If someone hurts you, cut them off.

If they misunderstand you, stop explaining yourself.

If they don’t match your energy, leave.

We call it choosing ourselves.

And sometimes, it is.

But lately, I have been wondering how many relationships we have ended not because they were unhealthy, but because we never learned how to have a difficult conversation.

I started thinking about this after realizing something about myself.

I don’t know how to have conflict with someone I love.

I know how to apologize.

I know how to forgive.

I know how to wait until things feel normal again.

But I don’t always know how to look at someone I care about and say:

You hurt me.

Growing up, conflict was usually followed by silence.

If I did something wrong, I would be told what I had done.

Then came the silent treatment.

I knew that the only way to make things okay again was to say sorry.

Once I apologized, the silence would end.

And that was it.

There was no conversation about what happened.

No space for me to explain what I meant.

No chance to say that maybe I was hurt too.

For a long time, I thought that was what resolving conflict looked like.

Someone gets hurt.

Someone apologizes.

Then everyone moves on.

But now I wonder if we ever really moved on.

Or if we just stopped talking about it.

Maybe that is why, whenever someone hurts me, my first instinct is to convince myself that it doesn’t matter.

I tell myself to forgive.

To let it go.

To be the nice girl.

So I stay quiet.

But eventually, I share less.

I trust less.

I begin leaving the relationship without ever telling the other person why.

I thought I was protecting the relationship from conflict.

But maybe I was only protecting myself from the discomfort of honesty.

Recently, I found out that a few people in my life were upset with me.

They felt excluded from certain plans.

Instead of coming to me, they spoke about it with each other.

What hurt me was not that they wanted to be included.

I could understand that.

What hurt me was that no one asked me.

They had already decided what my intentions were without giving me the chance to explain.

I remember thinking that I would never do that to someone I love.

Because I have always believed that love is consideration.

It is giving someone an excuse before giving them a punishment.

It is asking a question before deciding what they meant.

But then I realized that I was doing my own version of the same thing.

I wanted them to tell me that they were hurt.

But I was avoiding telling them that they had hurt me too.

So I sent a message.

I said that what happened was not okay.

I said that if anyone was upset with me, I wanted them to come to me.

It was uncomfortable.

Because when you grow up believing that conflict leads to silence, honesty can feel like the beginning of an ending.

A little later, there was a gathering at one of their homes.

And I went.

I said hello.

I sat with everyone.

I let myself enjoy the evening.

Part of me thought that because I had spoken up, I now had to remain distant.

That being warm again would make it seem like what happened was acceptable.

But I didn’t want to punish them with my absence.

I had already said what I needed to say.

And I could still choose to be kind afterward.

That evening made me realize that I had been seeing conflict as a choice between two things.

Stay quiet and keep the relationship.

Or speak up and risk losing it.

But maybe there is a third choice.

Maybe I can speak because I want the relationship to survive.

Of course, not every relationship should.

Some relationships only continue when we keep abandoning ourselves.

Sometimes, leaving really is the healthiest thing we can do.

But not everyone who hurts us is trying to harm us.

Sometimes good people make bad decisions.

Sometimes they misunderstand us.

Sometimes they do not realize the weight of what they have done.

And sometimes we will be those people too.

When that happens, we will hope they ask us what we meant.

We will hope they remember all the ways we loved them before the moment we failed to.

There is a verse in Surah Fussilat that I keep thinking about whenever I reflect on this.

Allah says:

“Good and evil cannot be equal. Respond to evil with what is best, then the one you are in a feud with will be like a close friend.”

(Surah Fussilat 41:34)

I used to think responding with what is best meant staying quiet.

Forgiving without ever admitting that I was hurt.

But maybe responding with what is best is refusing to turn one hurt into another.

Choosing honesty over gossip.

Understanding over assumption.

A conversation over a punishment.

It is saying:

What you did hurt me.

But I am willing to hear your side.

I am still learning how to do that.

But I don’t want every disappointment to become a goodbye.

Maybe love is not never hurting each other.

Maybe it is remembering that one painful moment does not erase every good one that came before it.

Because some relationships are meant to end.

But maybe others only end because no one was willing to stay for the difficult conversation.

So I say no.

I leave messages unanswered. I watch calls ring until they stop. Whenever I finally have time to myself, I protect it.

This is unusual for me.

I am usually the person who replies quickly. I call people, make plans, and reach out first. I enjoy being around people.

But lately, I only want to be by myself.

At first, I thought I was tired.

And maybe I am.

A lot has changed in a short period of time. I moved back home after living abroad for most of my life. Moving back was harder than I expected. Then I tried to build something of my own. Then I started a new job.

Life kept moving, and I kept moving with it.

But I don’t think I ever stopped long enough to understand how any of it was affecting me.

I am usually someone who sits with herself. I think through what I am feeling. I talk myself through it. I need quiet before I can understand what is happening inside me.

But lately, I haven’t had much of that.

Whenever I do have free time, I try to enjoy it. I read, write, work on my hobbies, and do the things that are supposed to make me feel like myself.

Yet something still feels missing.

I think it is because I have been giving myself things to do without giving myself the space to understand what I am going through.

Maybe I wasn’t trying to hide from people.

Maybe I was trying to find the part of myself I had not had time to sit with.

But because I didn’t understand that, every conversation started to feel difficult.

How are you?

I didn’t know.

What’s new?

Too much.

Going out meant stepping away from the little time I had to hear myself think. Talking meant trying to explain feelings I hadn’t understood yet.

So I kept thinking:

I’ll call you when I’m myself again.

The problem is, the longer I waited, the more I withdrew from people I never wanted to lose.

And I started wondering why we do that.

Why, when life becomes difficult, do we sometimes pull away from the people who could make it feel lighter?

The best explanation I have ever heard came through an analogy.

Imagine there has been a huge earthquake.

You return home and barely recognize it. The walls are cracked. Everything you own has been flipped upside down.

But the dining table is still standing.

You find that strange, so you give it a small shake to check if it is stable.

It doesn’t move.

But because everything else has fallen, you cannot believe that this one thing hasn’t. So you shake it again.

If you keep shaking it, eventually you may break it.

Not because it was already broken.

Because you kept testing the only thing that was still standing.

Maybe this is what we do to relationships when life becomes difficult.

We pull away to see who will notice. We stop answering to see who will keep calling. We shake the stable parts of our lives because everything else has changed.

But I don’t think I have been testing whether people will stay.

I think I have been trying to keep them from seeing the house.

I look at everything happening inside me and think:

I’ll let people in when I understand this.
When life feels calmer.
When I feel like myself again.

Until then, I keep the door closed.

Not because I don’t love the people outside, but because I don’t feel ready to be seen.

The problem is that life may not become perfectly arranged anytime soon.

And perhaps the people who love us are not asking us to host them. Maybe they are willing to sit at the table while everything else is still out of place.

I also don’t think needing to be alone is always wrong.

I think about Maryam withdrawing from her people during a moment no one around her could understand.

Allah met her in that solitude:

“Do not grieve. Your Lord has provided a stream at your feet.”

Surah Maryam, 19:24

Before she returned to anyone, Allah gave her space to rest.

Maybe I need that too.

Not more hobbies to fill the silence, but enough quiet to understand what the silence is trying to tell me.

The kind of solitude that brings me back to myself.

Because there is a difference between resting and disappearing.

Rest gives you something to return with.

Hiding convinces you that you cannot return until you are someone else.

I still don’t know exactly what I am feeling. I may not be ready to answer every message or accept every invitation.

But I don’t want to keep waiting for an old version of myself to return before I let anyone reach me.

Maybe I can call someone and simply say:

I haven’t felt like myself lately.
I don’t know how to explain it yet.
But I miss you.

The house is not ready.

Neither am I.

But the table is still standing.

Maybe it is time I stopped shaking it and allowed myself to lean on it.

Not the kind of anger that disappears after a few hours.

The kind that quietly follows you into adulthood.

She told me about the things they said.

The things they didn’t say.

The ways they misunderstood her.

The ways they hurt her.

And as she spoke, I found myself agreeing with almost everything she said.

Because if we’re honest, I think most of us have looked back at our childhood and wondered how different life could have been if our parents had just known better.

If they had been more patient.

More emotionally available.

More understanding.

More...

Whatever it was we needed.

After we finished talking, I couldn’t stop thinking about one question.

At what point do our parents stop being “Mom” and “Dad”... and become people?

It’s such a strange realization.

Because for most of our lives, we only know them as our parents.

We never knew who they were before responsibility found them.

Before marriage.

Before children.

Before bills.

Before sleepless nights.

Before they were trying to raise another human while still trying to understand themselves.

We meet our parents halfway through their story.

We never meet the younger version of them.

The version that was scared.

The version that made mistakes.

The version that didn’t know what tomorrow looked like.

We only meet the chapter where they’re expected to know everything.

Maybe that’s why we expect so much from them.

As children, we assume our parents know what they’re doing.

We imagine that somewhere along the way, adults receive a manual.

That one day, you simply wake up knowing how to make the right decisions.

Knowing how to raise children.

Knowing how to navigate life.

Then one day...

you become an adult.

And you realize there was never a manual.

Just people.

Trying.

Failing.

Learning.

