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2009-2019

In the past decade I:


  • graduated A-Levels (high school)
  • left my birth city
  • moved to a different city for college
  • became used to life without my father (parents separated in 2008)
  • supported my mother and brother through moves of their own to different cities 
  • fell in love
  • dealt with heartbreak
  • broke hearts 
  • learned to apologize sincerely
  • learned to make boundaries (still working on learning how to keep them)
  • edited a magazine
  • finished writing my first book
  • wrote several short stories
  • painted a lot- A LOT (compared to the previous decade aka the decade of doodling)
  • learned calligraphy
  • learned 6 languages
  • planned and organized several large scale events
  • failed spectacularly on at least one occasion
  • joined student organizations
  • entered into and left several friendships
  • learned 'me' - I am still learning
  • learned Islam
  • taught Islam
  • made six best friends - and lost all of them except one
  • learned to nurture and weed relationships
  • got married 
  • got divorced
  • dealt with more heartbreak
  • got married again
  • became a mother
  • dealt with some more heartbreak
  • got into law school
  • left law school
  • got my first paid full-time job
  • got my first (unpaid) research assistant-ship 
  • got two Bachelor degrees
  • got two Masters degrees
  • made umrah
  • made a home for me
  • made three more homes for me
  • became financially independent
  • immigrated
  • became a dual-citizen
  • traveled solo for the first time, nationally and internationally
  • road-tripped solo for the first time
  • helped found a community organization
  • served my first year of service (AmeriCorps VISTA, yay!!)
  • experienced several setbacks in health
  • learned to tell friends and foes apart and how to play nice with both
  • bought my first car (not my first car though, that was a gift thanks to my very generous employer)
  • got my ijazah in Quran recitation in the tradition of Hafs 
  • got some other ijazaat
  • dealt with parents' divorce
  • dealt with family issues
  • dealt with the death of a best friend and most close family members
  • traveled to three continents, five countries, at least 25 major cities that I hadn't seen before and countless other cities, towns and everything in between
  • got into hiking
  • saw a black bear up close for the first time
  • read several hundred books
  • received awards for my art
  • stopped reading a newspaper regularly (the decade prior was also the newspaper and magazine decade)
  • spoke in front of hundreds of people 
  • started a business 
  • failed in running a business
  • became a more healthy eater
  • went through intensive physical therapy
  • got a kindle
  • bought my first laptop
  • bought my first smartphone (both the first-ever smartphone and laptop that I had were gifts, thanks to father and husband)
  • received grace, from God and people
  • learned that it was okay to struggle (perhaps the most valuable and hardest-to-learn lesson for me)
  • had a crisis of faith
  • helped people with their crises of faith
  • had a friend say her shahadah with me
  • supported another friend in saying her shahadah
  • got into tv/ movie watching
  • experimented with excess and minimalism and found the mostly-happy place that works for me
  • bought furniture
  • bought a large flat-screen TV (and returned it in two days)
  • experienced poverty
  • experienced wealth
  • experienced more diversity than any other time of my life
  • filed my taxes for the first time
  • hired a lawyer
  • taught people driving (and learned its not my strong suit :D)
  • overcame my fear of being in large bodies of water (including bathtubs, swimming pools, seas, etc. I am still afraid of rivers and oceans so I guess I can't make that a blanket statement :D)
  • ...and in the last few minutes got too tired to write anymore :)


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