The Year of Goodbye

Sometimes I’ll come across an old chipped dish belonging to a set that made its departure long ago in a donation box to the Salvation Army, or an orphaned shoe that once was a staple in someone’s wardrobe, and for just a second I’m transported back to a different era.  For a second it’s 2004 and my favorite shirt is a pink peasant top my mom bought from T.J. Maxx, my mom is wearing a lot more cotton two piece scarves, and my dad still owns carpenter jeans.  Or for a moment it’s 2006 and I can feel the grain of the hardwood floors beneath my feet as I slide around the kitchen eating my after school snack.  And when I open my eyes to a starkly different reality it never ceases to amaze me how imperceptible change can be in the moment.


My mom had me when she was 21.  For over a decade it was just me, my mom, and my dad-- two kids with a kid trying to figure the world out.  The thing about being the eldest child to young parents, is that in a way you all grow up together.  While my parents may see themselves as they are in the present, I will always see them as a collage of all the versions in their evolution.  That’s because all of those versions were the ones that raised me.

There was the young and spontaneous version.  The one where a spur of the moment camping trip was a valid excuse for me to skip school for a couple of days.  Or where my mom would wake me up at 1 am because she couldn't sleep and wanted to play instead.  The version where a random Wednesday midnight breakfast with their friends and 7-year old wasn't a problem.

There was what I would like to think of as my parents Renaissance, where they discovered a whole new type of Islamic scholarship that moved their hearts and related to their lives.  I watched it inspire my parents as they spent Saturday mornings soaking in lectures about history, language, theology, and philosophy.  And as I sat next to them, eating my snacks from a tupperware container and coloring, I too entered the colorful worlds of seemingly faraway places like Mali, Mauritania, Moorish Spain, the Ottoman Empire, or the battlefield with Khawla and Nusaybah.  I watched my mom transition from her job in the corporate world into her first job in the non-profit sector and remember her voice turning reverent as she told my dad at dinner one day "Ed this work touches my soul".  There was what felt like the weekend in middle school my dad decided he wanted to open his own counseling private practice.  We spent a whole afternoon trying to pick out a logo that said all he wanted it to say, and when he finally found it, I remember his eyes lighting up as he explained to my (not very interested) self about what an important resource an American Muslim therapist was for an American Muslim community.  Then there was the casual weekend conversation when I was 7 that led my parents along with 5 others on their decades long pursuit of building an authentically American Muslim community so that their daughter and any other future children would never see their faith as an antiquated remnant from a world they couldn't relate to.

There was also the more energetic and no nonsense versions of my parents.  The version where after saying “no” to cleaning my room at nine, my parents proceeded to haul all my furniture, clothes, and toys out of my room and making me earn it all back day by day because “if you don’t want to clean your room, we’ll make it easy for you”.  To my brother Zayn: you're welcome, I wore our parents down a lot for you.  Or there was the time where my best friend and I were convinced the basement was haunted by a ghost, and my parents decided to leave a creepy message on the basement wall from said ghost to mess with us because they thought it was funny (but of course, what else would any sane, loving parent do?).  Or how the day I broke my arm, my parents so compassionately decided to call me Gimpy for all six weeks that I had to have the cast on.


I guess what I’m trying to say is that being up close and personal with my parent’s dreams, disappointments, and evolution as adults taught me that life is all about building.  Sometimes inspiration may strike, but more often than not, inspiration is found through the lens you choose to look at life with.  It taught me that failure and gray areas and confusion aren’t negatives in life, they are the most critical and defining moments that shape you.  For every failure and disappointment my parents were met with, I just saw them reposition, readjust, and keep moving on.  It’s a trait I think I’ve naturally inherited, persisting and sometimes pushing almost bullheadedly until God allows things to work out.  Despite the thousands of “teachable moments” my parents tried to utilize, I learned the most observing my parents in all the moments they never saw me watching.  What I learned was how to take failure with as much grace as success.  I learned that it doesn’t matter how bright the sun is shining if you never open your blinds—so much of life’s joy is in gratitude for what is right in front of you.  And most importantly, I learned that faith is not wearable; it’s reflected in the decisions you make in the dark corners of your life, the way you carry yourself in the face of vulnerability and defeat, the amount of compassion you wield in the presence of a person or situation you believe deserves none.  None of those things can be taken on or off, only forever nestled within the synapses of your neurons.

If I could tell parents of American Muslim teens anything, it would be this: the next few years are going to be gone in the blink of an eye.  Pretty soon, you’ll be left with an empty room (regardless of how long you try to delay it), and the foundation for a lifelong relationship having been laid down.  So choose your battles wisely (no matter how pressing every single one may seem), love abundantly, forgive easily, and last but not least, stop holding your cards so tightly to yourself.  Your children will have a window into your soul and your failures whether you communicate them or not, because the eye that sees your unsaid truths is the gift your children were born with.  You might as well be frank with them, so that when they make their own inevitable mistakes at the critical junctures of their lives, they know they’re not alone when they finally call home.

Know that your children are not and will not ever be you.  You can give them everything you never had, only to watch them choose differently than you ever would have.  Focus on teaching your children how to think instead of what to think.  Give them frameworks and schemas from which to make sense of the world, but never do the sorting for them.  Doing so may mean some uncomfortable variances in perspectives at times, but all of these things mean that you did your job.  After all, your children were not made for your time, they were made for the days you will never see and for times you will never have to encounter.  And because of that, they have to be different in composition and make-up than you.


So to my Tias and my Tios, my abuelita and my big daddio, thank you for showing up.  Thank you for being there for every single birthday, holiday, and big moment in my life.  Thank you for teaching me about character, compassion, hope, grace, and most importantly, how to make a good bathroom joke or two.  To the Khallas, Khallis, and Aunties in my life, thank you for teaching me about strength and womanhood, for putting me in my place when I needed it, and for showing me how far a good attitude and a humble heart can get you.  To the Ammus and Uncles in my life, thank you for looking out for me always, for letting me wrestle you, and for modeling for me what it means to live with integrity.

And finally to my parents: there’s a thousand things I could say to thank you for the sacrifices and sleepless nights I’ll never know about, but instead I’ll pick just one.  Growing up, my mom used to talk about how the Taj Mahal was the most epic testament to love on this earth.  But Shah Jahan only joined marble and the world’s jewels to create a building.  My parents on the other hand spent the entirety of their youth joining hearts, lives, families, and lifestyles for no other reason than to create a community for me.  One that was made up of people from all different faith communities, different ways of practicing, cultural backgrounds, and ethnic makeups.  One that was free of judgement or expectations.  One that no matter what place in my life I was, I could always feel comfortable in my own skin.  And in my eyes, there could be no greater act of love.

To the community that raised me, to the aunts and uncles and aunties and khallas that yelled at me like I was their own, to the people who have ever knowingly or unknowingly touched my life, know this: if I ever manage to accomplish even an atom of good in this world, I’ll owe it all to you. And finally, to mom and abbu, thanks for letting me grow up with you—it was the best ride a girl could ask for.


