Monday, December 25, 2017

Cinderella's Survival Story



When the clock strikes 12:00 Cinderella appears, and by that I mean I’m overcome with this urge to suddenly clean and dust the nooks and crannies of my room that sometimes I neglect but keep simmering on the back-burner of guilt in my mind. After finally releasing my book, doing its initial launch tour, finishing the first half of the edits for someone else’s book, and completing all doctorate applications, I wanted to celebrate. I think I’m part Monica Gellar. Hey, if she found her Chandler Bing, I think I’ll be just fine.

There was another underlying reason I had to clean—God wanted me to. If you’re a follower of Lady Narrator, you know that I repeatedly bombard you with my mantra of, “Everything happens for a reason.” There are no coincidences.

Two days ago, a man reached out to “advise” me about my social media posts. (Yes my friends, this is going exactly where you think it is going.) He started out with a supposed disclaimer that he is not the only man who feels this way—as if that would soften the coming blow. I smiled, gesturing for him to continue because I’m not one to shut out potential constructive criticism. The advice was this: My social media posts allude far too much to my experience with domestic abuse and domestic violence awareness overall, that “men” (emphasis on the quotations) are too uncomfortable to approach me, pursue me and date me because it gives off the impression that I carry “too much baggage” and am not yet over my ex. (Are y’all in stitches too?) Apparently all my posts on Syria, of cute adorable children, and motivational humanitarian initiatives are invisible. I should talk to Facebook about that.

I smiled wider at the ridiculousness of it all because this is what we women will eternally deal with when we stand our ground and remain strong and vocal about any cause, not only domestic violence. First of all, it’s such a shame that this is what men have become today; so intimidated and threatened by an awakened woman. F.Y.I. this is why a good number of Muslim women are turning to non-Muslim men. While double standards and sexism still prevalently exist outside of our Muslim spheres, it is quite a few notches down. Non-Muslim men praise women like me for our activism, and for maintaining these efforts while still wearing our faith proudly, headscarf included. I’ve heard it three times this year from non-Muslim men. This year, alone, I have heard four Muslim men tell me this soft fabric on my head turns them off and prohibits them from seeing me. Must be so sad to be so weak. (No, I’m not sorry for that harsh comeback. I’m tired.)

Habibi, if this kind of soul and spirit scare you and your friends, then half my job here is done. I am not looking for fearful and insecure. I’m looking for proud and relentless.

Did I choose to be in an abusive relationship? The notorious victim blamers and shamers say yes, because I didn’t leave sooner. Did I see the red flags? I did, but they weren’t as red as the fear and threats that came when I tried to call off the engagement, then the wedding, then the marriage. Am I sorry for going through it? No, and neither am I apologetic for the activism it thrust me into. Does that mean I’m not “over it” and that I’ve got baggage? No! It means I am SO over it and ready to fight hard to end this vicious cycle. So maybe what’s really affecting these “men” isn’t so much that I, and other survivors, appear to have too much baggage anchoring us down, but rather that we have proven our capacity to own our own strengths, and that intimidates them from pursuit?

But vulnerability kicks in. At the end of the day, I am still human, and on top of that I am still a woman in this man’s world. No matter what we do, we find ourselves at a sickening impasse, victims of attacks we didn’t even know people thought we were deserving of, while having fought our own battles.

As I was dusting, finding old books I promised myself I’d read (and never did), books I plan on reading in 2018 and photos that made me smile so wide, I couldn’t help but think of those inadvisable words. What the hell am I posting that’s so problematic? Do I need to tell the world that I moved on so far that two years after my divorce, I met someone else, fell in love with him and then ended it when disrespect and toxicity became evident? Do I need to justify what words I produce in my poetry, even as a valid artist and published poet? Since when did anybody have the right to question what the hell I should or shouldn’t write? Post? Do?

The beauty of art is in fact its liberating power. Just because I still write poetry about abuse, doesn’t mean I’m not over it. Just because I write poetry about a man who wasn’t too good to me, doesn’t mean I’m only talking about my ex-husband. I could be talking about the man who thought it was appropriate to demand I send him nudes. Or the man who I thought was a friend and ended up playing me for months to try and get me in bed. Or the man who, in the middle of a conversation about social policy, asks me if I know any “sluts” because masturbating is no longer cutting it for him.