Hoping they were getting more things right than wrong.

That realization reminded me of my own parents.

For years, I thought we just weren’t very close.

Our conversations were short.

“How are you?”

“Good.”

“How was your day?”

“Good.”

I learned to keep my answers short enough that they wouldn’t turn into a lecture.

Our phone calls were rare and rarely lasted more than a minute.

Most of our WhatsApp conversations were simply asking if I needed anything.

That was our relationship.

Or at least, that’s what I thought.

Then I started noticing the things I had somehow overlooked.

My parents remembered little things I had casually mentioned weeks before and would ask me about them.

My mom cooks my favorite meal at least once a week because she knows I’m a picky eater.

My dad comes home with my favorite fruit because he knows I might be craving it.

They notice things I don’t even realize they notice.

And somewhere between those ordinary moments, I realized something that completely changed the way I saw them.

Their love had always been there.

I was just looking for it in a language they never spoke.

And I wonder how many of us do the same.

How many of us spend years believing we weren’t loved enough...

when maybe we just didn’t know how to recognize the way we were being loved.

Of course, this doesn’t mean every parent gets it right.

Some wounds are real.

Some words stay with us for years.

Some parents make mistakes that leave scars long after childhood ends.

Understanding someone is not the same as excusing them.

Seeing your parents as human doesn’t erase the pain they may have caused.

But I do think it changes something.

Because there comes a point where healing becomes our responsibility.

Not because our parents no longer matter.

Not because the past didn’t shape us.

But because this is our first life too.

We cannot spend the rest of it waiting for different parents.

Or a different childhood.

Or different memories.

At some point, the story becomes ours to write.

Recently, I found myself reflecting on a story in the Qur’an that I have read countless times before.

But this time, I wasn’t reading it as the story of a prophet.

I was reading it as the story of a father.

As the flood began, Prophet Noah called out to his son:

“And it sailed with them through waves like mountains, and Noah called to his son, who had separated himself, ‘O my son, come aboard with us and do not be with the disbelievers.’” (Qur’an 11:42)

His son answered:

“He said, ‘I will take refuge on a mountain to protect me from the water.’ Noah said, ‘There is no protector today from the decree of Allah, except for whom He gives mercy.’ And the waves came between them, and he was among the drowned.” (Qur’an 11:43)

After the flood had ended, Noah turned to Allah:

“And Noah called to his Lord and said, ‘My Lord, indeed my son is of my family, and indeed, Your promise is true, and You are the most just of judges.’” (Qur’an 11:45)

Allah replied:

“He said, ‘O Noah, indeed he is not of your family. Indeed, he is [one whose] work was other than righteous. So do not ask Me for that about which you have no knowledge...’” (Qur’an 11:46)

Every time I read these verses, I notice something different.

This time, I noticed a father.

A father calling out to his son until the very last moment.

A father refusing to give up hope.

A father grieving.

And it reminded me of something I had never thought about before.

Even one of the greatest prophets could not choose for his child.

He could guide him.

He could love him.

He could pray for him.

But he could not make the choice for him.

Parents are given responsibility.

They are not given control.

Somehow, that realization softened my heart.

Because we often imagine that if our parents had only said the right thing...

Made the right decision...

Handled one moment differently...

Everything about us would be different.

But life has never been that simple.

Even prophets weren’t promised perfect outcomes.

Maybe growing up isn’t realizing our parents were perfect.

Maybe it’s realizing they were never supposed to be.

They were simply people.

People carrying burdens we never saw.

People making decisions with the knowledge they had at the time.

People trying to raise children while still learning how to be adults themselves.

I don’t think this realization changes the past.

I don’t think it suddenly makes every memory easier.

But it reminds me that the people I spent my childhood expecting to know everything...

were quietly living for the first time too.

This is our parents’ first life too.

And somehow...

remembering that has made my heart a little softer.

I found out through someone in my family before she announced it.

The difficult part was that I wasn’t supposed to know yet.

So on the day of her engagement, I congratulated her like everyone else, pretending it was the first time I had heard the news.

And strangely, that wasn’t the part that stayed with me.

What stayed with me was the question it left behind.

What actually makes someone a close friend?

For most of my life, I don’t think I ever tried to define friendship.

When we’re children, friendship feels almost effortless.

School keeps us together.

Our neighborhoods keep us together.

Our lives naturally overlap.

We don’t stop to ask what makes someone a close friend because life quietly answers that question for us.

The people growing up beside us simply become our people.

But adulthood feels different.

Life stops doing the work for us.

Everyone slowly begins building a life of their own.

Different careers.

Different cities.

Different routines.

Different priorities.

And somewhere along the way, I found myself asking another question.

How do friendships stay close once life no longer keeps them close?

I started thinking about all the ways we measure friendship.

Is it time?

I’ve known some people for years who know very little about the person I’m becoming today.

And I’ve met others much more recently who somehow understand this season of my life better than anyone.

So maybe it isn’t time.

Is it how often we talk?

That didn’t feel right either.

Some friendships survive months without speaking.

Others slowly disappear despite constant conversations.

So maybe it isn’t frequency.

Is it history?

The memories.

The years.

The childhood we shared.

But then I realized something.

History tells us where we’ve been.

Not always where we are.

I think that’s the part I had never considered before.

Maybe friendships don’t slowly become distant because people stop caring.

Maybe they become distant because people keep growing, while our understanding of each other quietly stays behind.

We remember who they were.

The child who sat beside us in school.

The teenager who knew all our secrets.

The friend who laughed at the same jokes.

But life keeps introducing new versions of people.

Versions we’ve never really met.

And maybe that’s one of the strangest parts of growing older.

You can know someone’s entire childhood...

...and know very little about the person they’re becoming today.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that perhaps friendship isn’t about knowing someone’s story.

It’s about continuing to know it.

Continuing to ask questions.

Continuing to stay curious.

Continuing to make room for the new person they’re becoming instead of only loving the person they used to be.

Maybe that’s why friendships become harder with age.

Not because we care less.

But because knowing someone becomes an ongoing choice.

There’s an ayah I couldn’t stop thinking about while reflecting on all of this.

“Close friends, that Day, will be enemies to each other, except for the righteous.”

(Surah Az-Zukhruf 43:67)

I’ve read this verse many times before.

But this time, it made me notice something different.

While I was asking myself what makes someone a close friend, the Qur’an seemed to be asking a completely different question.

Not who you’ve known the longest.

Not who you’ve made the most memories with.

Not who tells you their biggest news first.

But who helps you become closer to Allah.

Who encourages you toward goodness.

Who gently reminds you of the person you’re trying to become.

Maybe that’s a much deeper way to think about friendship.

Because if friendship is helping each other grow, then of course it can’t survive on memories alone.

It has to grow too.

The older I get, the more I realize that childhood gives us friendships.

Adulthood asks us to nurture them.

To check in.

To make time.

To remain curious.

To keep meeting each new version of the people we love.

Maybe that’s what keeps a friendship alive.

Not history by itself.

But the willingness to keep discovering each other, even after years of thinking we already have.

I still don’t know exactly what makes someone a close friend.

Maybe there isn’t one answer.

Maybe friendship can’t be measured by time.

Or history.

Or how often we speak.

Or even by who hears the good news first.

Maybe friendship is much quieter than that.

Maybe it’s choosing, again and again, not to let your understanding of someone stop in the past.

Maybe the people who stay closest to us aren’t simply the ones we’ve known the longest.

Maybe they’re the ones who never stop getting to know us.

Maybe we don’t measure friendship the same way.

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular.

Life has been changing lately, and whenever that happens, I always find myself looking backward before I look forward.

Not because I want to go back.

I think it’s my way of remembering how much Allah has already carried me before I step into whatever comes next.

The first page I landed on had been written almost three years ago.

I smiled.

Then I started reading.

Of course I remembered that season.

How could I not?

It was one of the hardest seasons of my life.

The unanswered du’as.

The disappointment.

The grief.

I remembered all of that.

What I had forgotten was what it felt like to be her.

I closed the journal for a while.

And I just sat there.

What surprised me wasn’t what I’d written.

It was the way I felt toward the girl who had written it.

Three years ago, I thought she should’ve handled it better.

Today, all I wanted to do was hug her.

Somewhere along the way, the way I spoke to myself had changed.

I don’t know exactly when it happened.

I don’t think it happened because time passed.

I think Allah slowly changed the way I looked at myself.

As I kept thinking about that season, I realized something else.

Looking back, my life wasn’t small.

It only felt that way.

I had unknowingly tied my happiness to one outcome.

So when that one thing didn’t happen, it became difficult to see anything else.

That’s when I decided to write her a letter.

Dear younger Moneera,

I found your journal today.

I’ve spent the afternoon reading your words.

I know why you’re tired.

I know why every morning begins with the same thought.

I know why every du’a feels like it’s asking for the same thing.

I remember spending so much of that season trying to figure out how to make it stop hurting.

As if there was something I hadn’t thought of yet.

Some answer I hadn’t found.

Some way to fix it.

Looking back, I don’t think there was anything to fix.

Some things are too heavy to carry all at once.

So Allah teaches us to carry them a little differently each day.

I also need you to know something.

You made the right decision.

I know you don’t believe that yet.