Until the next era of my life,


Samar

The Bridge

It's a Wednesday night and I am proctoring a statistics exam.  The professor is a petite, slight woman from India.  I had been talking with her daughter whom she had brought with to the exam who wasn't older than eleven.  We complained together about the woes of fourth grade math and how art class was definitely way more fun.  The professor came up to me afterwards, "I'm glad you talked to my daughter; before, she seemed so.... " she stopped, in a way that I had seen a thousand times before in the elderly of my own family.  It was this search, this wandering endeavor to grasp at a word that did not exist.  At least in English.  It's a frequent thing for a linguist's brain.  However, for a person whose native tongue is no longer the currency of life, it is never ending.  Suddenly I am transported back to a thousand family parties with my great aunts and uncles on my mom's side.  Brilliant people who could be rattling off a whole stream of jargon only to stop indefinitely in search of a word as powerful and potent and perfectly fitting as the one in the language they grew up on.  They would stop to try to explain it to me, "you know Samar, kind of like..., but more..." and you could feel their frustration at finding a word in English that held only a pale comparison in their minds.   

December 28th, 2014

We are in a Jeep, driving through the countryside of India to get to the small town my mother was born in.  The name of the town means "New York" which is almost kind of laughable in its irony because I actually could not think of a place more unlike New York.  

We wind through the roads and it's almost stereotypically idyllic as we see women working rice paddies, little girls in braids down their backs and school uniforms riding on motorcycles five at a time, and brightly colored saris on the women selling produce on the huts on the sides of the road.  There are green, green hills dotted with colorful flowers that come rolling down, and the sky is this shade of early 2000s prom dress pastel blue.  The trees have grown all the way together to create this tunnel of extra fresh oxygen to combat the humid, dense air above the road we are driving on.  The men and women on the sides of the road sit by their vending stalls and drink bottomless cups of tea.  And if I ever snickered before when learning about the concept of a collective conscience, I was sobered by its existence as this place I had never once set foot in before, this rhythm of life that was so drastically different from the way I had grown up, somehow felt like a warm embrace.  

We are met in the town by a man on a motorcycle named Saleem.  In true Indian fashion, apparently he is a distant uncle of mine.  I shouldn't be surprised by now, but I can't help but be.  I am always amazed at the depth of the Indian value for relationships.  Their ability to maintain even the most distant of kinships is remarkable, I'm reminded of how any free time my grandmother has is going through her worn phone book to call every distant relative near and far to check up.  In the Urdu language, there is a specific name for every familial relationship imaginable, connections that aren't even deemed worthy of maintaining here at home.  I think that speaks a lot to the nature of the Indian people.  

The man on the motorcycle invites us to his home and inevitably we are force fed and made to drink endless rounds of tea to the point of tooth decay.  No, I'm serious.  These people are the masters of guilt-tripping and force feeding--they have made it an art.  As I sit in a room with two girls who are distant cousins of mine, I stare at them closely looking for the proof of the blood we share.  I find nothing but the same warm shade of brown in our eyes.  As I sit and converse with these people, I find myself amazed that family works this way.  Decades without meeting, utterly different lives in opposite parts of the world, but a smattering of similar red and white blood cells renders us as guests treated with utmost dignity and love.  As we prepare to leave, my Aunt looks at me and searches my face, as if she were trying to commit it to memory.  She pulls me back and squeezes my hand hard and looks at me, her eyes filling up.  And in that moment, I know the unspoken sentence between us, that there is a very good chance we may never meet again.  And as I smile and hug her goodbye, I sit in the car and wonder how it is that the world works this way.  How you can meet someone for the very first time and last time all in the span of an hour.

As we drive back through the countryside, I am listening to my mother talk to my relatives in that classic Indian way.  The inflections in their voices go up and down like the scalloped hedges of the palace bushes.  It is a tennis match of sarcasm and colorful analogies, sly wit and humble charm.  It’s only mildly more intense than what I grew up with--if I asked my mother if she loved me, it would be a solidly thick, sarcastic "no" immediately--but for the first time I can appreciate it.  It represents a culture of people that were incredibly adaptive, resilient, witty, and strong.  People that survived everything and did it with a rueful sarcastic remark or two and a smile.  People that were smart, kind, and hardworking.  People, that I have the honor of coming from.

Growing up, the precariousness of language has always fascinated me.  With three sentences, you can scar someone for life or leave them inspired forever—or if you’re an Indian parent, both, all at once, over and over.  I have always been amazed by how the differences in language, produce different strengths and weaknesses of their respective speakers.  For example, English is a very quantitative language, it is precise and scientific; incredible in its efficiency.  But for a poet in English, there are frequent lexical gaps.  There is love, longing, remorse, passion, but beyond that, the words to convey love and pain are rather few.  In English the strength of writing depends a lot on the structure of the writing to convey an idea.  Contrastingly, in Urdu, there is a word “parsu” which could mean anytime from ten years ago, to Tuesday of last week, to four years in the future.  The word “kal” can mean either yesterday or tomorrow, and even that is pretty lenient.  It could mean two days ago or four days from now.  Urdu’s quantitative measures would drive a scientist to jump off of the tallest point in Agra Fort.  But when it comes to expression of the self, Urdu is bursting with words.  The word “fanaa” means destruction of the self through love, but with a positive connotation.  It’s sort of like loving someone so much that your regard for yourself is thrown by the wayside.  The word “takalluf” means the politeness of a guest to their host’s offers.  As a teen sitting through family parties on my mom’s side, I was often frustrated as I listened to my relatives converse in Urdu about a topic I knew in English like love, disappointment, or frustration.  However, the words they used in Urdu were words I could not grasp fully because they did not exist in the language I grew up speaking.  Words with connotations and subtle undertones that required an immersion into the culture of my people to fully comprehend.  This winter, over the dusty streets in the market nestled beneath the Charminaar, I think I finally got a sliver of comprehension into this complex, vivid, nuanced culture I come from.

What I am trying to say is this:  when you know where you come from, you know your weaknesses, your predispositions, your baggage, and your biggest strengths. When you know these things, and you have faith and spirituality in your life, you are absolutely and utterly powerful.  You can take on anything life hands you.  A lot of parents try to transmit culture to their kids in this prepackaged bundle on the grounds that it is this slowly disappearing world they have to help preserve.  Which it is.  But that makes it seem like this un-relatable burden for your child.  Culture is different from faith.  And those two things cannot be transmitted hand in hand, because there is a good chance it will make your child want to run away from both.  But culture has to be seen by your child as this comprehensive understanding of the gears within them, like a way to make their seemingly un-relatable quirks relatable.  Because no one wants to feel like this oddity, we all want to know that there is a reason for the way we work the way we do.  Knowing that is the doorway for slowly understanding and coming to terms with your biggest weaknesses and natural predispositions.  Understanding these things will be your child's biggest asset in life.

The word the statistics professor finally chose was "morose".  A word that exists in both Urdu and English and means “sullen, displeased, unhappy”.  Sometimes that bridge between two seemingly contrasting places can be built with more ease that we anticipate.

