Growth
You were taught, somewhere along the way, that needing people was a liability. maybe no one said it out loud. maybe life just kept rewarding you every time you didn’t need anyone, every time you endured alone what others fell apart over, every time you moved on from something that should have broken you and didn’t. the lesson compounded, without you knowing: detachment works. self sufficiency works. you are the proof.
I have had this realization, knowing I almost ruined all my relationships. my childhood, teenage years and early twenties are all lessons of detachment and isolation, and I kind of never been hungry for relationships although I wasn’t so fully into them either, and that paradox was what confused me. that all this independence should lead to some desire of feeling what it’s like to feel the dependence you would feel in all sorts of relationships, all this alone time means I might need at least one loyal friend who I would need to talk to about everything. and it really isn’t that strange, but this was another form of walking contradiction. it confused me, but not that much. attributing factors worked as explanations, I might be fulfilled with the close circle I have, and indeed I have a very small circle where I’m fulfilled with life, satisfied mentally, intellectually and emotionally. my very few friends and family are all I need so I don’t look outside. but then also I shouldn’t cheapen bonding myself with others this much, and I wasn’t, I was genuinely fine in forming healthy relationships with others, but it was so messy. not the kind of messy that comes from a dynamic relationship, but in the mechanism I had of making new ones and then when I realized all the things that were holding me back from maintaining and establishing new relationships in my life, it was because of being emotionally detached.
Looking back at my experiences, I can now see that my pattern was never about avoiding responsibility itself. That was the story I told myself for years. The deeper concern was something else entirely. It was about avoiding the spotlight.
Oh you don’t have to carry the guilt or to blame yourself for hurting others, they say.
and I smile because I wish that landed somewhere in me. I can’t, my friend. you are looking at me but you are not seeing what I am seeing, and that is not your fault, you were not there, you did not live what I lived, you came into my life somewhere in the middle of the story and missed everything that happened before the page you opened on.
I have observed many stories. friendships. partnerships. families. I have even lived inside some of them. And I noticed something. Relationships rarely die from one dramatic moment. They die from a hidden cancer.
It grows quietly. invisibly. accumulating over years. no one sees it. no one feels it. until one day, it is strong enough to turn love into resentment, and resentment into distance. I gave this cancer a name in February 2022. I called them small black dots. One black dot is harmless. almost invisible.
My brother Mohammed told me something once, in a conversation I barely remember the reason for. my mother was there. he said our father used to say:
إذا هبّت رياحك فأغتنمها، فعقبى كل خافقة سكون