I know you’ve replayed it over and over, wondering whether one different choice would’ve changed everything.

It wouldn’t have.

You’re trying to judge yesterday with knowledge Allah only gave you years later.

Be gentle with yourself.

You were making the best decision you could with the heart and the understanding you had.

And that is all Allah ever asked of you.

Lately, I’ve been returning to a few verses in Surah Ibrahim.

I’ve read them many times before.

But this time, one small detail stayed with me.

Allah says:

“Allah is the One who created the heavens and the earth and sent down rain from the sky, bringing forth fruits as provision for you. He has subjected for you the ships to sail through the sea by His command. He has subjected for you the rivers. He has subjected for you the sun and the moon, constant in their courses. He has subjected for you the night and the day. And He has given you from all that you asked of Him. And if you tried to count the favors of Allah, you could never enumerate them.”

— Surah Ibrahim (14:32–34)

Before Allah tells us that His blessings can never be counted...

He names them.

The sky.

The earth.

The rivers.

The sun.

The moon.

The night.

The day.

I kept wondering why.

Then I thought about you.

Maybe that’s what pain does.

It makes one thing feel so big that everything else slowly disappears behind it.

I wish I could sit beside you for just a few minutes.

Not to tell you that everything will be okay.

Not because I think that would’ve taken the pain away.

I just would’ve asked you to look up.

Look at the sky on your drive home.

Look at Mama while you’re having coffee together.

Look at your little brother before he asks you for another hug.

None of those things will fix what hurts.

But they’re still your life.

Don’t let one chapter convince you it’s the whole story.

When I opened your journal, I expected to remember that season.

Instead, I remembered you.

I remembered how hard you were trying.

How desperately you wanted things to make sense.

How convinced you were that happiness was waiting on the other side of one answered du’a.

You didn’t know it then, but Allah was already answering other prayers.

Not in the way you were expecting.

But in the person you were slowly becoming.

I spent a long time feeling sorry for you.

Today, I don’t.

Today, I just love you.

Because now I can see something you couldn’t.

Allah never stopped taking care of you.

Not on the days you cried.

Not on the days you questioned everything.

Not even on the days you couldn’t see Him working.

He was there.

The whole time.

With love,

Moneera

I parked, walked into the office, realized I had left it behind, and went back to get it.

A completely ordinary moment.

The kind of moment you forget five minutes later.

But on my way back, I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in almost a year.

Someone from my NYU days.

Someone who was part of the Saudi Student Association when I was helping organize events.

After I graduated, he became the president of the club.

We hadn’t planned to meet.

In fact, I didn’t even know he had joined the company as an intern.

But there he was.

And for some reason, the moment I saw him, something shifted.

I became a version of myself I hadn’t seen in a while.

The confident version.

The goofy version.

The version that used to trust herself.

I didn’t notice it at first.

But I noticed it later.

Because when I walked away, I kept thinking:

Where did that version of me come from?

A few hours later, I ran into him again during lunch.

And we started talking about life.

What we’ve been up to.

What happened after graduation.

The usual catching up.

At some point, I mentioned that I had recently joined the company too, but in a senior role.

Then he said something that stayed with me long after the conversation ended.

“They’re lucky to have you.”

“If I had a company, I would hire you immediately.”

I laughed.

Thanked him.

And moved on with my day.

But for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Not because of the compliment.

But because of what it revealed.

I think what stayed with me wasn’t what he said.

It was who I became while talking to him.

For a few minutes, I felt like I was back at NYU.

Back when I was organizing events.

Back when students would come to me with questions and somehow I always believed I could find an answer.

Back when I trusted myself more.

And that’s what I couldn’t stop thinking about afterward.

Not the compliment.

The version of me that showed up.

Because after graduation, life looked very different than I thought it would.

I spent the last couple of years trying to build something of my own.

And if you’ve ever built something yourself, you know how hard it is not to take rejection personally.

At first, rejection feels external.

A client isn’t interested.

An opportunity doesn’t work out.

A proposal gets ignored.

But after enough rejections, the question slowly changes.

You stop asking:

“Why didn’t this work?”

And start asking:

“What’s wrong with me?”

Not because it’s true.

But because disappointment has a way of becoming louder than evidence.

And maybe that’s why that conversation stayed with me.

For a moment, I wasn’t looking at myself through rejection.

I was looking at myself through the eyes of someone who knew me before I started doubting myself.

There’s a passage in Surah Taha that I’ve been thinking about ever since.

Before Allah (God) sends Musa to face Pharaoh, He reminds him of his story.

How He protected him as a baby.

How He returned him to his mother.

How He carried him through hardship.

How He guided him through years Musa himself didn’t understand at the time.

Allah says:

“And We had already conferred favor upon you another time...”

“So We restored you to your mother that she might be content and not grieve...”

“And We saved you from distress...”

“Then you remained for years among the people of Madyan. Then you came here at the decreed time, O Musa.”

(Qur’an 20:37–40)

What moves me about these verses isn’t the blessings themselves.

It’s that Musa already knew all of those things had happened.

Allah wasn’t teaching him something new.

He was reminding him.

Almost as if, before Musa could step into the next chapter of his life, Allah wanted him to look back and see how far he had already come.

To see all the moments of guidance he couldn’t see while he was living them.

And I wonder if that’s what happened to me that day.

For a moment, I stopped looking at everything that wasn’t working.

And remembered the things that already had.

The events.

The late nights.

The person I had already become.

Nothing new happened that day.

I was simply reminded of evidence that already existed.

And maybe that’s why our paths crossed again.

Not because I needed to meet him.

But because I needed to meet her again.

The version of me I had forgotten.

“It would be wonderful if relationships lasted forever.

But it is difficult not to disappoint each other.

People’s feelings and lives do not stay the same.

But that’s okay.”

A grandfather wrote those words in a letter to his grandson’s girlfriend.

I recently watched a drama where that letter appeared near the end of the story.

And strangely, out of everything that happened, it was those few lines that stayed with me.

Not the romance.

Not the heartbreak.

Not even the ending.

Just that idea.

People’s feelings and lives do not stay the same.

But that’s okay.

I remember rereading the letter a few times.

Because it felt so simple.

Yet it challenged something I had quietly believed for a long time.

I think most of us grow up believing that if something ends, then something must have gone wrong.

A friendship ends.

A relationship ends.

A chapter ends.

And immediately, we start looking for the reason.

Who changed.

Who left.

Who made the mistake.

As if every ending needs an explanation.

As if every goodbye needs a villain.

But the story I watched challenged that.

Two people who had once loved each other deeply met again ten years after they had gone their separate ways.

By then, both of them had built entirely different lives.

Different careers.

Different dreams.

Different versions of themselves.

At one point, the man asked her a question.

If they had stayed together, would things have turned out differently?

And she said yes.

But then she said something I haven’t stopped thinking about since.

If they hadn’t left each other, neither of them would have become who they are today.

What moved me even more was what came afterward.

The girl looked at him and said:

“I really loved you back then.”

And he told her that he loved her too.

Then she thanked him.

Not for staying.

Not for coming back.

Not for changing the ending.

She thanked him for being her home.

For being the person she always went to.

For being part of that chapter of her life.

And I think that’s what made the scene so beautiful.

There was no resentment.

No bitterness.

No attempt to rewrite history.

Just two people acknowledging that what they had was real.

That it mattered.

That it shaped them.

And that they were grateful for it.

And I think that’s the part that stayed with me.

Because if I’m being honest, I don’t think that’s how I usually think about love.

I think of love as holding on.

As staying.

As making it work.

But watching them thank each other instead of trying to get each other back made me wonder if I’ve been measuring things the wrong way.

Maybe the value of a relationship isn’t in how long it stays.

Maybe it’s in what it leaves behind.

The lessons.

The memories.

The healing.

The version of yourself that wouldn’t exist without it.

When I look back at my own life, there are people who only existed within a specific chapter.

People who gave me confidence when I didn’t have any.

People who challenged me.

People who inspired me.

People who helped me through seasons I couldn’t have gotten through alone.

Some stayed.

Some didn’t.

But all of them left something behind.

And maybe that’s why the grandfather’s letter stayed with me.

Because somewhere along the way, I started measuring the value of things by how long they lasted.

If it lasted forever, it was successful.

If it ended, it wasn’t.

But the older I get, the less true that feels.

There are friendships that lasted years and taught me very little.

And there are people I knew for a much shorter time who completely changed the direction of my life.

So maybe permanence was never the point.

Maybe impact was.

There’s a story in Surah Al-Kahf that I keep thinking about whenever I reflect on this.

It’s the story of Musa and Al-Khidr.

Musa travels a long distance just to meet him.

And during that journey, Al-Khidr teaches him lessons that completely change the way he understands life.

Lessons about patience.

About trust.

About the things we cannot see.

And then, after all of that, Al-Khidr tells him:

“This is the parting between me and you.”

(Surah Al-Kahf 18:78)

And that’s it.

The companionship ends.

But the lessons remain.

I’ve always found that beautiful.

Because Allah could have written the story differently.

Musa and Al-Khidr could have stayed together.

But they didn’t.

The relationship was temporary.

The impact wasn’t.

And maybe that’s true for more people in our lives than we realize.

Maybe some people are sent to teach us something.