Raising American-Muslim Ambassadors

"Mija, don't miss a day of your life.  Find ways to make each day matter-- to you, to another, to the world.  Remember that we are all part of something bigger than life" my grandma on my dad's side wrote to me in a letter that she gave me before I went away to college.  Today, on a day soaked in exams, stress, and a bitter cold reminding me of winter's existence, I find myself re-reading it and remembering a lifetime of memories with a full heart.  How could it be that eighteen years could pass by in such a blink of an eye?

My dad converted to Islam when he was in his early 20s.  And when he converted, he made it a point to not let his observance of a different faith and its traditions get in the way of the close relationship he had always maintained with his family.  My parents made sure that my Christian side of the family felt as included in our lives as our Muslim relatives were.  At my parents' wedding my mother walked down the aisle to Pachelbel's Canon in D, my father wore a shervani (an Indian version of a suit), and my parents released butterflies at the end of their ceremony.  Their wedding was a symbol of what the rest of our lives would be: a completely distinct hybrid of east and west, new and old, and just pure wonderful.

I grew up having cookie baking parties with my grandmother the weeks before Christmas, playing with her three dogs (and feeding them food I didn't want when my mother wasn't looking), having wrestling matches with my uncles, and having family sleepovers the night before Christmas at my grandparents' house.  But never once during any of this was I confused about my own identity.  My parents would explain to me on the way to Christmas celebrations "Samar remember that we don't celebrate Christmas, but we believe in Islam that you maintain connections with your family no matter what, so that is what we're doing.  This is how you show family that you support them and that you appreciate them".  So they would give us Christmas presents and we would give them Eid presents in return.  They would make us marshmallow free sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving and make a few batches of turkey bacon and turkey sausage for us on Mother's Day breakfasts too.  It was the most compromising and dynamic union I had ever witnessed and not a day goes by that I'm not grateful for it.

My parents also balanced that by raising me in a circle of the most knowledgable and innovative western Muslim scholars.  From the age of seven I sat in circles with people like Dr. Umar, Shaikh Hamza, Dr. Ingrid Mattson, Dr. Sherman Jackson, and Dr. Abdul Hakim Winters.  Not only did my ambitious 28 year old parents make me sit in on these circles at 7, I also got quizzed on what was said during these lectures on the way home.  In addition to learning about Islamic ethics and values, I also learned about Christian and Jewish ones as well.  I sat in on synagogues, went to various different church services ranging from monastaries to evangelical congregations.  My parents thought it was imperative that I learned about other faiths than my own so that I could have the knowledge to choose my faith on my own accord because when you choose something for yourself, you are much more likely to hold fast to it and value and appreciate it.  It also provided me with the tools to combat the post 9/11 misconceptions with my own unique perspective and insight that were the result of my unique upbringing.

Recently, at a Muslim Student Association gathering on campus, I found myself frustrated that many of the members stuck to one another like the grains of sticky rice.  As I overheard many bits and pieces of conversation, it saddened me that there were repeated fragments like "yeah, I have this friend but she's nonmuslim..." as if it discounted the friendship.  Growing up, I quickly realized that my Christian family members were some of the best people I had ever come across.  They were moral, and ethical, caring, and open-minded.  They were people that were fearless when it came to standing up for what was right.  It was my grandmother who taught me how to truly care about a person, and my grandfather taught me how to be dedicated and do the absolute best in whatever I did, regardless of what that was.  My uncles taught me how to find the humor in the mundane and how to always make appreciation and love known.  And my aunts taught me how to be patient but fierce and resilient.  When push came to shove in my silly suburban teen life, it was often these people that I went to for advice and comfort over anyone else, even my Muslim relatives.  And in my mind, that says a lot.

What I'm trying to say is that this divide where we try to shelter our children from other faiths, where we take them from one Muslim place to another, and then send them to commuter colleges with more Muslims, and then get them married and have them live inside of this Muslim community and then still complain about how "no one understands Muslims" or that people are being "ignorant" or that systems are "stilted" towards certain people.  Because the reality is that we live in a predominantly Christian society, and shutting our youth up in little bubbles isn't the answer.  Teaching them how to coexist, how to not think of people outside of the Muslim faith as the "other".  If we want people to start understanding Muslims, writing books and making documentaries is not the way to go about it.  It's by having human ambassadors of what an American-Muslim looks like, and acts like, and what they stand for, and the absolute best ambassadors are your children.  Raise them to be that way.  This means that many of the previous stigmas of the first generation Muslims like talking to the opposite gender and having friends outside of the Muslim faith need to be re-thought because we are living in a place where Islam needs to be fitted to its new vernacular finally.  We need to be bold enough, and forward thinking enough to see that.  There I plant my foot.

Samar

Musings on Mom

When I was four, I used to imitate my mom on business calls on my pretend phone in my pretend office.  I'd rush around frantically talking to imaginary people whose names were remarkably similar to the real life people that my mom worked with.  I too, was a business woman.  When I was seven I'd sit in the bathroom when my mom wasn't home and play with her makeup.  I never dared put it on my own face though because that would be waking the beast.  But I'd smush around the lipstick on my fingers reverently, as if the magic that made her who she was was hidden deep somewhere within that tube of Bobbi Brown.  When I was nine, I'd watch my mom get ready (although she didn't know it) and wish that my hair wasn't quite so frizzy and that my glasses could become invisible so that I could be as pretty as her.  And at twelve, I'd always bury my face in her clothing so I could inhale that distinctly unique blend of facewash, perfume, and mom.  I'd smell it wafting down the hallway as she went to leave the house, and I'd stop and sniff for a moment, and wonder if that was ever something that my daughter would do.  Don't get me wrong, if you go through my diaries from my childhood, most of them are a comical soap opera about how my mom wouldn't let me do something or the other.  But it didn't change the fact that at every party, every family gathering, every public outing, I would find myself looking over at my mother after I said or did anything, looking for signs of approval or disapproval in her demure face.  When I was fifteen, I begrudgingly thanked my mom in my head as I found myself saying the same gems of wisdom to my friends that she had given to me.  I found myself repeating aphorisms about boys, and life, and self worth, and dreams that my own mother had passed on to me.  And at seventeen, my heart broke when I realized I could never be who she was.  I was headstrong, passionate, stubborn, a procrastinator, a dreamer, and for lack of better adjectives, an artsy fartsy hippie.  And believe me when I say those are nice qualities for a character in a book but not really a real human being.  Me to my mother's detail oriented, realistic, organized, steadily driven, consistent, mathematical and scientific mind, was a combination like fire and ice.  My poor father.

As a teen, in my mind, my mother was the cause for global warming, WWI as well as WWII, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the extinction of the dodo bird, the debt ceiling, and the fall of the US Postal Service.  Oh and last but certainly not least, the ruining of my life.  That's because my mom wasn't exactly a Pintrest mom that made me fresh baked cookies or told me to have a good day at school and if she ever used the word "sweetie" it usually was drenched in sarcasm and meant that I was in deep, deep trouble and she was trying not to kill me.  I learned to interpret her silence as approval and...well there was NO interpretation needed when there was disapproval.  She couldn't tolerate small talk (and if you have a teenage daughter you do a lot of that...you have to listen to who likes who and why Jennifer told Lauren that she was dramatic and like LAUREN isn't dramatic at ALL...you get the point).  If I wasn't going to talk about saving the world or getting married, my mom really didn't want to hear it.  

