G'riddance, '23.

I briefly considered breaking down the events of each month this year, but with the help of the fully developed prefrontal cortex I received for my 25th birthday, I've decided to post a list of 25 things I've learned this year. I have no prior experience of writing such a list for my previous birthdays, but enjoyed reading lists from others. 

Any reader familiar with my blogging, or me in general, knows I tend to go on tangents to elaborate on particular segments to provide context for full comprehension and understanding. How else can I paint the picture to show what it's truly like to be me? There are three reasons I'm not in therapy, and this is one of them. 

While this is supposed to be a list, I'm fully prepared for it to turn into an essay outline with 25 paragraphs. 

25 things I learned in 2023

1. Winged liquid eyeliner is not a look for me. 

2. Despite the state of my room, I'm quite the perfectionist.

3. No matter rain, shine, or snow, people will STILL risk everything to get a freakin' latte in the drive through. 

4. I have zero perception of time and need to put away a whole hour to get ready to go somewhere, and sometimes even more time, only to arrive early.

5. How to be an opener for the Forbidden Coffee Shop.

6. Realized that not only do I look attractive to males but apparently also females. Send help.

7. My eyelashes grew pretty long (with the help of a serum!)

8. I can make a pretty good lookin' Frappucino (because I'm a perfectionist)

9. I AM actually as small as people say I am (I still can't see it)

10. I have driving anxiety. I can only drive 3 - 5 mins away from home without my heart racing. LOL.

11. People I don't even think about everyday are there for me when I need it. 

12. I really love raspberries. 

13. Sunrises are really freakin pretty. 

14. Every year I get more and more serious about going into modeling but I need to learn how to freaking Pose. 

15. I don't like people looking at my face. 

16. Winged liquid eyeliner doesn't look good on me, but smoky winged black eyeshadow is a game changer.

17. The Forbidden Coffee Shop (Sbux) makes some pretty idiotic decisions. 1 being getting rid of raspberry syrup, and 2 being a primary financial source for I****l's atrocities. 

18. The more time I spend with my niece, the more inclined I am to stay childless. Yes @ relatives I'm putting my amazing genes to waste because I am more than that. (I love my niece. But I could never take full responsibility.)

19. I have a cute smile but cameras everywhere disagree.

20. I'm pretty good at validating and being there for people despite having my emotions turned off at all times. I don't care about myself but you know damn well I'll risk it all for my friends. 

21. If you don't have the courage to do something, then do it scared.

22. My style changed again. I probably won't wear bodycon pants (leggings) outside anymore.

23. My characters are truly always there for me when I need an uplift.

24. People will be friends with me until I'm "too Muslim" for them.

25. I'm a lot smarter than people think I am. 

Surprisingly, the list went well without any paragraphs. I do still want to elaborate on a few points in the list. 

God puts certain people in your life to teach you a lesson, even if you think those people will be your best friend for life, romantically or platonically. As a self-sworn singleton, I'll only be discussing the platonic perspective. 

Standing up for Palestine has shown me what's truly in people's hearts, and taught me that Muslims have the most empathy out of anyone. Not that all Arabs are Muslim, but I love seeing non-Muslims on TikTok standing up for Palestine and showing interest in Islam. Unfortunately I'm not seeing the same effort and support coming from the non-Muslims who actually follow me. Of course I have to make 70 excuses for them as Islam teaches us but it's getting tough when I can see them posting so religiously about different trends/news they care about that has nothing to do with what's going wrong in the world right now. My guess is that the majority of these people don't believe in an afterlife so they're trying to make the best of this life since it'll all be over when they're gone and amount to nothing. 

I constantly have the afterlife on my mind. As much as I want to snap at or quite literally beat the sh1t out of someone, I hold back because I don't want that written in my book of bad deeds. Again, yes, I need therapy, because wanting to beat the sh1t out of somebody (with my level of ferocity) isn't normal, although warranted. Serving customers at Sbux is a great way to get irritated for insufficient compensation, and they drove me to quit, along with other reasons. The two biggest reasons I quit my job before they could fire me (they wouldn't have, anyway. I was too good for them and they were losing people like dropping flies) were 1) my time was not being respected, and 2) Is***l. No, I need not say more. 