To help us through a season.

To open a door.

To close one.

To introduce us to a version of ourselves we couldn’t see on our own.

And then life carries us in different directions.

Not because the relationship failed.

But because it fulfilled its purpose.

Maybe that’s what the grandfather understood.

That people change.

Life changes.

We change.

And that doesn’t take away from what we meant to each other when our paths crossed.

If anything, maybe it makes it more meaningful.

Because nothing was guaranteed.

And yet, for a period of time, we got to be part of each other’s story.

Maybe that’s why some people continue to live in our hearts long after they leave our lives.

Not because we were meant to keep them forever.

But because they helped shape the person who stayed.

And maybe that’s what real gratitude looks like.

Not wishing a chapter lasted longer.

But being thankful that it happened at all.

Maybe the final act of love is letting go.

Because sometimes the greatest gift was never forever.

Maybe the greatest gift was the time we had.

Things you begged for.
Waited for.
Prayed would work out.

Only to later realize that if they had, your life would have gone in a completely different direction.

And lately, I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

Because today, I got the offer.

And strangely, I don’t think this moment started with the job itself.

I think it started with all the things that didn’t work before it.

For the past two years, I was trying so hard to make my business work.

And the difficult part was that it had worked before.

Before moving back, I used to coach students. I would help them with personal branding, content, building confidence online, and turning their skills into income.

And for a while, things worked.

People signed.
Clients came.
Things moved.

So when I graduated, I told myself I would give my dreams one full year.

One year to try everything I truly wanted before settling into a more traditional path.

That’s when I started Arqera.

And honestly, I believed in it deeply.

The ideas were there.
The strategy was there.
The vision was there.

I would get meetings.
Potential clients.
Interest.

But somehow, when it came time to close, things would suddenly fall apart.

Clients would disappear.
Deals would stall.
Things just… wouldn’t move.

And after a while, it becomes hard not to take that personally.

Because when something works before and suddenly stops working, you start questioning everything.

Your abilities.
Your timing.
Your direction.

I kept thinking:

Why does it feel like Allah is closing every single door I try to walk through?

And eventually, I got tired.

Not tired of dreaming.

Just tired of living with financial stress all the time.

So slowly, I started shrinking my dreams.

I started applying for jobs I knew were smaller than me.

Not because they inspired me.

But because I just wanted stability.
A paycheck.
Something certain.

And strangely, even those doors weren’t opening either.

And I think that was the part that confused me the most.

Because sometimes when one path doesn’t work, you assume Allah is redirecting you toward something else.

But what do you do when everything feels closed?

That was the season I started writing.

Not professionally.
Not strategically.

Honestly, I started writing because I didn’t know what else to do with everything I was feeling.

So I opened Substack almost like someone talking to themselves quietly.

I started writing to another version of me.

To the version that felt lost.
The version that felt behind.
The version trying so hard to understand why nothing was working anymore.

And for the first time in a long time, something felt honest.

Not optimized.
Not carefully planned.
Not written to impress anyone.

Just honest.

There’s a story in the Quran I keep thinking about lately.

The story of Musa and Al-Khidr.

When Al-Khidr damaged the ship, Musa couldn’t understand it.

How could damage be mercy?
How could losing something be protection?

But later, the wisdom became clear.

“As for the ship, it belonged to poor people working at sea. So I intended to damage it because there was after them a king seizing every [good] ship by force.”

— Surah Al-Kahf, Ayah 79

The ship was damaged so it would not be taken away entirely.

And I wonder now if Allah sometimes does the same thing in our lives.

Not because He wants to hurt us.

But because we become too attached to things we would have never walked away from ourselves.

Sometimes certain doors close because if they stayed open, we would keep choosing them.

Even if they were too small for who we were becoming.

And I think that’s what I’m only starting to understand now.

Because somewhere between the rejection, the silence, and all the uncertainty, Allah introduced me to something I didn’t know existed within me.

My voice.

I never thought of myself as a storyteller before writing those articles.

I knew I loved writing.

But I never saw it as something that could become part of my life.

Then one day, I came across a LinkedIn post from the storytelling lead at one of the biggest fintech companies in Saudi.

They were looking for a storyteller.

And for some reason, when I read the post, I felt something shift inside me.

For the first time, I saw myself in the description.

Storyteller.

It felt strange because I had never used that word for myself before.

So I reached out.

And today, I got the offer.

Funny enough, the graduate program that rejected me offered almost half the salary of the role I ended up getting.

And I think that realization will stay with me for a long time.

Because if I had gotten what I wanted immediately, I don’t think I would have ever discovered this version of myself.

I would have kept chasing paths that looked right on paper but did not fully feel like me.

And strangely, I think the thing I feel most grateful for is not even the job itself.

It’s the feeling.

The feeling that for the first time in a long time, something feels aligned.

After meeting the team, hearing the way they think, the way they speak, the way they see storytelling and creativity, I felt inspired.

And I realized that maybe this is why I always make the same du’a.

That Allah surrounds me with people who make me better.

Better as a person.
Better as a Muslim.
Better as a friend.
Better as someone who creates and lives with intention.

Because the older I get, the more I realize that every chapter in life comes with its people.

And every group of people changes you in some way.

Sometimes beautifully.
Sometimes painfully.

But always permanently.

And when I look back now, there were chapters in my life I didn’t understand while I was living them.

People I wish I never met.
Experiences I wish had gone differently.
Doors I begged Allah to keep open.

But somehow, even the painful chapters shaped me into someone different.

Some experiences taught me what kind of environments slowly drain me.

Some taught me what kind of people make me feel closer to Allah.

Some taught me what ambition looks like.
Some taught me loneliness.
Some taught me what I never want to become.

And somehow, all of them were preparing me for the next room Allah was leading me toward.

I still don’t know what this new chapter will bring.

I don’t know the people I’m going to meet.
The lessons I’m going to learn.
The version of myself I’m going to become through this experience.

But I think after everything, this is what I know now:

Allah does not remove something without knowing what it is making space for.

And Allah, Al-Kareem, has a generosity that constantly surprises me.

Sometimes through things I prayed for.

And sometimes through things better than what I even knew to ask for.

Maybe that’s the difficult thing about guidance.

Sometimes it does not feel like clarity.

Sometimes it feels like rejection.

But maybe the rejection was the direction.

And there was one line in the book that deeply unsettled me.

“If you do not know what you want, start with what you are most afraid of.”

I think the reason that line stayed with me for so long is because a friend recently asked me a question that should have been simple.

“What do you really want?”

And strangely, I paused longer than I expected to.

Not because I had no answer.

But because I suddenly realized how much time we spend building our lives without asking ourselves whether they actually feel like ours.

I think that’s one of the strangest things about growing up in a world where everyone seems to want the same thing.

The same lifestyles.
The same milestones.
The same definitions of success.

And after a while, it becomes hard to tell the difference between:
what you genuinely want,
and what you’ve simply seen so many times that you started wanting too.

Sometimes I wonder how many people are chasing lives they never truly paused long enough to ask themselves if they even wanted.

Because we spend so much time looking around.

And eventually, exposure starts feeling like desire.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about fear differently.

Because maybe our fears reveal more about our real desires than we realize.

If you are deeply afraid of financial instability, maybe what your soul truly wants is safety.

Not luxury.
Not status.

Just peace.

If you are afraid of ending up alone, maybe your real desire is not attention.

Maybe it’s being deeply known.

If you are afraid of wasting your life, maybe what you truly want is not achievement itself.

Maybe you just want to feel that your life meant something.

And I think for a long time, I kept trying to figure out what I wanted from life as if clarity was supposed to arrive all at once.

One perfect answer.
One perfect dream.
One perfectly aligned path.

But lately, I’ve realized something else.

I may not fully know what I want.

But I know what I don’t want.

And strangely, that clarity feels more honest.

I know I don’t want a life where I constantly feel disconnected from myself.

I know I don’t want success that looks impressive to everyone else but quietly drains me.

I know I don’t want to spend my life chasing things only because they are admired.

And maybe that kind of honesty matters more than we realize.

Because what we don’t want usually reveals itself quietly over time.

You realize which conversations leave you feeling emptier after they end.

Which environments slowly disconnect you from yourself.

Which versions of success look beautiful online but feel exhausting up close.

The kind of life where everything looks right from the outside, but something inside you still feels unsettled.

And I think somewhere along the way, many of us stop asking ourselves what we genuinely want and start asking a completely different question instead:

What would make me look successful?

And I think that question quietly changes people.

Because there’s a difference between a life that looks good and a life that feels aligned.

There’s an ayah in Surah Al-Kahf that I keep thinking about lately:

“And do not let your eyes look beyond them, desiring the adornments of worldly life…”

— Surah Al-Kahf, Ayah 28

And I think what frightened me most about this ayah was realizing how often my eyes wander too.

Not out of jealousy.

But confusion.

Because when you constantly consume other people’s lives, eventually you stop hearing your own voice clearly.

We scroll through enough lives that slowly we begin absorbing dreams without questioning them.

A certain career.
A certain lifestyle.
A certain image of success.

And without realizing it, we begin building lives based on what gets admired instead of what actually brings us peace.

I think the scariest part about constantly looking around is that eventually, you stop looking inward.