But as my life went on and I met girls who could only talk about other girls and hot guys and makeup, deep down I became sort of glad that I didn't have a Pintrest mom.  I had a mom that was a fighter, a warrior, a game changer.  I had expectations on me far greater than just graduating and having a job and a family.  My mom expected me to do something truly great for someone greater than myself because of all I had been given.  And while most days I could only focus on the lack of fresh baked cookies and smiles, and how hard she was on me, I was so thankful deep down that I had a challenge so seemingly insurmountable to face.  What's life if it's easy?

It's August now.  I'm packing up my whole life into boxes and staring at a terrifyingly blank new slate.  It's the beginning of the rest of my life.  And as I look around my room, I start to get choked up realizing all the unspoken acts of love my mother had done for me.  The room that she had decorated for me, the all white fairy furniture we'd picked out when I was in first grade, the poem she'd given me when my brother Zayn was born that talked about doing good even even in the face of disaster, the starfish she'd brought back for me from Mexico one summer, the calligraphy scrolls with my name on it that she'd brought back from China, and the purses she'd brought back for me from Dubai, the stack of classic novels she'd bought for me at seven and insisted I read.  It hits me then that there's never been a moment where I haven't been on my mother's mind.  I'm seared within every nucleus of every cell that makes up her body.  In every wrinkle, every smile, every tear, every drop of sweat.  I'm there.  And in that moment, I realize that often times the strongest love is the one that is unspoken.  I'd just been too immature before to understand that. My mom may not have always voiced her support for me in the typical cheerleader way, but looking back, she'd always been in my corner, even if it seemed like she had been against me.  That's because sometimes the best thing for your child, and the nice thing aren't always the same.    

A mother daughter relationship is probably one of the most complex things on the face of the planet.  It's frustrating on both ends, it's painful, and you come out of it with about 20 pounds you can't get rid of and stretch marks that don't seem to fade and a sassy little monster that resides in your home.  But I promise you, that there will be a moment where things click into place.  Where you are no longer seen as the enemy, but as the demanding ally instead.  Where we can see the good in what you did and not merely our petty frustrations.  It's a process, it takes time.  But I promise it'll happen.  Whether it be at 15, 17, 25, or 50, it will happen.  But there is a moment in everyone's life where you learn to zoom out of the tree you were looking at, and choose to see the forest instead.  

So to my Benito Mussolini, to my Stalin, to my jail master, my warden, to my teacher in sarcasm, in strength, in wit, and most importantly, resilience, thank you. You were my Mussolini, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.  I'm pretty sure I would be in jail and with some drug problem if I had a Martha Stewart as a mom because I wasn't always exactly Red Riding Hood myself.  I love you. 

My Desert Epiphany

Sometimes I'll be sitting in school in the middle of listening to a lecture on atomic bonding, or discussing idomatic expressions in Spanish, and my mind will wander off always to the same spot.  I'll close my eyes for a second, and suddenly I'll be back on the dusty streets of Cairo, listening to cars fly by, incessant honking, and the unique smell of exhaust, gasoline, and shawarma all combined together.  I'll smile as I remember being warmed up by the care of strangers on the street and the sound of Athan in the air as much as I'll remember being warmed up by the hot Egyptian sun.  And I'll open my eyes again and wonder in confusion how a place so unlike home managed to steal my heart so thoroughly.

The college search is over.  And as I sit in my car (yes it finally happened, the world's biggest clutz now can legally operate a two ton vehicle) on a bleak "spring" day, the familiar panic hits me.  What if I mess up?  What if I don't make it?  What if I realize that I'm not good at anything or that I don't have the real world skills and I end up living in my parents' basement forever and ever and have to unload the dishwasher seventeen times a day for the rest of my life?

So I start scrolling thorugh my phone aimlessly, trying to avoid the fear and stress about my future that weighs on me heavy like a boulder.  And I come across a journal entry Egypt Samar had written on her phone.  I say Egypt Samar because Egypt Samar had a lot of time to sit and look out at the Cairo sights and the Red Sea and just contemplate.  Egypt Samar saw the world in a completely different light once she was immersed in a land where poverty and wealth lived side by side.  Where she was reminded every day that she owed something to the world.  Darien Samar gets caught up in her everyday life back home and sometimes forgets just how extremely privileged she is.  She opens her extremely full fridge and complains about there being no food because no junk food is there.  Darien Samar can on occasion be heard whining about how she has no clothes to wear or how life is so unfair because she has to take three tests in one day. 

July 24th, 2012

My entire teenage life I've been preoccupied with what I now realize as the very western concept of "finding myself". When my parents announced during the middle of my junior year that we would be spending a month of summer break in Egypt, I wasn't too pleased. It was supposed to be MY summer with MY friends and MY idea of fun. Looking back, I now realize how small-minded and suburban of me that was. But finally I accepted the trip for what it was, and decided to use it as a way to figure out who I was supposed to be and to find out what it was exactly that I was meant for.

Needless to say, I was slightly irked when after a week in Egypt, I had seen no burning bushes or messages written in the sky for me. I was stuck with the same old confusion and that sense of timidness when being faced with a completely blank slate. Staring at the pyramids, and swimming with a sea of fish in the red sea merely reminded me of my insignificance to the world.

Two weeks later, on a dusty jeep ride through the desert, I started to notice the drastic difference between the quality of my life and the quality of the people's lives around me. I had no doubt that were they to see my home, or come to my school, they would be held speechless. As I stared at the thin, middle aged Egyptian man driving the jeep on a blazing day while fasting, I realized that for me this was a cute adventure. But that for this man, it was his life. This was what he had done, does, and probably will do for the rest of his life. It made me feel like God had put more responsibility on my shoulders since he had given me considerably so much more.

That night, laying out in the middle of the White Desert, out under the open stars and absolute silence, I realized that "finding myself" was a pretty stupid concept. I had known who I was going to be all along. It was as innate to me as the ability to breathe. The person I was supposed to be was already in the making. I had just been looking for an easier shortcut the whole time. You see, the person you are, the kind of life you want, the kind of relationships you desire, they don't just have some magical switch to turn on at age 25. Finding yourself isn't like a mining project where you just happen to come across the mother load, it's like a construction project-- built by a series of life decisions and life experiences. From my choice in breakfast food, to the things I chose to let myself say, moment by moment and day by day, I had been determining who I'd be all along.

As Americans, we look for the shortcut for everything. From frozen meals and prepackaged masala mixes, to shake weights and Jenny Craig programs, the American philosophy that time is money could not be more apparent. But talk to the man down the street from me who spends hours cooking fresh bread, or the woman who brings us home cooked meals, and I'm sure they'll tell you that time is much much more than money. It's an investment. After being in a Muslim county, I have fallen in love with the often neglected Muslim traits of generosity, ethicality, humility, conversation, and of course, sly humor. If I've learned anything else besides my broken Arabic, it's that attaining character is a long and arduous process. Having a quality life is much harder than having a quantity life. But it's these things that give a Muslim country its flavor and rich, memorable culture and vibe.