I could go on and on about the inspiration behind my words and my work, but then again why are women expected to justify our…anything? What man is asked to justify his poetry about heartache or abuse or racism? They are elements that exist in this day and age and when we ache or have ached and survived it, we reserve the right to speak about it till death. These are our causes.

Needless to say, I was aggressively using that Swiffer duster across my desk, wondering where this guy comes off and remembering he had been trying to “reach out” since my divorce. I guess there’s that hostility that comes when you don’t give men the attention they demand, and for some reason, believe they’re entitled to. I knew his intentions were iffy and so I refused to answer him. Plus—not that I need to provide him or anyone with an explanation—in the first six months post divorce, I was rejecting a good majority of those “reaching out” because unfortunately, I knew that many were simply seeking the juicy details of why this festival wedding marriage ended abruptly when it looked like happily ever after. Some were even upfront about that intention, which I appreciated but was still appalled by. How does someone react when a peer says, “Hey, I’ve been hesitant to reach out, but honestly, I really just wanna know what happened.” *insert meme of surprised dude*

In between nooks and crannies, I found receipts, stuffed beneath photo albums and files for my nonprofit, A Country Called Syria. They were sitting next to a large legal sized white envelope I thought was where I had all the paperwork for the nonprofit, but when I pulled it out a restraining order fell at my feet.

No lie, the sight of those words shook me and I froze, disoriented to what I was looking at, and suddenly I went back.

I was 24, exhausted, and sick of seeing the jade and salmon colored building again and again. The sounds of my stilettos echoed so loudly against the cobblestone path towards the family court. I wondered why I was doing this on my own. Then I remembered I didn’t want to deal with lawyers. A marriage of a few months really carries with it minimal assets to divide, right?

An incident had happened the night before that made me genuinely pursue the process to filing a restraining order. The packet to file a restraining order was as thick as the divorce packet. On top of that, to file, you’re mandated to take a course (and if I recall correctly, there was a hefty fee) and none of the hours worked with my new job schedule. I realized that I may not be able to move forward with it and wondered if I would be safe without it. It wasn’t too long before I was surprised with bad news that entailed the silver lining of no longer worrying about filing an R.O.

When I snapped out of the flashback, I was overcome with burning anger. Not at my ex, but at this guy who thinks he has the right to “advise” me in such a patronizing manner, when it’s not only none of his business, but unnecessary. I felt like I was being stripped of my right to be a survivor of all of it. I looked at those thick pages, my handwriting all over those copies of a file for marital dissolution. He wants to tell me I cannot speak of this in order to raise awareness and aid others? He wants to tell me this turns away men? Intimidates them? Newsflash! Any “man” who finds that intimidating or a turn off is not quite at man-level. He is still a boy, incapable of yet comprehending not only the complex realities existing in life today, but also the humanity of a woman. Welcome to the 21st century!

And yes, being a survivor means that whoever chooses to be with us is choosing to take on the history we carry, just like we would be agreeing to take on whatever history our partners carry—even if they weren’t survivors of abuse. It doesn’t mean we’ll unleash the past on them or treat them as if they were our exes. Whoever comes to me is meeting the me that I have become. Like in any other relationship, it’s a “take it or leave it” situation. I can’t believe I even have to justify this for not only myself, but other survivors as well. This is called an adult relationship.

So let me wrap it up for you. If you “men” (emphasis on the quotes and emphasis on the absence of the world “all” before men) are emasculated, threatened or uncomfortable with a survivor’s resilience, activism and vocalism, please reassess yourselves and not the survivors. Time passing and healing do not strip us of our rights to claim our scars as our own—as learning tools, as mechanisms to awaken others. We were ironically gifted this burden unbeknownst to us and we use it wisely. Do not go around advising us on how to be survivors or activists. Also, if you’re going to walk around, puffing your chest with pride in being a “#MeToo women’s rights solidarity bro,” your job is simply to amplify the volume on that mic we keep trying to speak into—with your male privilege—not filter us down to a silent comfortable tone.