but I was scared he would see me doing it.

So I started cleaning.

I needed control. I needed something stable. I needed the outside to be calm because the inside of me wasn’t.

As I cleaned, he started throwing more things onto the bed. Packing. Unpacking. Moving with intensity. We were supposed to leave the next afternoon, but everything felt unstable. Like he might walk out at any second.

I said nothing. I kept cleaning.

When the room was spotless, I could breathe again. Just a little.

He came out of the bathroom, shirtless, and tried to hold me.

I resisted with everything in me. I bit him. Pinched him. Grabbed his hair. I screamed that I didn’t want to talk anymore. I didn’t want him touching me. The way he had behaved downstairs didn’t feel like the man I knew.

It felt like a display. Something meant to overpower. Something meant to assert.

I broke free and sat at the desk. I bought an Apple gift card. Completely random. Dissociative almost. Like my brain needed something ordinary to focus on.

The desk was next to the bathroom. I could hear him crying in there.

I didn’t go.

I played music. June Gloom. It was mid-June. It felt fitting.

He came out and closed my laptop. I opened it. He put it away again. I grabbed it. He grabbed it back. I had to beg for my own laptop.

He started slapping himself, saying, “Hit me now.”

His eyes were still red.

I kept my tone flat. Calm. Almost numb. I just kept asking for my laptop until he let go. I grabbed it and came downstairs.

It was only early evening.

I remember thinking: I still have hours to get through.

I wasn’t scared of him exactly. I was scared of the volatility. Of what might happen next. Of the unpredictability.

The next morning was no better. Slamming doors again. I hate that sound. It feels intentional. Like it’s designed to make you flinch.

At the airport, he kept asking if we were really breaking up over a game. Said it was the stupidest breakup ever. Said I was stupid. Said he didn’t care if we broke up.

Then, in the same breath, he asked what he did wrong.

He said even after I hit him he was still here.

He told me not to put my ego above us.

He said he was sorry if he had done anything wrong.

Sorry if.

On the flight, we were seated next to each other. He tried to take selfies by putting his phone in my face. I pushed it away. It fell. He tried again. I pushed it again. People probably saw. I didn’t care.

He kept taking pictures of me. I looked the other way.

Right after takeoff, he moved seats.

And all I could think was this: he does not see himself in this. He only sees the moments I lose my composure. The torn cards. The biting. The hair pulling. My reaction.

Not what builds up to it.

Not the door slamming.

Not the intimidation.

Not the way I felt like I had to survive the night instead of sleep through it.

Maybe in his version I am the villain.

The girl who broke up over a game.

I am fine with that.

Because it was never about Monopoly.

It was about fear.

And I cannot build a life with someone if I have to feel this terrified just to stay.

Standard
Personal

Honestly, I thought of going through with the unthinkable. It happens every time my mother makes me hate living. She does it time and time again, and every single time, I hate that I’m alive.

She makes it unnecessarily difficult. I think of all the things I could have become and continue to be proud of all the things I did become under so many different circumstances, and then there’s my mother, being my worst cheerleader at every turn. And then she wonders why I didn’t want to invite her to my graduation. She’s forgetting all the times she made it difficult for me to live while I was struggling to manage studies and life.

And I’ll be the terrible daughter in everyone’s book because how dare I. When this mother has sacrificed her whole life for us, how dare I resent anything. But I do. I’m eternally grateful for all the sacrifices she made, but I will always hate the moments in my life where she made me feel I should’ve been dead.

I’m in my thirties, and I continue to be heartbroken at the hands of my parents. The pain they inflict upon me is nothing compared to all the other shit I go through in life. It aches in my heart where these wounds are, and they never heal because they are constantly picked on.

It took me years to realize, or even share what it feels like with her. First, I was so embarrassed about it because it’s not like any other mother-daughter relationship I know. Second, I refused to believe someone who’d sacrificed so much for us could also be the reason for my pain. But it’s true, both of these can be true. She’s human too, and as flawed as any of us. But the way I understand her, try to see things from her view, she doesn’t bother with mine. My perspectives are irrelevant. All my life she made me feel like she hated the fact that she birthed me. She made me feel like I was a waste of space, air, breath. I hated myself. I grew up hating myself. I didn’t know what loving myself would ever feel like. I didn’t think I deserved anything nice, or any kindness even.

So I continued to settle with shitty men, glorifying their shitty treatment. Why wouldn’t I? I get the same treatment at home; I was right at home in these men’s arms. What they made me feel was what I felt by the two people I loved in this world first, my parents.

But even through this, there is something I appreciate about my mother, how she didn’t make it difficult for me when I took off my hijab. She did share her displeasure with it, but when I went ahead with it, she said little about it. Although had she gone on about it I would’ve understood too. But I really do appreciate that she didn’t.

And now the other thing she constantly gets upset over is my choice of clothing. She reacts a bit whenever I wear something that’s a bit see-through. And I get really annoyed at it because where was this energy when unwarranted men had access to me, when I was a minor.

I’m an adult now and, god willing, am able to take care of myself. I don’t put myself in rooms with people I can’t trust, so my choice of clothing, see-through or not, wouldn’t get me in trouble because I will make sure of it. I wouldn’t walk naked into the arms of men I don’t trust.

But that’s what happens with parents; they grow old and become more and more hypocritical and judgmental even.

And over the years, I really have tried to build a relationship with her, but every time she’s shot me down and left me more wounded than before. And so I’ve stopped trying and have accepted that we will never be like a typical mother and daughter. We will be so foreign to each other, but I came from her. And if I had to live this life again and could choose my mother, I don’t know if I’d make a different choice because through all the hurt and pain that is caused, I do love her, and she gave me my brother. I can’t imagine a world where I don’t have him as my brother; he was the reason I stayed alive for so long. He saved me with his existence. We might’ve grown apart as adults, but we were best friends as children. And I miss him constantly, the boy that he was. But life goes on.

Standard
Personal

The other day, my therapist asked me the single question that left me dumbfounded. I don’t think I’d ever felt that speechless in my entire life because of how true and deep the realization was that struck with the question. He asked me why it is that I continue to be interested in men who will never be able to make me a priority, and he ended the session by asking me to think on it until the next session. So I’ve been thinking; it’s been on the back of my mind constantly.

And then this one plausible reason hit me: Could it be perhaps because I saw my father prioritize other women constantly over his wife and my mother, that I’ve subconsciously sensationalized the other woman? Could it?

My father was a serial cheater. He was the worst husband and a subpar father. But despite all of this, he is someone I will always love so dearly. I would go sometimes months without talking to him because I’m kind of going no contact, but the minute he stands in front of me, everything vanishes, and I’m just the 3-year-old girl he used to love more than anything in the world. At least from what I remember, that is.

I’ve idolized and loved him blindly, forgiven him for everything without him ever apologizing, and by doing so, I’ve enabled his shitty behavior my entire life, and it is only now that I’ve found the courage and clarity to put an end to it. So when people ask me, who was your first heartbreak, from this day, I will always say it was my father.

Because as ironic as it is, the day my parents finalized their divorce is also the day that I got my heartbroken over a boy, for the first time in my entire life. I was fourteen. I was in love. And I was broken.

And ever since then, all I’ve ever looked for is love, from wherever, and from whomever, and whenever. It didn’t matter; I just wanted to be loved. Because I was living with a void that I didn’t even realize.

But the thing with love is, you’re not happy when people love you; you’re only happy when the person you’re in love with loves you back.

Standard