By the time the sun had risen, hiding away the stars and casting its bright rays on the rock formations around me, I knew that I had a lot of work ahead of me. But I also knew that I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.


I take a deep breath and face the music.  If I truly want to be a person of character, a person that is a doer, that changes things, no day is acceptable to slack.  It won't always be fun, it'll be really painful and hard sometimes, and yes, I will most certainly fail a few times along the way.  Character is the result of doing all those seemingly inglorious and boring things first like praying all your prayers, eating healthy, trying not to say mean or bad things even when you want to, and always curbing your desires and your nafs even when you don't want to.  It's these things that get you to the glorious, cool aspects of being a doer like volunteering in war zones and protesting and starting foundations and projects for the service of others.  You can't take shortcuts.  College isn't any different.  It's all in what I make of it moment by moment that will determine who I become.  There is no snap moment of failure, failure is only when you take the backseat in your own life.

There you have it, my desert epiphany.








 

To all you lonely teens

All you lonely girls and boys out there, I thought you should know, you deserve a round of applause.

To all you lonely girls,
I am no different.  I drown my solitude in Snow Patrol lyrics and cry my heart out to Coldplay
I too, foolishly hope that someone will write me 365 letters for a year professing their love.  Instead I get spam college brochures from College of Dupage.
I too dance in the rain and stare at the stars on a cloudless night.
I'm a dreamer, just like you.
But girls, lets all just keep this in mind:

Beauty isn't something some guy gives you by telling you you're beautiful,
Beauty is in your soul; the way you carry yourself, the grace with which you deal with the curves life throws at you.
And your importance to this word is intrinsic to who you are, and distinctly unique to you.
It's not defined by how many guys want you, or how many friends you have, it's defined specifically in your own strange way.
Girls, you're the strongest thing this world has.  You embody resilience.  Don't barter what makes you beautiful in exchange for a more conspicuous way of life.

To all you lonely girls, that sit at home watching reruns of Drake and Josh and Fresh Prince of Bellaire on the nights of Homecoming, Turnabout, and Prom, I too, will be sitting there with you.
I will be dancing around to Lupe Fiasco in my pjs, like the loser I am, and proud of it.
Because I for one, will never have to deal with the pain of being ditched by my date, or trying not to wipe my makeup off, or the all too painful and self esteem lowering rounds of dress shopping.
Because I for one, will be able to say that I respected myself every single moment of my existence,
Because I for one, will never have been defined by a man.

And to all you lonely boys out there, that walk down the hallways with no small hand clasping your own,
To all you lonely boys that play X-box on prom night instead of getting dressed up in your best suit and buying a corsage,
Don't listen to what society tells you.
You are men.
Quite possibly the best ones out there.  You will be the ones that can love, cherish, and respect your wives, that can raise equally strong, ethical, and genuine children.
It's hard I know,
Believe me I can empathize.
But it's worth it.

No girl will ever break your heart,
No girl will ever impede your ability to trust,
Your friends will respect you even if they don't say it,
Because in your steadfastness to the path, you will exude a confidence that will awe them.  And leave them trying to unlock your secret.
To all you boys out there, who follow rules that seem to be incredibly outdated, just remember, it's all for a reason that you may not just yet have the capacity to understand.

To all you lonely teens,
Just remember, that just when you think you're all alone,
You've got a friend up above, watching, caring, and loving.
And you've also got me.  

To my own personal superman

A few weeks ago, when I had finally climbed into bed after a long night of homework, I heard a noise downstairs and started to tense up.  But then I remembered--like I always have for the past twelve years--that my dad was right down the hall.  So I turned on my side and went to sleep. 

I am only just beginning to realize that I am one of the few girls who still sees her dad as the strongest guy in the whole world.  For the longest time, I thought that was every little girl.  But the older I got, the more I saw that most girls didn't see their dad as superman the way I did and still do.  It wasn't just in the sense of brute strength (anyone who has seen my dad knows he's not exactly 6'10 or 300 pounds), but my dad has always been an unconquearble tower in my eyes because of his character, because of the way he walked the walk in a manner that I could only hope to mimic one day.  You see, although I myself am not a man (I know my muscles may make it seem otherwise), my dad taught me what it meant to be one.  A man isn't someone with giant muscles and a macho, overly confident attitude.  A man is someone who will take in a daughter that isn't his own and love her better than if she was.  A man is someone that isn't afraid to stand up for what is right, regardless of the consequences.  A man is someone that isn't afraid to show that he has a heart, emotions, and can be caring and kind.  A man is someone that loves God.  My father is the best testament to manhood that I have ever come across. 

My dad is silent and strong.  I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever heard him complain once.  There are so many times when I have made him late for work because I am slower than a turtle in the morning (but somehow I can still be awake enough to talk his ear off on the short five minute drive to work) and never once has he lost his temper at me for it.  And I'll be the first to admit, I am a difficult daughter.  I am stubborn, scatterbrained, messy, opinionated, and at times, completely irrational.  But my father's patience astounds me.  He listens to my petty dilemmas and treats them as seriously as he would a client whose life was falling apart.  Sometimes I will have said something and look over at my dad who is completely silent, and I think he's tuning me out, only to have him give his take on the situation five minutes later.  That's my dad.  He's patient, cautious, and thorough.

I remember one day in the middle of my junior year, I was hysterical because my grades weren't where I wanted them to be and it seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to do it.  And my dad looked over at me and said "Samar, you're doing it.  You're doing it right now."  And he probably didn't realize it, but it meant the world to me to know that he was my biggest supporter, that he would be cheering for me no matter what the event was.  My whole life he's protected me wholeheartedly and determinedly, and he's managed to somehow let me stumble and learn my own lessons all while he was still guiding me.  Sometimes I'll say something, or relate my opinion on something and he'll press his lips together and stay silent.  And in his unspoken language, I know that means that I wasn't being benevolent or open-minded enough in my perspective or actions.  My father has never once told me what to believe or who to be, but I've picked up invaluable lessons on character from just watching him be him.  There are no attempts to teach or "be a role model" in the way my father has lived his life.  It's always been just him simply trying to be the best he can be, and that is probably what inspires me the most every single day.

In all of the thousands of yellings and groundings from my mom, it was the calm patience of my dad's that made me feel the guiltiest.  My dad has yelled at me probably like five times in my entire life, but everyday he teaches me something new in his own silent language.  It's his unspoken acts of love like pulling into Jewel to let me buy BBQ chips after I tell him I've had the worst week ever, or tolerating my out of tune, offbeat singing along to the radio every time we are in the car together.  It's the way he comes home after a long day of work and still manages to be energetic and wrestle and talk football with my brother and listen to my mom talk about her day or help her around the house.  If my family is a bed of flowers, my father is the soil that holds us all rooted together.  And I hope that one day I will be lucky enough to find someone just like him (minus the ever growing belly and love for fishing and lame jokes preferably). 

So to the man who is my best friend, my number one fan, my inspiration, and my hero, happy father's day.  I love you.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that fatherhood isn't just changing diapers and walking your daughter down the aisle.  It's all the moments in between.  And as obvious as it seems, that means that when you're really tired and all you want to do is watch the game on T.V., you sit down and talk to your daughter instead.  Or when you're in a really bad mood and the last thing you want to do is give your daughter a ride somewhere, do it anyways and do it with patience and love and understanding.  As John Mayer says: "Fathers be good to your daughters, for daughters will love like you do."

