Chapter 1 The Girl I Used to Be
There are some versions of yourself you never completely forget.
The little girl who didn't understand why her father couldn't walk.
The girl who watched her mother work until she was exhausted and still somehow found the strength to keep going.
The quiet child who preferred peace and being alone, but was often misunderstood.
The teenager who thought she understood love.
The girl who made mistakes and carried them like secrets buried beneath her skin.
And then there was me.
Twenty years old, sitting on the edge of my bed with my university bag on the floor and a few crumpled notes in my purse.
I counted the money again.
Once.
Twice.
Then I laughed quietly.
Not because anything was funny.
I just didn't know what else to do.
Tomorrow, I'd have to figure out what I could sell.
Maybe snacks.
Maybe something else.
I'd figure it out.
I always did.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder when I actually learned how to survive.
Maybe it started when I was little.
I don't remember much about the time before my father's illness changed everything.
I was only a child.
Too young to understand what sickness meant.
Too young to understand why other children could run to their fathers while mine couldn't walk.
I just knew that something was different.
My mother became the kind of woman who didn't have the luxury of giving up.
She worked.
She provided.
She cared for my father.
She cared for us.
And she kept hoping that somehow, things would get better.
There were attempts to find treatment.
There were people who helped.
There were moments when we thought maybe things would finally change.
But life doesn't always listen to the plans people make.
Eventually, there were things we simply had to leave in Allah's hands.
I didn't understand all of that as a child.
I only understood that my mother was strong.
And that my father kept trying too.
Even when life had taken so much from him.
At some point, I left home to stay with my uncle.
I was still young.
It wasn't because I didn't love my family.
If anything, I loved them more than I knew how to explain.
But life had its own arrangements.
And somewhere along the way, my cousin became more than just a cousin.
She became my person.
My sister.
My safe place.
Someone I could laugh with, grow with and simply exist beside.
I was always a quiet child.
I liked peace.
I liked being by myself.
People sometimes thought I was scared or that something was wrong with me.
But the truth was simpler.
I just enjoyed my own company.
I could run errands, help around the house and go about my day without needing to be surrounded by people.
I didn't know then that being quiet would become one of the ways I protected myself.
As I grew older, things became more complicated.
Especially love.
Boys started noticing me.
I noticed them too, of course.
But relationships weren't something I wanted to take seriously at first.
My family had their own beliefs about these things, and I didn't want to disappoint my mother.
There were childish crushes.
There were things I thought were love but probably weren't.
There were relationships that didn't last.
And there were people who wanted things from me that I wasn't ready to give.
I learned very early that saying no could make someone change.
Someone could tell you they loved you and still pressure you.
Someone could call you special and still hurt you.
And sometimes, the person you trusted most could become the reason you were afraid to trust again.
I learned that lesson in a way I wish I never had to.
There was a time when I trusted someone who didn't deserve that trust.
Something happened to me that I couldn't understand at first.
Something I didn't know how to talk about.
Something I kept hidden.
I blamed myself for things that weren't mine to carry.
For a long time, I hated the girl I used to be.
I wondered why she didn't know better.
Why she trusted.
Why she went there.
Why she couldn't have prevented it.
But as I grew older, I began to understand something.
Sometimes the younger version of you was simply doing the best she could with what she knew.
She deserved compassion too.
Then came university.
A new chapter.
A new environment.
A new version of me.
Getting admission felt like more than just getting into school.
It felt like proof that all the struggle hadn't been for nothing.
But university wasn't suddenly easy.
There were school fees.
There were needs.
There were days when money was a problem.
There were days when I had to think about what I could do to make something for myself instead of waiting for someone else.
So I started trying things.
I learned.
I sold things.
I experimented.
I made mistakes.
During my first year, I started frying chin chin and selling it around my faculty.
It wasn't some huge business.
It was just something I could do.
And when I noticed people were buying, I kept going.
Later, someone else started selling something similar.
I could have stopped.
Instead, I changed direction.
I started selling peanuts.
Because I slowly began to understand something:
What is meant for me will not pass me by.
