My healing process didn’t begin as soon as I planned to. It’s been a couple of years of creativity block, and finding myself…
Searching amidst the broken pieces of me left in trauma and history… Or what’s hidden inside, threatening to break through in the course of dilemmas piling one on top of the other the past couple of years.
And of course, through the wreck and debris floating against the emerging, and new parts of me, slowly forming with time, non-stop.
Evolving.
Like the new strains of a virus.
I took that time, painfully. Always anxious…
Will I make it?
What’s really in it for me?
Which version of me to feed?
And why…
Here I was, another writer without a pen, and no muse. And everytime I sleep and dream, there’s just a blank sheet of paper. I crumple that paper, without a drop of ink, toss it aside.
I won’t find my words if I don’t exist.
This LinkedIn profile was reinvented to post Islamic motivations and reminders, because nothing else appealed to me anymore. Not finding an occupation, not looking for any, and rejecting ones that find me.
In my low points, I look back to pictures, paintings, doodles and sketches… Written stuff. Things that made it to my now ‘unpublished’ book, Moments of Nil. Ones that didn’t even see its light of day. I go through unfinished chapters and random aphorisms because I don’t even have the mood to read a full novel the past couple of years.
I tried, but I’ve lost focus. So, I self-soothed with non-fiction. Books by other Muslim authors, mostly motivational, how-tos and DIY. My husband helped me reconnect with the noble book by sharing me an app. It will have you read one verse, each time you open your phone.
That’s just how far I’ve allowed my tired self to lick the wounds. Wounds with stories that I have no more strength to tell another soul, or explain myself in what would be deemed as excuses.
Looking back, my posts reflected things I’m subconsciously concerned about. Whether I picked them off by theme, to make them more ‘LinkedIn appropriate’ or not. These motivations are first and foremost, for me… Then as reminder to everyone else.
This year was a bit different.
I found that bits and pieces of me come up to the surface, to remind my latest versions the little things that completed my complex being. Because how else should a writer be, if not complex?
Is this, finally, healing?
I plan to write and publish again, in shaa’ Allah. That shall be in the cards by next year. Putting myself off social media the past couple of years had proven healthy, so I will continue that and revive my blog which had been on a semi-hiatus.
I leave you with some visuals and a hint on self-publishing again. There are two reviews of Moments of Nil here, Google Translated so it might sound weird at some point… just to pique your interest. A photo of that book, one of the pages inside, some snippets.
And finally, what I will be starting with – Changed.
“But l’m fire.
I will break out sooner or later…
As long as there is still something to keep me burning, I will make my way out all the time. Even if it means destroying things- things that matter to me, especially things that don’t.
No matter what, I will find a way.
I would run wild. ”
- Flora Tavu, 2008
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