Tag: love

Posted in The Afro Muslimah

Just As I Am

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

For the majority of my life, I have been obsessed with my weight! I’ve either been too skinny or too fat, but never did I look in the mirror and was happy with what I saw. Besides my obvious insecurity about my skin, which I speak about in “Diary of a Problematic Brown Skin Girl”, I also have body image issues and am exhausted of always feeling like I’m not good enough.

I’m always seeking to have a new body, either a past size or a future desire. I can’t remember a time looking at a picture of myself and feeling satisfied. Well, I’m officially exhausted of not feeling like enough. I’m done trying new diets to obtain a different body, because at the end of the day, who am I trying to please? I say it is for me, but if I am being truly honest with myself, it’s for outside approval that will never be granted.

As much as I wish I could just erase this toxic mindset I’ve developed over the years, it’s just not easy. It’s working progress with truly loving oneself. I use daily body positive affirmations. I replace all of my critiques with compliments, while I stare at the mirror examing my body, rather than focusing on my flaws.

Hopefully this time next year, I will truly feel the confidence I fake in public. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy all my meals and just focus on being happy.

Posted in Relationships

Everybody’s​ a Vilain

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

As much as I like to reflect upon my love life and always see myself as the innocent princess, that overcame heartbreak, but that’s not completely true. 

My college years have definitely been eventful and left a couple of broken-hearted casualties along the way. I remember my freshman year after I accepted the internship with the US Coast Guard, I needed to get in shape ASAP. I ended up getting this guy I always saw working out around campus to help whip me into shape. 

Honestly, I was just being myself and was super surprised when I found out he liked me. Unfortunately, my motto was too just go with the flow, but that’s a terrible mentality when it comes to dating. It wasn’t until maybe two weeks in, I realized I needed to end this “relationship”  because honestly, it was only one-sided.  While I was still living a single lifestyle, he was falling for me deeper. 

Trying not to hurt his feelings, and postpone the breakup only made things worst. So, like a coward one morning I broke up with him over text, and gave the worlds most cliche excuse “it’s not you, it’s me”. We ran to each other at a party the following weekend, and he confronted me asking what can he do to make things better. I don’t really remember the conversation, but I do remember the hurt in his eyes. That moment I knew, I’ll always be the villain in his story.

Honesty, everyone is the villain in someone’s story, we’re all humans and make mistakes. I just try to improve upon myself. If he does happen to ever read this, I am sorry, and was just immature and wasn’t used to male attention. 

Posted in Relationships

Fire Sisters

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

Most of my relationship posts tend to be about a failed love, missed opportunity, or just bad timing with some man. I do have several other successful and prospering relationships, not romantic, but just as special. This one, in particular, is going on four years strong, and each day we become closer; with my freshmen year roommate. 

Initially, it was just a very friendly roommate relationship, but second semester something changed. We became true friends, that blossomed into being besties. We both were experiencing so much for the first time together, and we helped each other grow along the way. 

We have two very different strong personalities, with different backgrounds, but our differences brought out something special in one another. Once we truly got to know each other, we realized we have the most important things in common; mutual respect and a desire to be successful. 

This woman is beyond dependable, and always right there when I need her. She has a strong exterior shell and firmly believes in tough love, and we share mutual mentality no woman left behind! Over the course of our friendship, we’ve been through some crazy trials and tribulations both individually and together. Each test brings us closer together, and we are no longer just friends, she’s my sister. We may not always agree with each other’s choices and the way we handle situations, but we are always there to support and help one another to be the best versions of ourselves. Most importantly gladly give a nice kick in the ass to one another to keep moving forward, until we set this world on fire, with our names in the ashes.  

Posted in The Afro Muslimah

Cheers to Twenty Three

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

When I was a child, I had my whole life planned out. I thought by the age of 23, I’d have my degree, married, or at least in a serious relationship, and starting my career. Now a week away from my 23rd birthday,  I’m still I school and painfully single. Honestly, for the past few months, I have been depressed and disappointed about turning 23.

