I’ve had so much on my mind, and there is a great deal of content that I have written, but they all remain in my drafts. So much of what I’ve been going through has involved other people… for better or worse, and altogether, it is best not to put it out there. Yes, I could keep things anonymous and distort details, but I can’t be bothered. I’ve moved on.

All the writing I’ve kept to myself isn’t in vain, It has served as a form of therapy. I looked into counseling twice in the last 5 months and never went through with it, but putting pen to paper is my shit, and it works!

I have made the intentional effort to make each and every day exciting in some fashion. On some days, that means getting an overpriced scoop of gelato, espresso flavored of course. On other days, that means going for a walk downtown with a world-renowned pianist who happened to be in town for Cecile McLorin Salvant’s show last Thursday… that whole encounter felt like I was in a movie & I don’t really feel like elaborating haha.

The world works in funny ways. I’ve been going out to dance more, meeting interesting people like seafood chefs or bouncers lol. I’ve also been keeping my nails painted and polished, toes too even though the old me wouldn’t bother in the colder months, for who can even see when I got boots on? No more of that though. New me puts in the extra time to stay on point for my own satisfaction, I have literally no one but myself to impress, and it feels damn good.

On another note, I really haven’t had dreams at night for the longest, so I’ve been doing brain research and listening to self-proclaimed lucid dreamers for how they hone in on the skill. Collectively, they advise people to journal first thing in the morning about what they can remember from their dreams.

How exactly am I suppose to do this when I dream of nothing? I don’t even see darkness or something I can describe, it is as though I never fall deep enough into sleep to exit the realm of consciousness. Well anyhow, I woke up at 5 this morning and sat at my desk, all I could write of was how I didn’t know how to dream… I think I wrote a random line or two of feeling full again, not of food, but of something. Not of happiness but of something along those lines, full of something good, I don’t know an exact word for it though.

…I daydream more than I should, maybe that depletes from what I have left for when it is night. I don’t know, I’ll keep at this journaling thing and see if and when a breakthrough happens.

Peace & Blessings,

Karima O.