I was being held to an unrealistically high standard. Everyone else got to dillydally and continue breaking the rules and generally be sh1t at their job and not get called out for it. But the moment I slipped up or showed frustration because of the level of incompetence I had to work with, I got called out. Parents, please do better with teaching your kids to think for themselves and work in the freakin kitchen. Especially your sons. There are THREE individual boys I'm thinking about as I write this who clearly showed no prior experience working in a kitchen setting. And not only that. Is it just natural for boys to have crappy handwriting and generally not put effort into making things look nice? Most of the women at my job put in so much more effort than the boys and actually try to do their job nicely. Men really have a privilege.

This isn't the topic I discussed initially, but it all ties together. Sbux, quitting, friends. I met great people during my time at Sbux and I don't regret working at that job for this reason. I made what I believe to be a true friend for life (nothing like the one who unfriended me over "politics"). 

What's that? You heard me? Silly me, I guess we have to get into that now. 

{To the ex-friend with selective/pretentious activism, you know who you are, and I hope you see this <3}

One of the last things I did with my friend who we'll call MC (the initials for her internet alias and no they do not stand for main character, but I like to say the C stands for clown cuz it's not far from the actual word) was have a little sleepover at my house since we had watched a ghost video and discussed true paranormal experiences (not our own, but of her family's and friend's). Understandably, we got scared, and with my family being out of town at that time, I was afraid to be at home alone, so she came over and we spent the night at my house. The next day I had work, so she dropped me off there and then went home. I believe we did meet up later so she could return my hoodie, but everything kinda became a blur after that. I know the very last time we hung out, we went to a cafe where we could work on our drawings. I was working on a drawing for Palestine and I showed it to her.

"You know what's going on there, right?" I asked. 

"Yeah." Her lack of elaboration told me all I needed to hear. I decided not to press and changed the subject. The awkwardness in her response was the same way she reacted anytime I told her a story from Islamic history.

Over the next few days, I would post updated news about the situation, while she, along with a mutual friend of ours, would post irrelevant things like relaxing with her new kitten or a nice meal she was having. Knowing what was happening in Palestine (because I'm no wimp and I sacrifice my mental health to look at the news), this all felt extremely tone-deaf. People were being starved to death as we spoke. Cats were being found under the rubble. There's no way she couldn't know what was happening IN DETAIL to the Palestinians even if she didn't watch my stories. If you have a phone, you have the news. Period. 

I became less interested in chatting with her over text because of her tone deafness and ignorance. I remember she asked me what was up, and I had replied something like "Just relaxing in bed keeping up to date with the news, hbu?" and interestingly, she disappeared offline within seconds and didn't reply until what I think was either a few hours later or the next day. Coincidence? Definitely NOT.

I am so passive aggressive. I'm not proud of this moment. 

When I posted my pro-Palestine drawing to Insta, she liked it, but didn't comment like she usually did. I didn't think much of it, but when I posted OC content on Halloween, she dropped a comment. While I appreciated it in the moment, I couldn't get out of my mind the fact that she had said absolutely NOTHING about Palestine. Later, she posted her own Halloween themed drawing and I didn't give it a like. Real horrors were happening, and people still had the gall to celebrate Halloween. Clowns. Clowns without costumes. I know she knew I had seen her drawing since she posted about it on her story and I gave the story a view. 

During our last conversation, she was telling me about what was happening at work. She mentioned there being a cook-off (or something like that) and I asked if she was partaking (with zero interest in my text tone) and she said no. Then I believe she mentioned having eaten or something and I said, "That's good, it's always nice to have food," (because people were freakin' starving) and I swear to goodness that is the last message I sent to her in an active conversation. I did send her a message later about something important but that was the last thing I sent her. 

She went what I thought was inactive for a few weeks and I thought nothing of it since she had taken breaks from Insta all summer for mental health. (Sick of those two words at this point.) 