~Samar 

A Positive Slope

Two years ago, on the way home from school I asked my dad what he thought the best years of your life were.  "Like, would you say that college was the best time of your life?", I asked.  "Well," he said, "The average American sees life like this," and he held his hand in the shape of an upside down parabola.  He pointed to the peak and said "right here is your college years and mid twenties.  After that, in the Western perspective, it's all downhill."  "But in Islam," he said, "we see our lives like this" and he slanted his hand indefinitely towards the sky, "in our eyes, every day, every stage is better than the last." 

That conversation came crashing back to me after a discussion with my biology teacher a few weeks ago.  I had asked him if he thought I should go to a six year medical program or not, and he responded to me "well, I mean you're going to not have any vacation time, be extremely stressed out, and squander away the best years of you life.  I wouldn't recommend it."  At the time, I completely agreed with him and started to really wonder what exactly it was that I wanted out of my young adult life.  And then I realized that my life, was going to be different than the average American.  For me, my prime years were not going to be spent "living it up" because for me, my entire life would be moment by moment "living it up".  For me, every moment would be a moment to seize, to make the most of, and to enact change.  There wasn't going to be some cap or some limit to my being able to enjoy life.  In my mom's words, we'd be "partying it up until we died".  Not in the literal sense of the word, but more so that we would be traveling, living, experiencing, laughing, and worshipping all the way until we were six feet under.  That's because the Western fear of old age and esteem for youth has no place in Islam; the older I get, the cooler I'll be-minus the gray hair, of course. 

The part about Islam that most people can't really get a grip on (even me most days) is that it's a faith of extreme moderation.  For the average American, moderation doesn't mean much more than being careful about one's brownie intake at a party.  But for us as American Muslims, moderation means that we curb the desire to always be instantaneously gratified.  That we don't stop for that Mcflurry the moment we crave it, that we don't buy that new iPad the moment we hear about its supposedly amazing screen capabilities.  Abstinence makes the soul stronger, and more capable of handling the temptations that life throws its way.  Sometimes I see pictures of my friends having the time of their lives at parties, bonfires, and the beach, living their lives seemingly so carefree like it's a beer commercial.  And I wish I was them because it looks like it's something so wonderfully unique to being young.  But what I (and I'm sure others too) often fail to remember is that a picture only captures one moment.  Not the day afterwards when they are humiliated and embarrassed at what they drunkenly did, nor the years later when the depression and feelings of not reaching self-actualization hit.  After living life in such an extreme fashion, lots of adults start families and wonder why they are so incredibly discontented with their lives.  It's because after killing their inner conscience with actions that went against their natural, God-given tempering, they've had to turn to materialistic forms of creating happiness.  But happiness derived from the materialistic things in life only lasts for a short amount of time, so you see people ten, twenty years into a marriage or career, feeling unsatisfied, unhappy, and looking for anything at all to save them from themselves.

True moderation means so much more than watching what you eat and working out enough.  It means that instead of having moments of extreme joy and extreme sadness, you even it out to be a steady amount of normalcy.  Which in turn, if done correctly, can feel just like a lifetime of euphoria.  Moderation means paying attention to every aspect of yourself and developing yourself holistically.  That way, you can enjoy every singly moment that life throws your way.  And the older and wiser you get, the better you become at that balancing act, making life that much better.  As my dad always tells me, life is all just how you look at it.

So whenever my friends go on the standard rant of "well, I mean, like if you don't go crazy and have fun now and like in college, you're going to be missing out on like an entire experience! Like dude, you've never been kissed? Are you seriously going to just like get married without that experience? What about prom, and like homecoming, and like dude, your parents expect you to go party and have a little fun. You're going to be a runaway housewife that goes crazy because you've followed the rules your whole life, Samar", I always feel a little pang of sympathy for the way they see life.  And I wish so hard that I could put what I've learned in their minds too, but I know that I'm fighting a battle against a lifetime's exposure to media and stores like Victoria's Secret that advocate the exact opposite, and know I don't have a fighting chance at ever winning. 

So for all you parents out there, emphasize internal beauty to your daughters rather than external, because it's the internal beauty that lasts forever.  And teach your sons that the hot girls, nice cars, and money will fade and leave them feeling empty, but that sound character will get them to the moon and back.  Teach your children not to live their lives off of a check list, but to enjoy every single moment of their lives, and to laugh even when things aren't going their way.  After all, everything that is happening, is unfolding exactly the way it was meant to be. 
~Samar

The Best Roadmap

As teens, we are all just a step away from total collapse. One word, one rejection, one experience is enough to break us down and shatter our perceptions of who we are. It's scary knowing that we are so incredibly fragile and even scarier knowing that it's the people around us that wield the power to give us a blow that can bring us to our knees. That's why you have the tough guys that drive around and blast their music and refer to all girls as "chicks"-because then maybe people won't be able to see the confusion inside of them or the hurtful comments that they have to fight off of their seemingly unconquerable egos. It's why you meet girls who cocoon themselves in layers of personality, lip gloss, and laughter because then maybe no one can see the past in their eyes or the confusion that lies just beneath the Forever 21 clothes and Falsies mascara. We may all face it in different ways, but the bottom line is that being a teenager is scary.


As thorough products of the 21st century, my generation has grown up listening to Katy Perry sing about summer romances, and watched Drake and Josh wonder how they were going to get girlfriends. We've been wired to believe that promiscuity and needing sex-appeal is normal, and that for not doing it, we are the oddities. We grow up seeing our faith as a sort of fence restraining us from "fun" rather than an intricate roadmap that leads straight towards happiness. So when high school rolls around with its big promises, high hopes, and the beginnings of freedom, it's easy to lose sight of your grounding ethics and to relinquish them all in the pursuit of "fun".



When I was little, my mom always told me that "bad will glitter, and good won't". It wasn't until I entered high school that I fully understood the depth of that statement. The drunken pictures on Facebook, the funny stories by the kids who got high every day after school, they all made it seem like everyone was doing it, and like I was the only person actually following the rules. I was friends with all honors students, and in leadership roles within the school, and even they were beginning to doubt my way of life. My sophomore year was the first year I ever felt pressured, really pressured to do wrong. It was almost as if everyone was waiting for me to fall too, so they could validate their own decisions. I had friends tell me that I should buy tighter clothes or sneak out to Homecoming, or that I should date people behind my parents' back. I had friends dare me to take "a sip of the easy stuff" so that I could "see what it's like". I had to end a friendship with my best friend because she started making too many bad decisions and I knew it wouldn't be long before she dragged me down too. If you haven't tried to before, maintaining your coolness while still staying legal and halal (the Arabic word for legal) is pretty challenging.



Talking to some of my Muslim friends, I realized early on that I was in no means the only one struggling to keep with the lines of morality. The scary thing about doing one wrong thing is that it can turn everything else in sight gray. Lots of my Muslim friends had stories about being around friends that drank or frustrations with trying to fit in with their modest clothing in a world of yoga pants and leggings, and we all had the same sort of fear that we would be dragged down too. Because all it takes is one day, one day of being frustrated or angry and seeing what's glittery as actual "fun" and then you run the risk of turning everything in your sight gray forever.


