RANT: Problems with Khaleeji Soap Operas.

My mom is currently watching this gulf-soap-opera and I am watching it with her. Nothing has fueled my hatred for Arabic media more than these ghastly TV shows, and my reason is not related to anything religious, cultural, or traditional, but rather something a little more regional.

They say that they are tackling the most prevalent of problems in the region, like drugs, polygamy, among others. But the thing is, a lot of these wonderful TV shows present the problem without really presenting the solution. So, technically, a lot of these TV shows that the lot of you obsess over in the holy month of Ramadan, are using the above statement as an excuse.

Another problem I have with these TV shows is the way women are portrayed. Rarely do you find a character with potency and superiority—if you did, she, for some ambiguous reason, would be the enemy. Once again, the woman, in the Arab world, is degraded.

 The woman is also always dressed up, which is annoying. Last time I checked, none of the Arab girls that I know spend their mornings in a Moroccan dress with a perfect cat eye and a pair of Jimmy Choos.

 How are they ‘tackling the most prevalent of problems’ in the region, if they cant even manage to be realistic?

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that there are a lot of problems in the region that are so much bigger than polygamy, drug addiction—and falling off the stairs, then managing to get cancer. Stop being backwards.

In my Funeral

In my funeral,

I do not want to be mourned.

I do not want you to wipe your tears

Or be heavy with the weight of

All the words untold;

All the moments forgotten;

All the grudges dying;

In my funeral,

I want to have roses.

When you wrap me in my cloth,

(I want my cloth to be in gold)

I want to be in roses--

Without their thorns—

I want there to be roses

Around your necks;

Your houses;

Your hair—

In my funeral,

I would also like

A dress code:

Bright colors, only.

Yellows; Greens;

Pinks; Oranges:

In my funeral—

In my celebration

Remember all the times

I was high; All the times

We laughed; All the times

We cried; All the times;

You let me make this world

A tad bit better.

And when I marry the ground;

Say your prayers with a smile;

Let me hug my soil;

Turn the page.

One day, we will meet again.

On that day, we will be in Gold.

We will wear roses—

Without their thorns—

How to Hug Yourself.

This is going to be one of those cheesy little proses that you find everywhere—except you wont really find this everywhere, I guess. Anyway. I want to talk about internal hugs. This is an incredibly horrible thesis statement and my literature professor would probably want to verbally slap me across the face right now (because he’s a man and a physical slap is haram) and I would totally deserve it.

Anyway.

I believe in internal hugs. Which is silly. Considering the fact that I hate physical contact and that physical contact makes me feel awkward, because I am awkward and rigid by nature. For some reason. But, I am starting to fall for my internal core. The one that I thought had been eating me alive. It really wasn’t. It was actually doing the opposite. It was keeping me alive, and I was the cannibal. Turns out I was eating my own self. I was kind of, killing myself. And it was horrifying. It was so horrifying that it actually became a norm for me. Yes. Self-hatred had become a norm for me. I felt awkward complimenting myself; I felt weird telling myself that maybe I don’t look that bad; I felt awkward standing in a crowd. And I drowned myself in my own sea that I had fashioned for that sole purpose.

Everything was dark, and I wasn’t really lost—I was in my norm. I made myself believe that this all was completely fine and that this is okay, when it’s not. It’s not. Hurting yourself is not okay. Damaging your own self, is not okay—and how I wish I could go back in time, and just ask myself to stop. To stop hating my own flesh, to stop accepting that nagging pain that I had grown so used to, to just stop. Breathe. To not be afraid to just kind of maybe love myself, and that it’s okay to say that I’m beautiful, and wonderful, and smart, and capable, and that I can be stronger than the mountains and thicker than the roots of thousand year old trees.

I don’t want to be ashamed of myself. I don’t want to feel worthless, because God, trust me, it is the worst feeling in the world. I don’t want to feel unaccepted. I don’t want to feel less. I just don’t. I’m tired.

I choose to be happy. I choose to give myself one, big fat, internal bear hug. And you do too.

Open Letter to the Woman who Tried to Belittle me.

Dearest,

Woman who Tried to Belittle me.

I felt like I was less than everyone else, because I couldn’t adopt this role. I was a different kind of woman, who still hadn’t quiet realized that yet.

This is because I am required to posses a set of qualities that determine whether or not I am a women. Yes, entirely. And it’s never about having a burning passion brewing inside of me, or challenging the industry, or standing headstrong for what I believe in—I could have put an end to poverty, but I will still be unsuccessful because my Sheila wasn’t wrapped the right way, and I forgot to serve my guests tea. This has poisoned me for so long, because I am required to forget everything that I am because people like you think that I am not woman enough.

But I refuse to let that tear at my skin. I was never fashioned to be the proper woman that you want me to be, and I’m not going to apologize for that.

I will wear a golden armor, a titanium crown, and a cape that soars so high when I walk, and when it falls. It only falls to cover everyone and everything that had ever tried to silence me.

Sincerely,

I will not Be Belittled Again.

Three Months into Eighteen.

Sometimes people need other people, and that’s okay. Sometimes I forget about you, and them, and how you all love me, and how I love you, and how we love each other. Sometimes I let the little things get to me—sometimes I don’t understand whether the little things are actually big things—and sometimes the little big things hurt so much that I often cry myself to sleep. Sometimes I need someone to come up to me and tell me that I am wonderful. That in a thousand, brilliant ways, I am wonderful. Sometimes I want to tell other people that are genuinely wonderful, that they are wonderful in a thousand brilliant ways. Sometimes we need people to tell us the good things about us, because sometimes—a lot of the time we don’t see them. And its nice to see people who see good things in you, that you don’t really see. Sometimes we always feel as though we are in the wrong, sometimes I –you—we feel insufficient and worthless and not-enough for our own race—and sometimes we feel that we don’t belong to it at all—and sometimes we remember that we haven’t really actually figured ourselves out yet. Sometimes we realize that we have changed and that maybe our past relationships changed maybe we still love our old friendships but things are different now. And sometimes we feel so wrong and insecure and retarded and small, that we need to bend our backs to hide our faces from the world that hurts us so much. Sometimes even, we get hurt, by the people who are actually supposed to heal us. And sometimes we lose those people and we push them away, and it hurts, but freedom has never tasted so sweet, and we become light.

And other times we learn how to make sense out of the matters that feel so small and so big at the same time. We learn how it is okay to feel whatever it is that you are feeling, and to never be ashamed of your own emotions, or of your own self. Or that you don’t have to explain yourself. That the life you lead is your sole property and all your views and strangeness and slightly-colored-out-of-the-lines personality is perfect if it makes you alive.