You stop asking:
Does this life actually feel like me?

Because you become too busy asking:
Will this life impress people?

And maybe that’s why that question stayed with me for so long.

“What do you really want?”

Because I realized I no longer wanted to answer based on what sounds impressive.

I wanted to answer honestly.

Even if the answer was uncertain.

Even if it changed later.

And maybe that’s the difficult thing about growing into yourself.

You slowly realize that clarity does not always arrive loudly.

Sometimes it arrives quietly.

In the things that drain you.
The things your soul keeps resisting.
The things that look beautiful from the outside but do not feel like home inside.

Maybe that’s why I no longer panic as much about not fully knowing what I want.

Because I think becoming honest about what doesn’t feel right is also a form of guidance.

And maybe in a world where everyone seems to want the same thing, the hardest thing is not finding your dream.

Maybe the hardest thing is unlearning all the things you were taught to want in the first place.

I’m 28 years old, and somehow, I had never attended one before.

I remember walking in feeling strangely nervous.

Not because I was scared of death itself.

But because I didn’t know how to exist around that kind of grief.

People were crying.
Some were silent.
Some looked completely numb.

And I kept wondering:

What do you even say to someone whose entire life has just changed overnight?

The funeral was for my cousin’s husband, who had been battling cancer for a long time.

And while sitting there, I couldn’t stop looking at his children.

His son still hasn’t even graduated high school yet.

I kept thinking about how heavy life must suddenly feel for them now.

Because no matter how old we become, I think there’s something comforting about knowing there’s still someone behind you.

Someone you can call.
Someone who makes life feel a little safer.
Someone whose presence alone makes the world feel less frightening.

Even as adults, I don’t think we fully realize how much we still emotionally lean on our parents.

Until we imagine life without them.

And honestly, that thought stayed with me the entire day.

But what surprised me most was what happened after the funeral ended.

I went home.

And suddenly, ordinary things felt different.

I sat with my parents while we drank coffee together.

The TV was loud in the background.
Someone interrupted someone else halfway through a sentence.
My dad was talking about something random.
My mom kept moving between conversations.

Nothing important was happening.

But for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t trying to rush through the moment.

I closed my laptop.

I sat a little longer.

I listened more carefully.

And I remember looking at my parents and thinking:

One day, moments like this will only exist as memories.

I think that’s when I understood something about gratitude that I hadn’t fully understood before.

There’s a verse in the Qur’an that says:

“And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give glad tidings to the patient.”
(Qur’an 2:155)

I’ve heard this verse many times before.

But today, I think I felt it differently.

Because I realized God never promised us a life untouched by loss.

In fact, He tells us very clearly that loss is part of being human.

People leave.
Life changes.
Health changes.
Families change.

Everything here is temporary.

And in another verse, the Qur’an says:

“Seek help through patience and prayer. Indeed, God is with the patient.”
(Qur’an 2:153)

I think we misunderstand patience sometimes.

We think patience means suppressing pain.
Pretending we’re okay.
Silently carrying everything without breaking.

But maybe patience is softer than that.

Maybe patience is continuing to love deeply even though life is temporary.

Maybe patience is allowing grief to remind you what truly matters.

Maybe patience is returning to God with an open heart instead of becoming bitter.

Today is Eid.

And tonight, I keep thinking about how temporary ordinary life really is.

The loud family gatherings.
The interruptions.
The children running around.
Your parents calling your name from another room.
Sitting together after dinner doing absolutely nothing important.

I think we assume these moments will always exist simply because they always have.

But one day, they won’t.

And maybe that’s why gratitude matters so much.

Because gratitude is not only about saying thank you.

Maybe gratitude is noticing.

Really noticing.

Before life reminds you how temporary everything was all along.

There’s a quote I read recently that stayed with me deeply:

“Maybe the amount of good things in your life depends on your ability to notice them.”

And after today, I think that might be true.

Because maybe life was never empty.

Maybe we were just too distracted to see how full it already was.

A mother looked at her daughter and said:

“You are my precious daughter.
My pride and joy.”

And somehow, instead of feeling comforted, the daughter looked exhausted.

I remember pausing the scene because it felt so familiar.

Growing up, I was always told that I was my parents’ pride.

The daughter who should do well.
The daughter who should inspire her siblings.
The daughter who shouldn’t make mistakes because younger eyes were watching her.

And for a long time, I didn’t realize how much pressure can hide inside beautiful words.

Not because our parents are trying to hurt us.

But because sometimes, being someone’s pride quietly becomes a responsibility.

Especially when you grow up as the oldest daughter.

You learn very early that your choices are no longer just yours.

They become:

• examples

• expectations

• proof that your parents sacrificed for something meaningful

And without realizing it, you slowly stop living your life as yourself and start living it as someone everyone can be proud of.

I think older daughters often grow up too early.

You become the responsible one before you even fully understand yourself.
The emotionally strong one.
The second mom.
The one who should know better.
The one who carries more than people realize.

And after a while, being “good” stops becoming something you do and becomes who you are.

Not just kind.
Not just caring.

Good.

Easy to depend on.
Easy to expect things from.
Easy to ask from.

And because of that, boundaries start feeling painful instead of normal.

Even now, I still struggle with that sometimes.

I struggle with saying no without overexplaining myself.
I struggle with resting without guilt.
I struggle with disappointing people even when I know I’m hurting myself in the process.

Because when you grow up constantly trying to make life easier for everyone else, choosing yourself can start to feel selfish.

Even when it’s necessary.

I think what makes this harder is that many of us genuinely love our parents deeply.

We know how much they sacrificed.

Their comfort.
Their energy.
Their dreams.

Everything was poured into giving us a better life.

And maybe that’s exactly why the guilt becomes so heavy.

Because now it feels like you have to be worth all of it.

Worth the sacrifices.
Worth the exhaustion.
Worth the years they spent building their lives around you.

So without noticing, your life slowly starts becoming something you perform instead of something you live.

What you study.
Who you become.
Who you marry.
How people see you.
Even when you’re allowed to rest.

Sometimes it feels less like freedom and more like responsibility.

And the strange thing is, from the outside, it can all look admirable.

“She’s mature.”
“She handles everything.”
“She makes her parents proud.”
“She’s strong.”

But people rarely talk about the emotional exhaustion underneath that identity.

The quiet pressure of always trying to hold everything together.
The fear of disappointing everyone.
The guilt that appears the moment you try to choose yourself.

There’s an ayah I keep thinking about lately:

“Allah does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear.”
(Qur’an 2:286)

And for a long time, I think I misunderstood it.

I thought it meant:

• keep carrying

• keep enduring

• keep being strong no matter what

But maybe part of the lesson is also learning that not everything was yours to carry in the first place.

Maybe becoming stronger is not always about endurance.

Maybe sometimes it’s about honesty.

About admitting you’re tired.
About realizing that constantly abandoning yourself to make everyone else comfortable is not strength.

And maybe God never asked us to disappear inside the expectations people placed on us.

I think many older daughters were raised to be nice before honest.

To avoid conflict.
To tolerate.
To give.
To understand everyone.

But not always to ask themselves:

What do I need?

And I think becoming your own person begins there.

Not in rebellion.
Not in suddenly becoming cold.

But in quietly learning that your needs matter too.

That saying no does not make you a bad daughter.
That resting does not make you lazy.
That wanting a different life does not make you ungrateful.

I don’t think most parents intentionally make their children feel this way.

I think many parents simply love through fear.
Through protection.
Through wanting the best for us.

But sometimes, being deeply loved and deeply pressured can exist at the same time.

And maybe healing is learning how to hold both truths without hating yourself for it.

To love your family while also becoming your own person.

To stop seeing boundaries as betrayal.
To stop seeing rest as selfishness.
To stop feeling guilty for becoming someone outside of what everyone expected you to be.

I think that’s what I’m still learning.

That maybe I was never meant to carry everything.
That maybe my role in this life is not just to make everyone comfortable.
That maybe I am allowed to exist outside of being useful, responsible, or strong all the time.

Maybe I’m allowed to just be a daughter too.

Not intentionally.

Quietly.

In ways we don’t even notice at first.

I watched a movie recently where the main character said something that stayed with me long after it ended.

She was talking about how hard she worked as a medical student.

How she kept postponing everything in her life.

And then she said:

“I am the type of person who saves their favorite food and eats it last.

And that’s what I did with happiness too.

I thought food would taste better once I became a professor.

Trips abroad would be more fun once I became a professor.

Riding first class would feel more special.

I kept postponing everything and worked like a dog.

But look at me.

I worked like a slave only to end up with depression.”

And I think something inside me shifted when I heard that.

Because even though my life looks different, I understood the feeling immediately.

That feeling of constantly attaching happiness to a future version of your life.

I kept telling myself:

I’ll be happy when I graduate.

I’ll be happy when life feels stable.

I’ll be happy when I finally figure everything out.

I’ll be happy when I become the version of myself I’m trying so hard to become.

As though happiness was something waiting for me somewhere in the future.

Somewhere far away from where I currently was.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized how easy it is to spend your whole life living like that.

Waiting for the next thing.

The next milestone.

The next version of yourself.

Believing that once you finally arrive there, everything inside you will settle too.

But what happens after that?

You reach the thing you wanted so badly.