As teens, there is a keen need for us to fit in. Despite what motivational speakers will come in and tell us, despite what that one weird hippie teacher in seventh grade preaches, within all of us lies the desperate need to be a part of some sort of an "in" crowd. That's what makes resisting peer pressure a whole lot harder than it seems. Because sometimes, fitting in requires sacrificing a part of who we are. It doesn't matter where you choose to put your child; public school or private school, Sunday school or a sports team, there will always be the forces of peer pressure around us. For me, I've learned that the best way to rise above it is to have a reason that plants itself within your heart for why you should follow the rules set down for you by God. A reason that is stronger than "it's wrong", and more substantive than "it's haram"(not permitted). Real, legitimate reasons like the effects of that negative choice on your soul, or the physical consequences, or the long term consequences that we would have been too otherwise naive to see when left to decide for ourselves.


In the lane next to you with our music blasting, we teens may seem like we don't have a care in the world. But beneath that lies a turmoil just as strong as unpaid bills or a faltering marriage. It's the turmoil within the soul: to be or not to be. The raging battle within us to find what exactly we even stand for, and who we want to be. Every day is a challenge. Because every day is the beginning of our lives. One mistake, one faulty choice can change the course of our lives forever. As a parent, you can snoop through your child's room, you can monitor their texts, you can even control who they hang out with. But there will always be places you forgot to check, texts that were deleted, and forbidden friends that they still hung out with. The best, most valuable thing that you can do as a parent is to instill within your child a firm belief in the necessity of their values. This belief will be reinforced eventually when they see the former high school partier still working at Jewel at 30, or when they see the girl that lived off of hookups be broken hearted and disrespected by the males in her life. Teach your child to love themselves and give them the best and most detailed roadmap possible.  Because there is only so long that you can be your child's moral compass- at some point, they have to become their own.


Samar

Not going when the going gets tough

As girls we fall asleep listening to stories of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.  As preteens we watch shows like Hannah Montana and listen to songs by the Jonas Brothers.  As teens we watch movies like P.S. I Love You and Titanic and as we cry our way throughout the movie, we tell ourselves that one day, that will be us too.  We listen to artists like Adele and let the lyrics like "I had hoped you'd see my face, And that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over" melt us away.  As young women, we go into the world expecting to find the love story of our lives.  But when we've hit 27 and no man has taken us to stand at the hull of a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and made us feel like we were flying, we give up hope and "settle down".  And when it's finally too late, we realize that what we did have was splendid in its own unique way, and that we spent forever trying to chase what was really only an illusion.

For the longest time, I believed in soulmates.  I believed that you lived your life trying to find them, and that sometimes you succeeded, and other times you didn't.  Then one day, I saw an old married couple dancing before a diner closed up.  That was the day that I realized it doesn't matter how much love or passion you have in the beginning, it matters how much you build till the end.  By that logic, you could marry just about anyone in the world, and with the right approach, create a marriage that worked.  Unfortunately, with magazines like Glamour and books like Twilight on the rise, the idea of "true love" and "soulmates" and idealized relationships have come to be viewed as normal and almost as expected as Biryani at an Indian wedding.

In my health class one day, we had  a discussion on how to have a healthy relationship.  "So what do you girls expect from guys anyways?", the kid sitting next to me asked.  A girl on the other side of the room answered, "We want a guy that we can trust, and that can be sweet, and understanding, and do the small things.  You know, like take care of us when we need it or like be there for us."  It sounds simple enough right?  But what surprised me was that, a lot of the girls in my class seemed to think that that was all you needed to have a healthy relationship.  I wanted to stand up and tell them that there were five languages of love, and that sometimes the way you and your partner communicated it could be in completely different ways and cause a disconnect.  I wanted to tell them that it takes more than an understanding guy to make a relationship work and that sometimes, roses or a sweet hug just doesn't cut it.  But I don't.  I keep my mouth shut, because who am I to dash the hopes and dreams of fifteen year old girls?  But walking out of my classroom, I find myself wondering if that's even a lesson that women realize through age and not just me taking the effect of my dad's therapist influence for granted.

When I was 14, my mom sat me down and told me in a nutshell "Hollywood movies make you believe in a lie".  Tough stuff for the girl obsessed with Nicholas Sparks novels to swallow.  I remember her telling me "you don't marry someone because of some special click or nonsense like that.  You marry someone because of what's in their heart.  Hollywood movies idealize love in a way that it shouldn't be idealized."  And there went my dreams of skipping through Ireland to meet my Irish accented, beret wearing soulmate.

Over the years, I've witnessed a lot of household disputes.  It normally goes like this:  my dad does something, my mom gets mad, and my dad in that infuriatingly calm voice of his, will explain himself.  My mom won't listen and then 20 minutes later, my dad goes back and apologizes regardless of who's fault it was, and somehow, they both end up laughing about it a little while later.  It's something I've seen often enough to realize is an extremely effective yet healthy way of disputing.  In every single wedding card to people, my mom writes something cheesy along the lines of "fight often so you can make up".  That's because, contrary to what most people think, arguments are actually healthy to a marriage.  Because when you stop arguing, you've also probably stopped caring.  It's the little things like that that have shaped the way I treat the relationships in my life.  I understand that long sessions of the silent treatment don't work (that and the fact that for me, being silent is virtually impossible) and that communication is what will determine the quality of your relationship.

What I'm trying to say, is that as kids and especially as teens, we need to learn how to have a healthy and dynamic relationship.  It's not instinct, because if it was, we would get in a lot less arguments with our parents.  The only way we can learn, is by watching our parents and the people around us.  Although the concept of the rise of failed relationships is not unique to American Muslims, we are certainly contributing to the demographic.  This means that it's not too early to teach your children how to learn to love, cherish, and respect one another.  And the best and most effective way to teach us, is by demonstrating it yourselves within your own relationships.

As contrary as it seems, you fall for people because of the simple details like their dimpled smile or the color of their eyes.  But what happens when the fact that they leave their dirty socks all around the house bothers you more than any look into their eyes can make up for it?  Then what do you have?  A marriage.  As parents, the most valuable gift you can give to your child is teaching them how to deal when things get rough in a relationship, so that they don't become that doomed 50% too.

Samar

Peeling Back the Bubble Wrap

It must be a strange thing to be a parent.  To be handed a squirming eight pound mass and sign your life off in exchange for theirs.  It must be strange because it reduces thirty year olds to making cooing noises and crawling around on the floor holding stuffed caterpillars with their six month olds.  It causes a parent to use every single ingredient in the pantry to bake a cake just to see what it would taste like with their curious three year old.  But even stranger than that is the fact that while watching your teenage daughter talk to you and defend passionately her point of view as to why she shouldn't have to do the dishes ever, you can see yourself.  It's mesmerizing, this mirror within your child.  And if you try hard enough, you can remember the anguish and confusion, and you swear to yourself that you won't let your child make your same mistakes.  You foolishly think that if you can bubble wrap every square inch of their world, that somehow nothing will ever hurt them.  You push out of your mind that sometimes, the real trouble lies tucked beneath their own skin, or within the folds of your family, or in the hallways of the school they spend 40 hours a week in.  And by the time they have become a teen, you have become so preoccupied with bubble wrapping any possible danger that you forget that sometimes, it's necessary to fall, in order to learn how to get back up again.     

