In my blog, I write about grandiose concepts. Concepts like patriotism, motivation, re-building our nation (Somalia), about re-integrating the younger generations, about dreams, and hope, about “positive things” generally.

But why?..

Why do I abstain from writing about my dark place where my pain, my fears, my mistakes, and my insecurities resid ?  Why don’t I validate them enough, acknowledge their existence at least, and recognize them? Why do I sight-blind myself from these legitimate “dark emotions” that most of us experience in one way or another?  Hide behind the shadow of my perfectionist self.

Recently, I stumbled on this amazing blog called “midnight blues” by Mulki. She writes eloquently and bravely about her pain and insecurities that torment her. I was awed by the amount of naked truth I connected with in her writing, her bravery was just something else, and her courage was exemplary, the type of courage that people gain only after they have been into the worst places, when there self proved resilient to them despite of all the frustration that comes out from unveiling pain and pulling it out from its roots, where it bothered you, hampered you, and tormented you for too long, to look at it right in the eye and acknowledge it and realize that it’s no longer needed or welcomed in your soul. You pull it out all together to grow flowers and beautiful things in that place it once reside, the garden of your soul!.

You know courage, just like any other feelings or emotions, is contagious. When someone smiles at us in a bad day, we automatically smile back at them and it just makes us feel better, we regain our lost positivity, and on the contrary when someone cries in front of us we ache, we feel their pain because deep down humans connect through pain, after all aren’t we emotional beings?.

Courage is not just a verb, it’s not just action a state of mind of willingness to comfort risks and hardships at whatever cost. It’s also a feeling, an emotion, thoughts that are felt in the heart, that’s aided with body chemistry hmmm hormones. But anyhow, it’s contagious, when you see people rising from their weaknesses and emerging as heroes, you tell yourself, so can I!

  I am happy to say that Mulki gave me the courage to face my dark side and face it fiercely, so thank you sister.

I don’t really remember when and where I lost touch with my real self. When was the last time I truly look down my soul and exchanged the psychological equivalent of a conversation.  What am I really experiencing down there? The raw pain I locked there so long ago and never really processed. I mastered that art of pretense and denial so good that i convinced myself if i ignore it for long enough it will just fade away, as if i never went through it, as if it wasnt there. But folly me!. When did ever raw pain just went away?!.

I am a first born, so i am naturally inclined to posses’ traits of first-born children like competitiveness and perfectionism. Needless to mention, that once you’re a first born,  parents always hold you to the highest bar on the earth. They tell you that you should always set an example to your younger siblings, that your under the watch all the f$%^g time. They constantly remind you of the famous Somali mahmah (proverb) that says “Ratiiga dambee kan hore bu raaca” the latter camel follows the preceding one.

I was always walking on en egg shell, cautious of my behavior; I learned how to wear my best behavior. How to mask my flaws, misbehavior, weaknesses, and imperfections. How to exaggerate my accomplishments no matter how small or tiny they are, to convince myself that I am well and am doing good.

 I longed for compliments; I still do, because they were a living validation from others that I am really doing well, that I am climbing that ladder that leads to the highest bar on earth confidently with no stumbles or risks taken. That Asia’s hard work is being acknowledged and payed off, that feeling was like a Heroine to my nerves that never failed to make me feel high and in the process it numbed my aching pain for a bit longer.

So i grew up to be strong, to be the rock bottom of my siblings, to be the example of ambitions and high aim, I gained the ability to motivate through encouraging them and teaching them the morals, what is right from what is wrong, and before doing so , i needed to get my shit together. To be perfect or at least to seem like a one.

I was always sacred of that dark side of myself and what it’s capable of, how it could destroy that perfect image I was busy building all these years, what people have come to believe of me as me. So I had to make it go away, disappear, or just hid it in a far-flung place in my soul where no one can see it or know about it,  I on the other hand never peaked or wearied at even my darkest hours. So I locked it away.

They say repeat a lie enough than you will eventually believe it to be true, and that’s what happened in my case. I believed I was perfect, that nothing was there to fix within me and that I’m good to fix the world and other’s pain, it even affected my course choice unconsciously, so I choose psychology to become a counselor and listen to others pain, which I considered more legit than mine, maybe it was part of my acute denial that become so strong with time it turned to a subconscious force that has contaminated all my choices.

I am ready now, I am ready for this dangerous endeavor to meet my locked up old monsters, my fears and pain. Because one can never be satisfied with himself if he knew he never even had the honor of  trying to be courageous in the face of his fears.

Am I scared?  YES. I admit that its so scary, because deep down there are so many issues buried inside me that i never cared for. I want to give them proper burial, I want to shed tears over them, look at them in the eye, acknowledge their existence then leave them and burn them into ashes forever.

 I want to awaken that sleeping monsters inside my soul and tell him that this isn’t their place to stay..i want to be in peace with myself. I am tired of hiding from that part of myself in other's pain and grieve, its time for me to get my shit together and face them all for once and forever. 

I refuse to be a robot. Robots dont feel, they dont ache nor express. Robots are programmed.I am not a robot, but surely i tried living like one. I am a human of flesh and blood, I have good and bad feelings. right and wrong feelings. legitimate and illegitimate desires.mood swings, and I sure have to be excused.
I miss myself, i miss being vulnerable and weak, i miss being taken by a power that pulls me into outside my comfort zone...i miss the wind and earthquakes that makes you feel alive all over again.

I want to feel sorry for myself, I want to cry for  myself  and cry myself into sleep, I want to feel that pain taking its natural process for me to be free from him again.

for all i know the emerging Asia might be even way more stronger than this masked Asia, with all the burden she carries and hides silently in her fears.

 I want to scream out load, scream off at the high mountains,  that I am full of imperfections, that I don't care who knows or dont, that I don't need their validations  to sustain my happiness and to feel good about my self.  NO i dont need that.  

I just long for  being human again