And for a moment, you feel something.

Relief.

Excitement.

Pride.

Then slowly, life starts feeling normal again.

And without realizing it, you move the finish line somewhere else.

Another goal.

Another version of happiness.

Another “when.”

I think part of the reason so many of us feel exhausted is because we’ve turned happiness into a destination.

Something waiting for us at the end of achievement.

At the end of healing.

At the end of becoming.

But recently, I started wondering something.

What if we spend so much time waiting for the peak moments of life that we forget to actually live it?

Graduation.

Marriage.

Success.

Moving somewhere new.

Making money.

Traveling the world.

These moments are beautiful.

But they are also rare.

And if happiness only exists inside those moments, then what happens to the rest of our lives?

What happens to all the ordinary days in between?

The quiet mornings.

The conversations with people we love.

The home-cooked meals.

The moments we rush through because they don’t feel important enough at the time.

One thing that always stays with me is filling out forms at the doctor’s office.

They ask if you have certain medical conditions.

And every time, I go through the list quickly checking “no.”

No.

No.

No.

And I barely even think about it.

But recently, I caught myself wondering about the person who has to stop and check “yes.”

Maybe more than once.

And suddenly, something so ordinary stopped feeling ordinary.

Because how many blessings have become so normal to us that we no longer even notice them?

I think we’ve become so focused on the big moments that we stopped seeing the small ones.

And maybe happiness was never supposed to only exist inside the extraordinary parts of life.

Maybe it was hidden inside the ordinary ones all along.

There’s another thing I’ve been thinking about recently.

I once heard someone say that there is no ayah in the Qur’an where Allah tells us to pursue happiness.

And that really stayed with me.

Because everywhere around us, happiness feels like the ultimate goal.

Be happier.

Do more.

Buy more.

Achieve more.

As though happiness is something waiting for us at the end of accomplishment.

But Allah doesn’t constantly call us toward happiness.

He calls us toward meaning.

Toward purpose.

Toward Him.

And I think there’s a difference between the two.

Because happiness on its own is fleeting.

You buy the thing you wanted.

You achieve the goal.

You reach the milestone.

And for a moment, you feel something.

Then eventually, the feeling fades.

And you start searching again.

But some of the moments that made me feel the most at peace were never really about achievement.

Sometimes it was prayer.

Sometimes it was sitting with people I love.

Sometimes it was Ramadan.

And I think that’s what always surprises me about Ramadan.

How can someone eat less, sleep less, do less of the things they normally enjoy, and somehow still feel more at peace?

Maybe it’s because the soul finally feels nourished.

Maybe that’s why.

Because there’s a difference between feeding your life and feeding your soul.

And I think a lot of us are exhausted because we keep feeding one while starving the other.

There’s an ayah I haven’t stopped thinking about lately.

When Allah speaks to Musa, He says:

“And I have prepared you for Myself.”

(20:41)

Every time I read that ayah, something in me softens.

Because maybe none of this is random.

Maybe even the slow seasons mean something.

Maybe every delay.

Every ordinary day.

Every unanswered question.

Every moment that feels repetitive or unclear.

Maybe all of it is preparing us for something greater.

Preparing us for Allah.

And I think that changes the way you see your life.

Because suddenly, your life is no longer just a series of achievements you’re trying to collect before you finally allow yourself to feel happy.

It becomes meaningful.

Even the slow seasons.

Even the confusing ones.

Even the ordinary ones.

I still have goals.

Still things I want deeply.

Still things I pray for.

But I think I’m slowly learning that happiness cannot only exist in the future.

Because if it does, we will spend our whole lives waiting for our lives to begin.

Maybe happiness was never waiting for us somewhere far away.

Maybe it was here all along.

Hidden inside the ordinary moments we kept rushing past.

Not heartbreak from losing someone.

Not heartbreak from a relationship ending.

But heartbreak with Allah.

The kind that comes after you prayed for something with your whole heart.

After you stayed patient.

After you convinced yourself Allah hears you.

After you tried to trust Him completely.

And still, the thing you wanted didn’t happen.

Or maybe it didn’t happen in the way you begged for it to.

I don’t think I realized how deeply that affected me until recently.

For a long time, I thought I trusted Allah.

I really did.

I thought trust meant making du’a (prayer), praying Tahajjud (late night prayer), staying hopeful, and believing that eventually things would unfold the way I imagined.

That if I had enough faith, Allah would give me the thing I kept asking for.

And when it didn’t happen, something inside me quietly changed.

Not all at once.

Slowly.

I still prayed.

I still made du’a.

I still believed in Allah.

But it didn’t feel the same anymore.

And I think that scared me the most.

Because I didn’t understand what was happening spiritually.

I remember sitting in therapy one day, staring at the floor, trying not to cry while saying:

“I feel like I lost my iman (faith).”

Even saying those words out loud felt terrifying.

Because how do you explain loving Allah deeply while also feeling disappointed?

How do you explain still believing, but feeling like something inside you has gone quiet?

My therapist asked me one question.

She said:

“Were you making du’a for something you didn’t receive?”

And immediately, I felt my chest tighten.

Because yes.

I was.

And maybe the heartbreak wasn’t only about the du’a itself.

Maybe it came from believing that if I trusted Allah enough, my life would unfold in a specific way.

And when it didn’t, I didn’t know what to do with that disappointment.

I think sometimes we don’t realize how attached we become to the image we create for our lives.

The person we thought we would marry.

The opportunity we thought would work out.

The timeline we imagined for ourselves.

The version of life we became emotionally attached to.

And then we call it trust in Allah.

But maybe, without realizing it, we are trusting our own plan more than we are trusting Him.

Maybe I wasn’t only seeking Allah.

Maybe I was seeking the outcome.

And that realization hurt me more than the unanswered prayer itself.

Because somewhere along the way, I had tied my closeness to Allah to whether life unfolded the way I hoped it would.

As though trust sounded like:

Ya Allah (Oh God), I surrender… but please don’t take this from me.

And when life unfolded differently, it felt personal.

Like silence.

Like standing in front of a closed door I had prayed over for so long, wondering why Allah allowed me to want something so deeply if it was never meant for me.

It was during that time that I kept returning to one ayah (verse in the Qur’an):

“Perhaps you dislike something while it is good for you, and perhaps you love something while it is bad for you. And Allah knows, while you do not know.”

(Qur’an 2:216)

I had read this ayah so many times before.

But heartbreak makes you meet certain verses differently.

Before, I understood this ayah.

This time, I felt it.

And I think what makes this verse painful is not misunderstanding the words.

It’s accepting that there are things we love deeply that Allah, in His mercy, may still not give us.

Not because He is cruel.

But because He sees what we cannot.

And that kind of trust is difficult.

Especially when you are grieving a life you thought would happen.

One of the hardest things to accept is that unanswered du’as can quietly affect your relationship with Allah.

Not because belief disappears.

But because disappointment can confuse the heart.

Sometimes we begin measuring Allah’s love for us through outcomes.

Through opened doors.

Through timelines.

Through whether the du’a arrived or not.

And slowly, worship starts feeling connected to results.

As though closeness to Allah should guarantee a certain version of life.

But faith was never:

“I trust Allah as long as things work out the way I want.”

Faith is continuing to trust Him even when they don’t.

And I think that is the kind of faith nobody really talks about.

Not the beautiful kind that exists when everything makes sense.

But the kind that exists after disappointment.

After unanswered du’as.

After heartbreak.

The kind that still chooses Allah even when the outcome hurts.

Recently, a friend told me something that stayed with me deeply.

She said that on the Day of Judgment, Allah will show us the full story of our lives.

His wisdom in every delay.

His mercy in every closed door.

His protection in every disappointment.

And I haven’t stopped thinking about that since.

Because maybe one day we will finally understand why certain things had to fall apart.

Why certain people had to leave.

Why some prayers were answered differently than we imagined.

Maybe one day Allah will show us the full picture we cried over while only seeing one corner of it.

And maybe in that moment, we will not say:

“Why did You take this from me?”

Maybe we will say:

“Thank You.”

Thank You for protecting me from what I could not see.

Thank You for delaying what I was not ready for.

Thank You for loving me enough to say no when I only knew how to ask.

I still don’t have all the answers.

There are still things I pray for.

Still things I don’t understand.

But I’m learning that faith is not never feeling hurt.

Faith is bringing that hurt back to Allah instead of away from Him.

It is saying:

Ya Allah, I do not understand this right now.

But I still believe You know what I cannot.

Maybe that is what trust actually looks like.

Not certainty in the outcome.

But certainty in Him.

Maybe you’re in a season like that too.

Maybe there’s a du’a you carried for years that still hasn’t happened.

Maybe your heart feels tired.

Maybe worship feels different lately.

Maybe part of you feels guilty for even admitting that.

But maybe Allah is not angry at your heartbreak.

Maybe He just wants you to bring it to Him honestly.

Because He already knows.

He knows the prayer.

He knows the tears behind it.

He knows the version of life you imagined.

And He knows why things unfolded differently.

One day, maybe we will understand too.

And maybe we will realize that even the unanswered du’as were mercy.

Even the heartbreak was guidance.

Even the silence was love.

Just… a pause.

The kind of moment where nothing has fully fallen apart.