Then a huge dose of reality finally hit me, I’m only turning 23! I’ve barely scratched the surface of my life and need to stop living my life according to this unrealistic timeline I made up when I was 12. Each year is a new opportunity to grow and mature, as well as making mistakes. For 23 I’m going to embrace all of the mistakes and embarrassing parts of my young adulthood and learn from them. Realizing they’re all unique stories to the novel of me. I’m finally done running from all of the pain that haunts me, and starting to fight it head-on! I’m a year older and stronger, CHEERS TO 23 🥂

Posted in The Afro Muslimah

What I Want.

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

I want to unapologetic guilt-free blissfully live my life! I want to stop thinking about what I am supposed to do and just live my life. I want to stop feeling guilty and thinking about the people I’m disappointed with my decisions. I want to stop looking at my body with disgust, looking at all of societies imperfections. I want to be able to fall in love with whoever I want without fear of breaking religious and cultural restrictions. I want to be able to share all the pain in my heart without hearing “this is God’s will” or “God will get you through this”. I want to be able to share my beliefs, without being told I’m wrong. I want to stop always having to be a strong black woman. 

Maybe this is just too much to ask for, or I should say fuck it and do me; my constant internal dilemma.

Posted in Afro Muslimah's Love Stories

Confession

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

I have this one amazing friend who’s always there for me. I consider him to be my personal unsung hero. We became friends working together with one summer, and the friendship grew stronger each day. I knew he had a crush on me, but I continually placed him in the friend zone. It’s not that I didn’t have mutual feelings, I just knew I wasn’t in the emotional space to be with him. I felt like he was perfect and I was an emotionally damaged mess.

I felt bad for hurting him and knew it was selfish to keep him around and not reciprocate the feelings, but all of my attempts to cut him off was breaking my heart. It was a love I couldn’t explain, and barely fully understood my feelings. I knew I truly loved him and all of the weirdness that came with him, but never wanted to ruin the friendship. I felt the shift when he finally started to get over me and just accepted the friendship. Little did I know, in my subconscious, I was already starting to love him more than a friend. 

It wasn’t until I was leaving for England, that it truly hit me, but I knew it was too late and I missed my opportunity. He was happy with some new girl, and I was happy to see him happy. Even though I did not like her, and didn’t approve, I knew it was best to keep my opinions to myself. While I was away, I knew he was trying to cut me off, but I became determined and refused to let that happen. 

He’s one of the few people I can truly be my complete self with, and never worry about being judged. He’s my best friend, that I’m kind of in love with, and I don’t think he has a clue. I spent so much time pushing him away out of fear of letting him get close, but somehow he pushed back harder and is one of the few people who has the potential to break my heart. 

Posted in Afro Muslimah's Love Stories

Cairo Love

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

As a child, I would always hear this beautiful love story about a young college woman. She was born and raised in Washington DC and went off to college in the Midwest. She decided during her college years to travel abroad to Cairo, Egypt for a year.

While in Egypt she met a young Embassy Marine. The first encounter was definitely not a traditional love at first sight, but little did they know it was the beginning of a beautiful love story. The woman initiated the conversation with a sassy borderline rude inquisitive question, but the marine loved her spark and feisty personality. They began talking and hanging out more and with each encounter, the love started to build stronger. 

They both found it ironic, that he was born and raised in Virginia, but they met in Egypt. It was eventually time for her to return home, and the marine to be stationed elsewhere, but they refused to let that be the end to their story. Regardless of the distance, they kept in contact and with each phone conversation and letter, they fell in love. Shortly after him arriving back to the States, the young college woman and the marine were married. 

That’s the love story of my parents, and I’ve always looked at it as a fairytale, that I got to be apart of what happens after they lived happily ever after. 

Posted in Relationships

Let’s Talk About Sex

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

I have struggled for years about my relationship and beliefs when it comes to sex. I was raised to believe that sex is reserved for marriage, or at least between two people who truly love each other. I placed so much value on my virginity, to the point I tied it to my self-worth and esteem. As an adult, I’m slowly learning it doesn’t matter! I’m way more than my sexual encounters! I remember in a book I read, it said women were created to be desired; that line has always stuck with me, but I still can’t figure what it means to me. 

