Reflection
There are things I carry that I never stop to examine. Experiences I walked through on autopilot, with enough presence to function but not enough to remember . GDSC was one of them. It has been almost two years since I left, and this is the first time I am actually stopping. maybe subconsciously I was avoiding it, maybe the experience was painful in a way that needed distance. or at least that what I thought back then, but mostly it is because I have a self pattern of moving forward and forgetting to look back, and this is me deliberately breaking it, for once.
This is a piece I have always wanted to write. not when I was inside it, not when the feeling was too loud and too close, when emotions clouded reasoning, but now, when enough distance has settled that I can finally lay it down without it burning my hands.
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
Life will always find a way to bring you back to your knees, not with something dramatic. not with a perfectly timed tragedy. sometimes it is something small. something unexpected. something careless in its timing. a single comment. a memory. a failure. and suddenly you are back inside your head, remembering how hard it used to be to live there.
Most of the time we are afraid that we are not living in the best chapter of our lives. there is this quiet suspicion that something greater exists somewhere else, and that we are currently settling. so we cope. we gather friends around us to feel whole. we build small bubbles where we cherry pick moments, conversations, and people that make us feel temporarily complete.
I’ve learned since a young age that time will pass.
not moments with loved ones.
not revolutions and the race to wealth.
not the one we age because.