But something in you knows
this isn’t sitting right anymore.

You’re still holding on.

Still trying.
Still telling yourself it might work
if you just give it a little more time.

But at the same time,

there’s this quiet feeling
you can’t ignore.

That something about this
is getting heavier than it should be.

And I think that’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

Not letting go.

But the moment right before it.

I think part of it, for me, has been this.

I’ve always had so many things I want to do. So many ideas. So many directions. So many versions of what my life could look like.

And for a long time, I thought that meant I just needed to do more. Try more. Hold onto all of them. Figure out a way to make everything work.

But recently, I’ve been realizing something I didn’t expect.

That maybe the heaviness isn’t coming from not having clarity.

Maybe it’s coming from trying to carry too many things at once.

From not wanting to let go of certain paths, even when I know I can’t walk all of them at the same time.

And I think that’s where that feeling started.

Not doubt.

But this quiet lack of peace.

There’s a moment that doesn’t feel like an ending.

It feels like hesitation.

Where you’re still holding on, but something in you knows
this is getting heavier than it should be.

You don’t let go immediately.

You stay a little longer.
You try a little more.
You tell yourself maybe it just needs time.

Because letting go feels wrong.

It feels like giving up.

Like you didn’t try hard enough.
Like maybe if you held on just a little longer, things would work.

But if you pause for a second,

you don’t even know if you’ll live the next minute.

And still,

we carry things like they depend on us.

We hold onto outcomes, people, plans as if we are the ones keeping them together.

The more we hold,
the heavier everything feels.

There’s a story in the Qur’an that I keep coming back to.

It’s the story of Prophet Ibrahim.

He was told to leave his family in the middle of the desert.

No water.
No people.
No visible future.

Just emptiness.

And he left.

If you sit with that for a moment,

it doesn’t feel like strength.

It feels like the kind of decision that would break you.

To walk away from the people you love and leave them in a place that cannot hold them, without knowing what will happen next.

What moves me every time is this.

He didn’t wait for reassurance.

He didn’t wait for things to make sense.

He didn’t try to control what would happen.

He trusted.

There’s a verse where he makes a prayer after leaving them:

“Our Lord, I have settled some of my descendants in an uncultivated valley near Your sacred House… so make hearts among people incline toward them and provide for them.”
(Qur’an, Chapter 14, Verse 37)

He let go.

But he didn’t leave it empty.

He placed it somewhere. With God.

He asked for what he could never create on his own.

For hearts to turn.
For provision to come.
For things that only God could give.

And I think that’s what changed the way I see letting go.

Because we think letting go means losing something.

Like it disappears.
Like it’s over.

But what if it’s not disappearing?

What if it’s being placed in better hands?

What if letting go isn’t the absence of control,

but the transfer of it?

There’s a difference between dropping something

and trusting it.

And maybe that’s what tawakkul really is.

Not giving up.

Not walking away carelessly.

But doing what you can,

and then trusting that what comes after

is not yours to force.

That what is meant for you
will not miss you.

And what isn’t
was never yours to hold.

There’s a kind of relief that comes with that.

Not because everything becomes clear.

But because you stop trying to control what was never in your control.

You stop carrying everything alone.

And maybe that’s what I’m starting to understand.

That the moment before letting go

isn’t a sign that something is ending.

Maybe it’s a sign

that something was never meant

to be held this tightly

in the first place.

Maybe peace doesn’t come from doing more.

Maybe it comes from choosing

what you’re willing to release.

And trusting

that what is meant to stay

doesn’t need to be held

this tightly

to remain.

No one really notices it.

But inside, everything feels like it’s shifting.

It’s the moment where you realize that whatever happens next might change something in your life.

And you don’t feel ready for it.

You don’t feel strong.

You don’t feel clear.

You just feel… scared.

And I think most of us have been there.

Not once.

But in different versions, at different times.

When something ends.

When something begins.

When you step into something you’re not sure you can handle.

I felt that recently.

I started my agency.

And from the outside, it probably looks exciting.

Like I finally started something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

But what people don’t see is what comes after that moment.

The quiet part.

Where you sit with yourself and think

what if I can’t actually do this?
what if I can’t give people what I promised?
what if I disappoint someone who trusted me?

And maybe the hardest part is this

there’s nothing to prove that I can.

No real proof.

No case studies.

No long track record.

Just me…

trying.

And I don’t know.

That’s a scary place to stand in.

Because it’s not just about the work.

It’s about the weight of it.

Meeting new people.

Putting yourself out there.

Hearing no more times than you expected.

And still showing up again.

Even when a part of you is not fully sure what you’re bringing is enough.

And in those moments, people say things like

be confident
just believe in yourself
you’ll figure it out

But none of it really lands.

Because confidence, in that moment, feels very far away.

What’s closer is fear.

And uncertainty.

And the quiet question

how am I supposed to do this?

There’s a story in the Qur’an that I keep coming back to.

Not because I fully understand it.

But because I feel it.

It’s the story of Maryam.

And what stays with me isn’t just what happened

but how it unfolds.

She was alone.

Completely alone.

About to go through something overwhelming

something that would change everything

and she knew people wouldn’t understand.

And in that moment

when everything felt like too much

she was told

“Do not be afraid, and do not be sad.”
لا تَخَافِي وَلَا تَحْزَنِي

And then

almost quietly

she was told to do something

“And shake toward you the trunk of the palm tree;
it will drop upon you ripe, fresh dates.” (19:25)
فَهُزِّي إِلَيْكِ بِجِذْعِ النَّخْلَةِ تُسَاقِطْ عَلَيْكِ رُطَبًا جَنِيًّا

And right after that

“So eat and drink and be content.” (19:26)
فَكُلِي وَاشْرَبِي وَقَرِّي عَيْنًا

I keep coming back to that sequence.

Not as an explanation.

But as a feeling.

She was still in pain.
Still alone.
Still carrying something heavy.

And yet

she was asked to move.

To reach for something.

Even just a little.

And then

to eat
to drink
to continue

as if life… still goes on.

And I don’t know why

but that part stays with me.

Because sometimes we imagine that when we’re scared

everything should pause.

That we should wait until we feel ready.

Until we feel calm.

Until things make sense.

But that’s not what happened.

She felt everything

and still moved.

Still reached.

Still continued.

And I think about where I am right now.

Starting something I care about

and feeling scared at the same time.

Not fully sure.

Not fully confident.

But still… moving.

And maybe…

that doesn’t mean I’m not ready.

Maybe it just means I’m in it.

Because we think we need confidence to begin.

But maybe we begin
and confidence comes later.

We think fear is a sign to stop.

But maybe it’s just a sign that something matters.

And maybe

you don’t need to feel strong to move forward.

Maybe you just need to take the next step.

Even if it’s small.
Even if it feels uncertain.
Even if no one sees it yet.

Because sometimes

starting scared

is still starting.

How certain moments in life don’t feel random.

Not in a loud, obvious way.

But in a quiet way…
like something was gently placed exactly where it needed to be.

And you only notice it after.

I used to think most things in life were a result of our choices.

Where we go.
Who we meet.
What we decide to do with our time.

But recently… I’m not so sure.

Because sometimes, it doesn’t feel like I chose the moment.

It feels like I was led to it.

The other day, I went out to buy a book.

It was only available in one bookstore in Riyadh, and they told me it would be open during the holiday.

So I went.

But when I got there, it was closed.

I remember standing there for a second… not really knowing what to do.

I asked the man next door, and he said,
“If you came five minutes earlier, he would’ve been here. He’s the imam… he just went to pray.”

Then he said,
“Why don’t you go pray, and come back after?”

It felt like the only option.

So I went.

When I walked into the masjid, something felt different.

It was more crowded than I expected for Dhuhr in the middle of the week.

Especially the women’s section.

And there was this quiet sound.

People crying.

Not loudly. Just… quietly.

I didn’t understand what was happening, but I didn’t question it. I just prayed.

And after the prayer, the imam spoke.

They were praying for people who had just passed away.

And I don’t know why, but that moment stayed with me.

Because I kept thinking…

If I had come five minutes earlier, I would’ve bought the book and left.

If the store had been open, I wouldn’t have walked into that masjid.

If that man hadn’t said anything, I probably would’ve gone home.

But none of that happened.

Instead, I was there.

Praying for people I didn’t know.
Standing in a moment I didn’t plan for.

And I couldn’t help but wonder…

what did they do…
for Allah to guide someone like me
to make du’a for them?

There’s an ayah that came to mind after that:

“And your Lord creates what He wills and chooses…”

And I kept thinking about it.

Because maybe I didn’t just “end up” there.

Maybe I was placed there.

A few days later, I watched a movie.

I didn’t expect much from it.

I just wanted to disconnect for a bit.

But by the end of it, I couldn’t stop crying.

It was about two people who met, grew close, and then slowly fell apart.

And years later, one of them said something simple:

“If you hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have walked away.”

And I don’t know why that stayed with me.

But it made me think about how things end.

How people leave.
How moments shift.

And how it all feels like a series of choices.

But maybe…

some of those moments were always going to happen.

And what we choose
is how we respond to them.

So I keep coming back to the same question.

Do we choose?

Or are we chosen for certain moments?

And maybe it’s both.

