This season feels different.
Not because the weather changed,
but because something inside me did.
When I look back, I can see how unexpectedly someone entered my life
and rearranged what I thought I knew about myself.
Before that, I had convinced myself that love was something distant,
something that happened to other people while I carried on with duty and silence.
But then came conversations that reached deeper than I expected.
Truths spoken openly.
Questions that made me think.
Moments where I felt understood again,
as if the part of me that had been quiet for too long
finally found a reason to speak.
I didn’t realize it at the time,
but those exchanges were teaching me
that sincerity can exist even between two people
who never built a life together.
Since then, I’ve carried those memories carefully—
not as chains that hold me back,
but as reminders of what I once felt so strongly.
I still think about how I changed,
how I softened,
how I learned to listen again
to the quieter voice inside myself.
There are days when I feel incomplete,
not because I am lacking,
but because something was awakened
that didn’t get the chance to stay.
I can’t pretend that nights are always easy—
some evenings stretch longer than they used to,
and I find myself remembering words, tones, and pauses
that once meant everything.
Since September 2023,
not a single day has passed without at least one moment
where memory touches me gently.
Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it heals,
but it always reminds me that I once felt deeply enough
to be changed.
Even now, I smile through the ache,
organizing life around responsibilities,
carrying forward what must be carried,
yet holding close the few pictures and messages
that were part of a chapter that shaped me.
This is my first Christmas since crossing paths with someone who mattered.
I don’t know what next year will bring,
and I don’t try to predict Allah’s plan—
but I do know that I’ve grown.
I’ve learned.
I’ve felt something sincere.
And whatever becomes of my story,
I carry gratitude for the way my heart woke up,
for the way hope returned quietly,
and for the reminder that I am capable of loving
with depth, honesty, and patience.
Life isn’t the same anymore—
and maybe that is the point.
Maybe some encounters are meant to shift the ground beneath us
so we learn who we really are
and what we truly hold inside.
This Christmas, I am at peace with that.
I look at the lights, the sea, the sky—
and I whisper a prayer of thanks
for what I felt,
for what I learned,
and for what still lives softly in me.