Welcome Home, Joy

What happens when you return to yourself?

C.S. Lewis once said, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

Every day from February 17, 2017, the day of my Naqba (catastrophe), has been full of fear, with grief becoming almost muscle memory.

Deceit and pain allowed mistrust to be rooted in a heart once filled with only love and light. And all I could do was to be kind and wait for my joy to return to me. It has. At first, it was just a gentle pull on my lips to make me smile, and then eventually, I felt that familiar tug on my soul.

But grief tells me it's still too soon, that it isn't prepared to leave, that I will make the same mistakes all over again. It wants to stay and reminds me of all my Naqba's lies and accusations: unambition, youth, financial instability, inconstancy.

Grief hopes to delay its displacement by convincing me that I am and always was unworthy of anything significant. In its haste, it forgets that all lies are born from some truth, and I have lived long enough to tell the difference.