I don't have to fight another person for what Allah has written for me.
I only have to keep moving.
University also gave me something money couldn't buy.
Friends.
People who became sisters.
People who cared about me, checked on me, encouraged me and wanted to see me happy.
There were days when I wondered how I would survive certain things without them.
And then there was love.
Real love.
Or at least, what I finally believed real love could feel like.
I had loved before.
I had been in relationships before.
But nothing had lasted the way this one did.
For the first time, I found someone who made me feel understood.
Someone who could correct me when I was wrong without making me feel worthless.
Someone who valued my opinion.
Someone I could imagine building a future with.
We weren't perfect.
Far from it.
We argued.
We misunderstood each other.
We hurt each other sometimes.
But somehow, we kept finding our way back.
And that mattered to me.
Because I had never been good at believing that things could stay.
People left.
Things changed.
Promises broke.
So when something stayed, I noticed.
My faith was another thing that stayed.
There were times I wasn't as strong as I wanted to be.
Times when I questioned myself.
Times when I cried while making du'a because I didn't know what else to do.
But I never truly wanted to let go of Allah.
I kept believing that hardship couldn't be the end of my story.
That somewhere beyond what I could see, there was ease.
I also had battles with my health.
There were periods when my body and my mind felt like they were fighting against me.
There were moments of weakness.
Moments of fear.
Moments when I wondered if I'd ever feel completely okay again.
But I kept going.
Slowly.
Quietly.
One day at a time.
And somewhere between all those things, I became someone I didn't recognize at first.
I became stronger.
Not because life became easier.
But because I learned that I could survive difficult seasons.
I became softer too.
I still cared about people.
I still helped when I could.
I still wanted to see the people around me happy.
Maybe because I knew what it felt like to need someone and not know how to ask.
Maybe because I knew what pain felt like.
Maybe because I never wanted someone else to feel alone if I could help it.
I still had dreams.
Big ones.
Small ones.
Dreams about school.
Money.
Family.
Love.
A peaceful future.
A life where my mother could finally rest and enjoy the things she'd worked so hard for.
A life where I could look around and say, Allah really brought me through.
I didn't know exactly how I would get there.
But I believed I would.
Because I'd already come too far to stop now.
I looked down at the money in my hands.
It still wasn't enough.
But somehow, it didn't scare me as much as it used to.
I placed it back inside my purse and looked around my room.
The girl I used to be would probably be surprised by the woman sitting there.
She wouldn't understand how she'd survived everything.
She wouldn't believe that one day she'd be sitting in a university, making plans for her future, building little businesses, loving people deeply and still believing in tomorrow.
She wouldn't believe that the things she once thought would destroy her had become part of the reason she became stronger.
And maybe that's the beautiful thing about life.
You don't always see yourself becoming.
Sometimes you only notice when you look back.
I thought about all the mistakes I had made.
All the things I wished I could change.
All the moments I wished I could go back and handle differently.
But I couldn't.
The past was already written.
I couldn't rewrite it.
I could only decide what I would do with what remained.
So I stopped hating the girl I used to be.
She had made mistakes.
She had been hurt.
She had trusted the wrong people.
She had cried.
She had been scared.
But she had survived.
And because she survived, I was here.
I looked toward the window.
The night was quiet.
I whispered into the darkness,
“You've come far.”
For the first time in a long time, I believed it.
Maybe my past would always be part of me.
Maybe there would always be memories I couldn't erase.
Maybe some scars would never completely disappear.
But they didn't have to control where I was going.
I smiled.
Because I finally understood something.
I wasn't the girl who had been hurt anymore.
I wasn't the girl who had made those mistakes.
I wasn't the little girl who didn't understand why life was so hard.
I was becoming someone new.
Someone stronger.
Someone softer.
Someone who still had a long way to go.
And maybe that was enough.
Because my story wasn't over.
Not even close.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Tomorrow would come.
And whatever it brought with it...
I'd face it.
I always did.
Because my past could always be part of my story.
But it could never own my future.
My past couldn't meet me here.
