Throughout the last 6 months, I've written various articles, I've touched on many things dear to my heart, and many of you may or may not have picked up on the fact that I live in my head. I have always attributed my ability to seamlessly produce reflective and creative content, or articulate my experiences to a mind that cushions the carking weight of life. I have always preferred to live life not so much in my body as I do in my mind. Much of who I am and what I ache from encompasses my fears and my inability to step outside of my mind. I often times find myself exhausted of living in fear; Exhausted of living inside of my mind.

I consider the mind to be my sanctuary. A place where no one can listen in, no one can touch and no one can find me. But for a while now I have been laying in a fetal position. I have been looking at the walls and the panels that make me nervous; my hands have been on the floor and there are cracks. Sometimes the room spins, sometimes it shakes. Sometimes there’s a storm so strong the water breaks through and I cry. The large bag in the corner gets larger day by day. It grows with uncertainty, it grows with failure, it grows with fatigue, it grows with stress, it grows with the weight of responsibility and choices, it grows with pain, it grows with the calamities of life. Every so often it will shrink with perhaps a randomly good day, a good grade or a new opportunity, but when life touches a hiccup, it grows again. And the cracks in the floor get deeper and spread in all directions. The bag is now larger than me. Too heavy for me to drag out with my hands alone. If I could even find my way out that is it. I have spent such a protracted amount of time living inside of my head and now I can't see my way out. I haven’t gone out for a breath of fresh air in years, I haven’t lived outside of my head in what feels like eons. I forgot the road to the outside and I find that I desperately need directions, and a manual on how to debunk this crushing bag of fear, how to shrink it and remove it completely. I don’t know what ever made me think it was okay to bring that bag into my mind as opposed to leaving it outside of my body where it belongs. I don't know why I carry baggage around with me. What am I saving it for? Why am I always so afraid? How did my refuge become my penitentiary?

So here I am in the most transitional and important phase of my life and fear is crippling me from the inside out. The tug of war between my mind and life show no signs giving up and if the rope snaps I don't know where it will leave me. I truly crave for peace for an extended period of time when there is nothing looming in the corners of my mind and life. A period of time where every decision, choice, and breath isn't loaded with the weight of importance and responsibility.

So here is how I will end this.

I am afraid. Of life, of failure, of tragedy, of hurting people, of being disappointed, of not fulfilling a purpose, of not doing enough, of falling short, of my expectations, of my mother’s expectations, of Allah’s expectations. Of forgetting the Deen. Of a weak Iman, of forgetting my purpose, of not being enough, of being too much, of not finding my way out of whatever life throws at me, of being overwhelmed, of cracking under pressure, of myself, of my mind, of fear.

So, I will pray first, because that I know and have above all else. I will actively work to eradicate my destructive hoarding of fears and distress. I will reach out to the corners of the world where people have stretched out their hands to help. Even when I can't reach those hands I commit myself to remaining steadfast in the belief that The Almighty Allah is watching and guiding always. I pray that from here on out anything I produce and emit whether, in creativity, essence or mind is rooted in faith and wisdom, not fear.