I just know as a young Muslim woman, I’m going through my own sexual revolution. I’ve spent so much time concerned about waiting until marriage, or not letting my number get too high. Appearing to be innocent, or a good girl worthy for marriage, when at the end of the day none of that matters! The conversation needs to be about consent, safe sex, respect, and mutual satisfaction! 

I personally believe when it comes to sex, do what makes you happy! This is a personal decision only you can make, and too many people get the decision stolen from them! The scars of not being able to make that decision last a lifetime. 

Posted in Afro Muslimah's Love Stories

British Love Story

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

Let me tell y’all about this man I met at the mall; the poor soul was struggling attempting to buy clothes and asked for my opinion. As a shopaholic, I was more than happy to help him pick out some new clothes, plus I thought he was really cute. He was definitely my ideal type, a chocolate nerd. After we did a little bit of shopping he asked me if I wanted to get something to eat. We went to a Mexican restaurant, which I don’t recommend in England.

Regardless of the food, the conversation just flowed so naturally between us, and we talked about almost everything. At this point in time, I did not have a romantic interest in him, I was just excited about making a British friend. I knew I would eventually be coming home, and did not want to continue my terrible pattern of starting a relationship, knowing it’ll eventually turn long distance.

We were always blunt with each other, and he expressed his distaste for long-distance relationships and broke down the male to female ratio of the world, and he won’t be pressed over any woman. At that moment I knew it was going to be a beautiful friendship, two logical souls who weren’t going to get emotionally attached. 

As the summer progressed, we started spending pretty much every day with each other. I felt like I was with someone I knew my whole life, completely comfortable around him. We both shared a dry, sarcastic, and corny sense humor, which honestly described our relationship. 

Eventually, of course, we developed feelings for each other, and on several different occasions, he tried to get me to confess my feelings. I could never find the words to let him know, that I love and was going to miss him. He became my best friend, and there’s no way I could have adequately expressed how I felt. I knew I was leaving, but deep down there was a part of me that didn’t want to leave him.

He is definitely one of a kind and I wish there were more men like him out in the world. Saying goodbye was difficult, I cried my eyes out when the plane was taking off. As hard as it was to leave a beautiful relationship in England, I know it was the best decision. I’d rather treasure the memories and let go; than to hold on and ruin the relationship. Who knows what the future has in store? 

Posted in Afro Muslimah's Love Stories

Will I Ever Learn?

Posted on by themisunderstoodafromuslimah

In this dating game, we often like to blame the other player when the outcome is not as desired. We may recognize our mistakes after self-reflecting, but then often times end up in the same situation with another person. I know for me, I sometimes set myself up for failure.

At a friend’s birthday celebration, a couple of years ago, one of my classmates admits to me he has had a crush on me for a while. He claims I always ignored him or looked evil every time he tried to talk to me. I thought he was a nice guy and cute, so I thought to myself, why not what’s the worst that can happen.

Some background knowledge about the guy, he was moving to the other side of the country for an internship and graduate school a week after his confessed admiration for me. So, I already set my mind to keep my guards up and never actually get attached or really let him in.

At first, that worked out perfectly, all of our conversations were pretty superficial, and we both were clearly guarded and unbothered by it. I honestly do not recall, when that began to change, and we started to let each other in. The more I got to know him, the more I became attached, and developed deeper feelings for him.

I don’t think I ever showed him my developing feelings, because I knew better than to get attached to a man on the other side of the country, after I recently got burned from a similar situation. Although I knew better, I couldn’t help it, and secretly wished things would turn out in my favor. We began to go get into petty arguments, and I had several failed attempts to cut him off. The sad truth was I really liked him and could see a future with him, but that was a fantasy, that I knew wouldn’t happen.

At the end of the day, he ends up dating someone closer to him, and initially I was hurt, but I got over it. I realized I have a pattern of picking guys, who for one reason or another aren’t completely available to me. Possibly a sign of my commitment issues, or just a freaky coincidence. Either way, I do think everyone plays a part in why we often end up disappointed in this dating game.