“Wow! The craziest things always
happen to you, don’t they?” She shakes her head, as if I purposely run after
the crazy moments that fill my life.
“Yeah, SubhanAllah. I’m just always
surrounded by…” I try to think of the right word to describe what I have
thought were normal occurrences.
“Adventure. No wonder you’re a writer.
You always have a story to tell.” She laughs.
“You have no idea.”
Maybe I knew it in the back of my
head, but I wasn’t completely in tune to my “adventures” until I got to New
York and it became more apparent that every step of my life is strung together
in a series of unexpected, and sometimes unfortunate, events.
I believe it’s normal for plans in our
life to never go exactly the way we expected. For me, it’s more than a normal
occurrence. I have learned to welcome the unexpected. In reality, aren’t all of
our lives just a series of the unexpected? No matter how well we plan, God’s
decree will shine through and we need to learn to accept it and move forward. I
have to admit that I’m partly thankful that I am no longer harshly fazed by the
craziness that surrounds my life. If I freaked out about every single moment
that didn’t go as planned, fell through, or even completely changed the course
of my life, it would best for me to find a cave and hide. I say “partly”
because I do still need to be affected and motivated to keep moving forward in
pursuing what I need and want. Instead of finding a secluded cave, I have
learned to find new ways to cope with my obstacles and actively work to climb
my hurdles and conquer my challenges. Always keep moving and inshaAllah Kheir (if
God wills it) goodness will come. That’s my motto in life.
I honestly believe that the way I
choose to see my unexpected challenges in life – by doing the best I can and
placing tawakul (faith) in Allah swt – has lead me to push through this risk
I’m taking by being in New York and has allowed me to assimilate a lot more
quickly than anyone thought was possible.
Despite this, I can’t deny that for
the last three months and three weeks, the unexpected has seriously been
kicking my ass. While it’s comforting to hear the support and awe in the voices
of friends and family when they express, mostly in surprise, how proud they are
of how well I’m doing over here, a part of me still carries a feeling of
failure as I continue to hide my struggles from loved ones.
My worst enemy is myself and I know
that too well as I try to control the uncontrollable in life. I’m often told by
friends how stressed they are or by family how their anxiety is sometimes too
much to handle, but then there’s me. Sometimes, I wish I was just stressed or
facing anxiety. I know what it’s like to have a panic attack and feel like I’m
suffocating and losing control; so, I’m not in any way saying that stress and
anxiety are easy emotions to handle.
My greatest challenge is myself. I
don’t stress as much as I become frustrated and angry… at myself. Recently,
that part of myself reaches to an extent where it shuts down and I need to step
back, breathe, and seclude myself to evaluate the extent to which I believe I’m
failing and work to move through it to reach a point of stability. In these
moments, I strive to see the light through my struggles. The blessings in
disguise are usually hidden within what I view as failure but are actually
little accomplishments on my way to success.
This month, this comes in the form of
a reminder of the purpose of this entire life I have taken. I arrived in New
York exactly three months, two weeks, and four days ago. I surpassed November
16, the three month mark, the mark that was going to define my failure or
success. Of course, that didn’t include all the unexpected challenges that
quickly knocked me into a completely different path than I had set for myself
in San Diego.
Three months. That was my deadline. My
parents gave me their support for the duration of one to three months in New
York to work on my writing, make connections, and find employment. One to
three, and not just three months, because New York is a completely different
country to Californians and especially San Diegans. So, no one thought I would
want to stay more than a month. Almost four months later, here I am, still
moving forward while preparing for a winter that I have never had to experience
for the first 26 years of my life.
Coming here, I knew that things
weren’t going to go as planned, but I honestly never thought it would derail me
in the way that it did. In my last post, I shared the adventures of my first
week in New York and why I ended up in Princeton, New Jersey. While I did want
to share my experiences in New Jersey, it now just reminds me of the month and
a half long gap that was stolen from my trip. Commuting for four hours round
trip between Princeton, New Jersey and Manhattan, New York was exhausting. This
is not to say that my time was uneventful. I won’t neglect to mention that it
was filled with story worthy experiences I faced walking and taking the bus
everyday – from the guy who disgustedly tried to run me over on the side of the
road to the old man who creepily tried to pick me up in his red car from the
bus stop. I won’t go into details about the dead raccoons and deer I had to step
over between my cousin’s house and the bus stop. Taking the bus in the small
town to work around Princeton University wasn’t any easier – everything from
the crazy bus drivers to the inconsistent bus times, rates, and the cash only
rule. Princeton was nice and I was blessed to be among family, but I felt
myself aging by the minute, hindered from placing all my time and energy into
the goal I came here to reach.
