Growth
Oh, it always looked like you never cared about anything. just you and your computer.
you go through life for a long time believing no one has ever suffered the way you have.
and then, one day, you read something. or you hear something.
and you realize your suffering does not isolate you. it is your bridge.
I have been flooded by all sorts of unexplainable emotions these days, and I feel the need to log this one, to sit with it and give it shape. anger is not something I am familiar with. it is an emotion I rarely felt throughout my life. but when I finally cast light on what had been controlling my behavior for so long, when I started seeing my past clearly, I felt angry.
Today, I spent five hours talking to Awab.
It wasn’t planned. no intention, no emotional preparation. he texted me casually saying: “VC in 2–3 hours?” the kind of message you expect to lead to small updates and shallow catching up as we usually do. Instead,it became one of the most profound conversations I’ve ever had.
There was a time in my life when I allowed myself to be uncertain. uncertainty was my mindset. it did not affect the technical side of my questions, nor did it damage my daily decision making on the surface. but internally, I sometimes drowned in it. the paradox of choices embedded itself into my behavior, and perfectionism became a side effect of refusing to pick what felt suboptimal. I lived inside my head more than I realized. this state was invisible to the external world. it was entirely internal. I was doubting my own internals.
When I turned thirteen, something shifted in me. it was not dramatic on the outside, but internally everything felt rearranged. I was lost in a way I could not articulate. I could not understand my emotions, nor my behavior, nor the sudden cynicism that began to color the way I saw the world. I became negative, sharp, and difficult, and I started affecting the people around me without even noticing.