Maybe we are placed in certain places.
At certain times.
With certain people.

Not randomly.

But intentionally.

And within those moments…

we choose who we become.

Because I didn’t choose that moment in the masjid.

But I was there.

Standing in a place I didn’t plan to be.
Praying for people I didn’t know.

And maybe that’s what I’m starting to understand.

That not everything in our lives is something we chose.

Some moments…

we are simply guided to.

And maybe the question isn’t:

“Did I choose this?”

But quietly…

“Why was I chosen to be here?”

The feeling of not knowing.

Not knowing where I’m going. Not knowing if I’m making the right decision. Not knowing if the effort I’m putting in will lead anywhere.

It’s not new to me.

But I felt it again recently.

After finishing my master’s.

I thought this would be a moment of clarity. That everything I worked for would start to make sense. That things would fall into place.

Instead, it felt like I had to start over.

I studied for hours. I prepared. I applied.

And still, nothing worked out the way I expected.

No clear opportunity. No obvious next step. Just silence.

And I realized something.

This fear doesn’t come from failure.

It comes from not knowing.

Because at least with failure, you know where you stand.

But this?

This is standing in between. Not where you were, not yet where you’re going.

Just… in between.

I’ve always been someone who wants clarity.

I want to know where I’m going before I move. I want to feel like I’m building something that makes sense.

But life doesn’t always work like that.

And sometimes, the more you wait for clarity, the more stuck you feel.

It was during that time that I came across an ayah that stayed with me.

But what moved me wasn’t just the words.

It was the story behind it.

It’s the story of Musa.

At that point in his life, everything had just shifted.

He had grown up in Egypt, in a place that was familiar to him. But in one moment, everything changed. He got into a situation where he accidentally killed a man. And suddenly, staying was no longer an option.

Someone came to him and warned him that Pharaoh was planning to kill him.

So he left.

Not with a plan. Not knowing where he was going. Not knowing what was waiting for him.

Just leaving everything behind, walking into the unknown.

If you try to imagine that moment, it’s heavy.

To leave your home like that. To not know what comes next. To carry fear, uncertainty, and urgency all at once.

And in the middle of that, as he started walking in the direction of Madyan, he said:

“Perhaps my Lord will guide me to the right way.” (28:22)

What moves me every time I read this is not just the du’a.

It’s when he said it.

He said it while walking.

Not after finding clarity. Not after knowing where he was going.

But in the middle of uncertainty.

In the middle of movement.

I think we often imagine that we need to know before we move.

That we need a plan. A clear direction. A sense of certainty.

But Musa didn’t have that.

He had fear. He had uncertainty.

And still, he moved.

Then he asked to be guided.

There’s a quote by Rumi that I keep thinking about:

As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.

And the more I live, the more I realize how true that is.

Clarity doesn’t always come before action.

Sometimes, it comes because of it.

Looking back, I can see that what felt like confusion in my life wasn’t emptiness.

It was space.

It was redirection.

Because sometimes, when things don’t work out, it’s not because you’re doing something wrong.

It’s because you’re being guided somewhere else.

And that kind of guidance doesn’t always feel clear.

Sometimes it feels like rejection. Sometimes it feels like delay. Sometimes it feels like silence.

Sometimes it feels like walking without a map.

There’s another realization that comes with that.

When you ask God to guide you, you’re also asking Him to remove what isn’t meant for you.

And that doesn’t always feel good.

It can look like doors closing that you really wanted open. Like opportunities slipping away. Like plans falling apart in ways you didn’t expect.

But what if that was the guidance?

What if that was the answer?

I still don’t have everything figured out.

But I’m learning to sit with that feeling instead of resisting it.

To take the step, even when I don’t see the full picture.

To move, even when I feel unsure.

And to repeat that same du’a, especially in moments like this:

“Perhaps my Lord will guide me to the right way.”

Maybe you’re in a season like that too.

Where nothing is fully making sense yet. Where you’re trying, but you don’t see results. Where you feel like you should have it figured out by now.

And maybe that’s not a failure.

Maybe that’s the beginning.

Maybe you don’t need a map.

Maybe you just need to start walking.

And trust that the path will meet you there.

And sometimes I pause and think, where did I get that from?

And then I remember.

It’s strange how people stay like that.

Not in big ways, but in the smallest details. In habits you didn’t build alone. In reactions that feel familiar. In parts of you that quietly came from someone else.

And over time, it becomes so natural that you stop noticing it.

Until something reminds you.

I used to think that when things end, something is lost.

That when people leave, they take something with them.

But I’m not sure that’s true anymore.

A friend once told me they felt like they wasted years of their life on someone.

And I understood that feeling more than I wanted to admit.

Because when something ends, especially when it doesn’t end the way you hoped, it’s easy to look back and question everything. To wonder if any of it really mattered.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about an ayah:

“And do not forget the favor between you.” (2:237)

I keep coming back to it, but not in a loud way.

More like a quiet thought that sits with me.

It comes in a moment of separation.

And still, the reminder is just, don’t forget.

Not don’t feel. Not don’t move on.

Just don’t forget.

And I think that’s what stayed with me.

Because it made me realize how easily we let endings rewrite everything. How quickly we shift from remembering the good to only seeing what went wrong.

But what if both can exist?

What if something can end, and still have been good?

What if something didn’t last, and still mattered?

I don’t think I have a clear answer.

But I’ve started to notice something.

That even when people leave, they don’t leave empty.

They leave traces.

In the way you think. In the way you care. In the way you see the world.

And maybe that’s why that ayah feels so gentle.

It doesn’t ask you to hold on to people.

It just asks you not to erase what was good.

And I don’t know..

There’s something about that that feels comforting.

Maybe not everything is meant to stay.

But that doesn’t make it meaningless.

And maybe

no one really leaves.

New cities. New routines. New versions of myself. And every time, there’s this quiet moment that no one really talks about, when you realize you don’t have your people yet.

Not acquaintances. Not familiar faces. But your people.

The ones who make you feel like yourself again. The ones who make life feel a little lighter, a little clearer.

And recently, I felt that again.

I moved back to Riyadh, and for the first time in a long time, I looked around and realized I don’t really have friends here. Just family.

And while that should feel like enough, there’s a part of me that knows something is missing. Because I’ve seen what the right people can do to your life.

I used to think growth was a personal thing. That becoming better was about discipline, about willpower, about deciding who you want to be and just becoming it.

But there’s something I keep noticing.

In certain places, I become softer, more present, more aligned. And in other places, without even realizing it, I drift. I procrastinate more. I lose that version of myself I worked so hard to build.

Nothing dramatic changes. Just the room I’m in.

Ramadan always makes this clearer. Everything feels easier. Waking up feels easier. Praying feels easier. Even your thoughts feel quieter.

And for a long time, I thought it was just because of the month.

But it’s not just the month.

It’s the people.

Everyone is trying. Everyone is a little more intentional. Everyone is moving in the same direction. And suddenly, you’re carried by something bigger than just your own effort.

There’s an ayah I came across during Ramadan that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about:

“And keep yourself patiently with those who call upon their Lord…” (18:28)

What struck me wasn’t just the message. It was the wording.

With those who.

Not alone. Not in isolation. Not through sheer personal strength. But with.

I think we underestimate how much of who we are is shaped by who we’re around. We like to believe we’re independent, that we make our own decisions, that we choose who we become.

But if you look closely, your environment is quietly influencing you all the time.

If you’re around people who normalize distractions, you start to accept them. If you’re around people who respect their time, you start to move differently. If you’re around people who are grounded, you feel it too.

Not because you forced yourself to change, but because you were in a room that made it easier.

The older I get, the more I realize not every table is meant for you, and not every room will help you grow.

And sometimes, the reason something feels hard isn’t because you’re not trying enough. It’s because you’re trying in the wrong environment.

So I’ve stopped asking myself, how do I become better, and started asking, where do I need to be, and who do I need to be around.

Right now, I’m in a phase of starting over. Of not having my people yet.

And instead of rushing to fill that space, I’m trying to be more intentional about it.

Because I don’t just want friends.

I want the kind of people who remind me of who I’m trying to become. The kind of people who make consistency feel natural. The kind of people who bring a certain calm into a room.

The truth is, people ask me often how I make friends, especially because I’ve had to start over so many times.

And I think the answer has changed as I’ve grown older.

I no longer focus on collecting people or forcing connection. I focus more on becoming rooted in who I am, showing up in the right places, and trusting that the right people are often found in the same rooms as the person I’m trying to become.

The older I get, the more I think friendship is less about chasing and more about alignment.

Maybe that is also part of what this ayah teaches me. Not just to seek good people, but to place myself where good people are likely to be.

And at the same time, I find myself making this du’a more often.

That Allah surrounds me with people who bring me closer to Him. People whose presence feels like ease, not noise. People who soften hearts, including mine.

And more than that, that I become that person too.

Someone whose presence feels like a breath of fresh air. Someone who makes people feel seen, safe, and a little more hopeful. Someone who reflects something good, even quietly..

Maybe becoming better isn’t always about becoming stronger.

Maybe sometimes, it’s about choosing better rooms. Better conversations. Better people to sit with.

Because the truth is:

we don’t grow alone.

We grow in the rooms we choose to stay in.