Housing in Brooklyn, the borough where
I wanted to live all along, came just as unexpectedly as everything else on my
trip. I have officially been back in New York for almost two months, and it
already feels both like I just got here yesterday and like I have been here
forever. While I literally spent all my time balancing between applying for employment,
working, and connecting with my new community, there’s this stable part of my
brain that constantly reminds that I am no less close to success as I am to
failure. A month ago, that voice in my head was beginning to tear away at me…
Today, it’s my motivator to push forward with a constant reality check: if I
don’t meet my goal of finding employment, my time in New York is strictly
limited. As much as I miss sunny San Diego and California in all its
perfection, New York and its endless opportunities is beginning to grow on me.
Everyone has their own understanding
and measure of success. The truth is while you may believe this measurement is
defined by others – such as your friends or family, or by your environment –
such as your community or even economic status, or even by your past and future
– both of which you have no control over, the measurement of your success
is defined by your own limitations to yourself. The only thing you can control
is your mindset in the present, the here and now. We must come to accept that
everything else is simply not guaranteed.
My measurement of my own success is a
combination of how well I am still traveling on the path I have set for myself
and personal achievements. I never thought I would be where I am today. I know
others will argue that this is true for everyone, and it is. Each of us is
facing personal struggles that feel so unique making us ask, “Why am I going
through this? Why has God put me in this position and forced me of all people
to face this struggle? Why me?” We are always so focused on our struggles as
being the struggles to out struggle everyone else’s struggles… Yes, I know that
was quite an overuse of the word “struggle”, but I know I’m not alone in
realizing this. Right? The reality is, we are not alone. In fact, we are far
from it.
As for me, it was only five years ago,
I had worked my entire life to become an international lawyer, never thinking I
would be sitting here today holding an MFA in Creative Writing that works to
overshadow my BA in Political Science (emphasis in International Relations)
alongside my minors, having written a novel that I’m trying to find an agent
for and publish and working on two more, and writing from a coffee shop in
Brooklyn, while trying to juggle time spent on endlessly applying for
employment.
Every time I wake up and think that
I’m dreaming of actually living in New York, a subway trip in a train that
crosses over the Manhattan bridge, allowing me to see the entire city that
never sleeps and the majestic Brooklyn Bridge through the window are an exciting
reminder that I’m actually here… Still struggling, but still determined to work
tirelessly towards my dream.
(DUMBO Park)
I am not saying that I am not proud of
my degrees and the road that has gotten me to where I am. No regrets,
AlhamduliAllah. On the contrary, that slight lack of acceptance with how little
I have achieved compared to how much higher I need to reach, is what fuels my
determination. Growing up, I knew that no matter where I ended up and whatever
career I would choose, I had dedicated my life to one goal – holding a degree
that would benefit my community and especially my family. I wanted to travel
and experience life, but more importantly, I wanted to make more than a
difference. I wanted to create change. More than anything, I wanted to give back
to my parents. I will never reach the point in which I repay my parents for
their sacrifices in everything that they have provided for my siblings and I –
especially their support for my move to New York, but I will spend the rest of
my life trying. In the end, this is what keeps me going. It’s more than making
my parents proud or happy. It’s providing for them ease after all these years
of support and encouragement. I should be the one taking care of my parents and
siblings. While it physically hurts knowing that I still haven’t reached that
point in my life, I surge forward.
I measure my own success by my level
of stability in life and independence. While I do believe that my happiness is
not contingent on the happiness of others, I do live my life in continuing to
emit positive energy in witnessing the smiles and happiness of those around me,
even during my own hardships, which I need to remember are still filled with
hidden blessings, even if I do not understand or see them in the moment of
struggle. I believe in taking responsibility for how I react and work to
conquer my own struggles as well as my own definition of happiness. I have come
to a point on this journey where every roadblock in this course I’m taking
further motivates me to continue living to my fullest, with the power of Allah
swt.
I’m not one to reveal my struggles or
hardships to others. I have stated this clearly in my first blog posts in New
York. Although, sometimes, we do need to turn to others and loved ones for
comfort, I try my best to stay positive. At times, such as when I post sweet
pictures of statuses on Facebook pertaining to my time in New York, others may
understand it as me having the time of my life, free of pain and challenges.
You know what? That’s fine. My hardships are my own. This is not to try to mask
anything and make others believe I’m living a perfect life, but rather to show
that I’m still striving to take my new city by storm, one day at a time. Trying
to see the light in all that I have been experiencing gives me strength and
hope.
As I continue on, I will be sharing
more of my photography little by little around this marvelous city, inshaAllah.
I invite you to share my belief in finding the beauty and blessings in every
day of our lives…
(Brooklyn Bridge)
During my journey, I do ask for your
kind thoughts, good vibes, and much needed dua’.
Peace,
Haneen