Although I was pissed at her for staying silent on the g3n0s1de, I shot texts to her number attempting to see what was up, but I got no response. By the time I was to send another checkup text, I was already so upset that I wanted to laugh. I sent, "hey whats up man you disappeared off the face of the earth lmfao" and it was not meant as a joke. I had a good idea of why this binch was ignoring me and it was pissing me off. I couldn't just assume why she left and I really wanted an explanation, but she wasn't letting me talk to her. 

I reached out to my sister and my friend A, telling them what was going on, and they both offered to text her for me. I refused at first, but then told A he could go ahead and text her. Maybe she would actually respond and tell him something, although I knew it was highly unlikely since she met him through me and she would know I'd be involved. But it was worth a try. 

A helped me discover that she had blocked me on my personal Insta account AND my public art account. I found out later that she had blocked/unfollowed every damn account I had under the freakin sun. She even went as far as my bookstagram and my dormant craft account. This little girl did not want me viewing any of her stuff and she sure as hell didn't want to see any of my sh1t anymore. (I post about real life sh1t, sorry I can't be her, damn)

During all this, our mutual friend was watching my stories and also staying silent. We'll call her Bozo (similar to her internet alias). I didn't interact with her at all during all of this, but I found out that she had done the same thing: blocked me everywhere. I was left to assume Bozo had coerced Clown into detaching from me since I was posting about the truth and they didn't like it. Hmm. That's what my sister suggested, and I'm just gonna have to go with it because that seems like something they, but mostly Bozo, would do. 

I met Bozo and Clown in animation class at school 5 years ago. I was never too close with Bozo, but I always thought Clown was the nicest person in the world. And she truly did care for me at some points. She taught me how to drive, she stayed with me at the hospital when I had cancer, and she spent a lot on gifts for me. She probably is still somewhat like that, but now it's just harder to believe. 

Sometimes people don't speak out about things like this so they can maintain their "cool" image to others in their circle. Clown had recently begun going out with a guy, and although nothing was made official I could tell she liked him since she would refer to him as "the boy" instead of his actual name. I know from personal experience that it's hard to say the name of a guy we really like. I'm guessing that caring about Palestine would make her look uncool to him, but now we're just getting outrageous. 

Remember a few years ago when Black Lives Mattered? Clown posted a black square for it on Insta. No caption, just the square. I remembered that and I referenced it on my stories. I guess that's why she blocked me from seeing anything from her. Because I was a witness to her selective activism and was being passive aggressive about it. Never mind, that's hardly activism. That was just a trend for her. I don't remember who said it, but someone said "You don't want to be a good person. You just want to look like one." And truer words have never been spoken. 

Clown, if you had unfriended me under any other circumstance, I would probably be upset. But the way you left was extremely immature and I am disgusted at you. Not only for not communicating before leaving, but for showing you don't care about Arab lives. Remember when you and Bozo were saying how you'd love to learn Arabic? And then you both looked at me? I'm not Arab. I can't speak Arabic. I don't understand it. The most I can do is read it. And that's it. Not all Arabs are Muslims. Not all Muslims are Arab. I'm a freakin' Asian. Islam was preached and spread in an Arab country. That means non-Muslim Arabs existed before Islam was fully spread and everyone converted. Might I remind you that Islam is a RELIGION, not a culture? I remember that review you left for my book on Amazon. You started it with "Coming from a different culture..." and I know you meant religion. Was it an honest mistake? That wasn't the first time you confused culture with religion. 

You don't need to be Muslim to support Palestine, you just need to be human. And evidently, you don't need to be old to be mature, because Bozo and Clown are both older than me and left in the most immature fashion possible. 

It just freakin blows my mind how little people care about others. 

I know you two don't think the Palestinian g-cide affects you since it's overseas in an Arab country and you think I'm talking about it only because I'm Muslim and you think all Muslims are Arab. And that's disgusting of you. I hope you find your humanity. And I better not see you at ANY Arab/Middle Eastern restaurants until you can appreciate the PEOPLE. 

Fun fact: Jesus was born in Bethlehem (the REAL name is Bayt Lahm)!

Good riddance to 2023, and to people I won't be bringing into the next year. 

Until next time! :)