I despised men who accepted their fate. I shaped mine twenty times and had it broken twenty times in my hands. 

~ Lymond, Game of Kings 

deep, and deeper than the ocean

It's been a while, and after a number of failed drafts, I decided not to have another one.

Does maturity equate to fewer words? Perhaps. I feel like when I have thoughts, everything gets weighted more, towards every angle, so eventually... what is worth sharing and actually expressing becomes... more narrow and concise. Or maybe, there just isn't a point to rambling about the mundane anymore, when you've lived out more years of your life.

I had recently purchased boxes of conversation starters, for fun, and also because we started self-care days for my therapy team at work and we could use them for our team-bonding segments (which went awesomely, I have to say). Anyway, I figure they can also serve as topic starters for my blog posts, especially for the times exhaustion hinders inspiration (such as now). There's a Muslim Reflection Deck, that I'll just randomly pick from:

Prompt 142: What has been your greatest test so far and did it draw you closer or further away from Allah?

My first response to this was: NO. Haha, that's far too private for me to share to the open internet, not to mention that I have all sorts of negative feelings of... guilt and sadness around whether I have become a better person or worse off than before. This question presumes too much; I don't think I have much of a capacity to even tell when I am being tested. Sometimes we are tested with good too, and we don't know, right? Or we're heedless.

Next!

Prompt 12: What key things stop you from becoming closer to others around you?

Despite the years of consuming Brene Brown content, I find it hard to be vulnerable, although I suppose... we all do at some level. And I am very hesitant to ask or impose on others, fearing that I would overstep their boundaries. Which is why I am always fascinated by some of my more extroverted friends who often do not think twice to ask or pry or find things out about other people. I have often reflected that this was likely born out of being the eldest girl of my siblings; of being asked to fend for my self and not need adult help (or any help); not to make trouble or create trouble or add to trouble. To be good... was to be self-sufficient. That was probably one of my biggest subconscious lessons from my childhood. And something I have to continuously unlearn and rewire.

On a less heavy note, I am probably too geeky about things to connect readily with others. I don't get too excited about 'normal' things, and fangirl excessively about niche topics. And because I perceive this otherness of myself, it just adds another barrier between me and the world. In worse times, I have often felt alien but thank goodness, managed to commiserate in my alien-ness with at least E, who I feel has similar levels of caution around boundaries. E and I get along splendidly because we both have, I suppose... an understanding of that necessary self-reliance and independence, as well as the ensuing quiet consideration for the personal space that entails. I remember when were in that insanely tiny hostel on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh years ago, and I marveled a little at how we just knew how to give each other space, almost intuitively, without speaking. And perhaps because we each felt our spaces were respected in this friendship, we then allowed each other in more readily...?

So maybe, I don't know, it's about getting to a place where you understand each other's spaces, eh? Getting along with people is understanding what their personal spaces entail and maybe how to respect it, but for me, to know when to knock on others' doors less hesitantly, and open mine too.