Walking through the halls of a highschool, the layers of social strata are obvious.  There are the kids that walk as close to the wall as they can, as if invisibility is a gift rather than a drawback, there are the kids that make their life mission to stand out with dyed hair and piercings, then there are the kids that seem to succeed in every single thing they do without even seeming to try.  But despite the external differences, we are all the same underneath the surface.  We are all  trying to find just exactly what we want to live for.  It doesn't matter how much guidance and directions we are given from family and friends, at some point as a teen we will question everything we have ever stood for and believed in.

This period of uncertainty is nothing to lose sleep over-it happens to everyone, but it seems that parents within the Muslim community live their lives studiously trying to avoid the period of turmoil that their teen is bound to go through.  It's this reason that Islamic Schools seem to be overflowing with kids despite the gross bathrooms, ugly uniforms, and saucy students.  Parents feel that if their kid is surrounded by other Muslims that maybe they will keep the same values (as if values could be transmitted by osmosis) and the fact that the happenings at an Islamic School are the exact same as they would be at a public school seem to slip their minds.  From what I have seen and the long-drawn complaints/stories/rants of my American Muslim friends, Muslim parents are their own breed of overprotective.  And while many parents would argue that there is no such thing as being too safe, let me tell you: there is.  In my high school alone there are dozens of cases of the American Muslim kids that just needed to find a way to vent and deal with their parents stiffling rules.  There is the girl who sneaks mini skirts and tank tops in her backpack to change into in the school bathroom because her parents monitor EVERYTHING she wears, there is the boy who smokes pot behind the school on late starts so he can cope with his overly demanding parents, and the girl who drinks and puts an alarm on her phone so she can sober up before she gets picked up by her parents.  There are dozens more scenarios like these, and that's in my school alone.

So by now, you're probably wondering why you even had kids in the first place, and the answer to that is so that you could spend 100 grand on college, another 50 grand on their wedding, and  of course, the three in the morning calls when they really need you.  What a joy.  But if I could give any advice to parents, it would be this: let us fall on our faces once in a while-early.  As teens, sometimes we do need to touch the fire to know that it's hot.  I'm not saying that letting your kid fall on their face will work in your favor everytime, but I can tell you right now, I learned more from my mistakes than the three million groundings and lectures I ever got from my parents.  It's when you hold your kid back from making any mistakes that they go wild.  I can promise you, that with many crazy teens you see, it's not because they were born that way.  It's because at some point in time, they began to feel like they couldn't meet their parents expectations.  And although watching your kid reach for the flame may well be the hardest thing you have ever done, it may also be the most beneficial for your child.

For me, the most important thing my parents ever did was to have a relationship with me in conjunction to "parenting" me.  Through the yellings and fights and all of the emails that landed in my mom's inbox (she now reads them for entertainment), we had a relationship.  We truly lived.  Me and my mom had wrestling matches on the kitchen floor (okay we still do), and me and my dad danced in the middle of the road to Boom Boom Pow on New Years Eve, and we went out to breakfast at two in the morning just because.  It was the laughter we shared and the optimistic attitudes with which we all went about our lives that has made me able to respect the guidelines my parents set out for me.  They let me fall on my face and get hurt in order to realize that the path they had set out for me was probably the best path out there for me anyways despite all the "fun" other kids seemed to be having.  Although I'm not so sure my dad will have the whole "let you stumble and fall" approach when it comes to being behind the wheel...

Parenting, I would imagine, is like a huge balancing act.  You find somewhere on the spectrum between psychotic overprotectiveness and indifference, and try your hardest to be there.  And as hard as it may seem, sometimes the best thing you can do for your child is to pull back some of that bubble wrap so that they can learn how to deal with life when things get rough.

Samar

A Window Into My World

As teenagers we tend to think that we're invincible.  We think that we are impervious to any fatality or misfortune.  To us, the future seems like a God-given right.  But on Valentines Day I found myself at the funeral of my friend Bilal.  He wasn't my best friend, but he was a friend.  He was only 15 years old.  It made me keenly aware that each day is a blessing and not a right.  It’s a gift to be lived.



I am a teen.  Yes, I too get in fights with my mother, get grounded for texting at the table and for not being home by curfew.  But the one difference between me and the rest of American teenagers with pierced tongues and blue hair (aside from the fact that I have neither) is the fact that in addition to my American identity, I am also of Muslim faith.  As well as carrying my phone, lip gloss, and sunglasses in my purse, I also carry a scarf with me.  And in the middle of wondering with my friends what happened to K-Fed and why on earth Brittney is still trying to make a comeback, I get up to go pray (well at least I try to most of the time).  It's this constant goal of trying to attain moderation in my life that sets me apart from most teens.  Most days I delight in this task, it's like trying to separate Oreos apart and trying to get the cream all on one side (for those of you who haven't done that, it is basically the epitome of life).  But sometimes, trying to maintain who I am in a world where morality and ethics aren't well accommodated can be pretty tough.  Especially when I see so many of my American Muslim peers struggling and choosing the path of least resistance.

That's when I decided that my voice needed to be heard-and by someone else besides my mom.  I needed adults to understand that contrary to what they think, high school has changed.  Arguments with parents for the most part is like trying to convince a brick wall to walk- it's futile.  Adults think they hold all answers for everything (but if they did, wouldn't we have found a cure for cancer or a way for world peace by now?), and teens refuse to accept that and believe that they are always right (but if that was the case then teachers would be out of work).  It's a tough wall to scale and often times, parents just give up the battles and leave their kid to sleep in until 3 in the afternoon or play COD all night simply because they just don't feel it's worth the fight.  And most arguments end in slammed doors, tears, stormy silences, or if you're my parent, a four page email landing in your inbox filled with phrases like "why can't you ever understand" or "you're ruining my life!" (yes I know, I must be a delightful kid to parent).  So when it comes to issues like whether or not to go to Homecoming, or how to be modest while still wearing your volleyball uniform; issues only faced by the American Muslim teen that's still trying to be normal, it's essential that parents take the time to understand what it's like and empathize and try to age yourself backwards to the time when popped collars and jelly shoes were the most important thing on your horizon.

That's why I want adults to listen to me and not just see me as Humaira and Edmund's Daughter, or Lemon Bar Girl, but as the teen trying to give you a window into her world, so that when you're sitting in the car with your kid, battling over listening to NPR or B96, you can be able to slide yourself across to the passenger seat, and into your child's converse shoes, and see right through their eyes.  I want to tell you the struggles that we have, and the choices we face, and most importantly, how we feel about those choices.  I will admit, that as teenagers in a nation that is open and accepting to other kinds of people, and as a part of one of the most privileged groups in the world, we certainly have it good.  But that in no way lessens the struggles we face.

Samar