Being a woman is hard. Really hard.
Everything is exhausting.
It requires tremendous effort just to live a normal life.

For the longest time, perhaps until after highschool, I thought all girls were like me.
Then I found out that not all of them were like me.
I didn’t understand what it meant. What’s the difference?
I would always avoid thinking about the incident.
Until a black cloud formed in my mind, engulfing the memory of this incident.

I work in a pharmacy.
One day an old lady walked in with her daughter.
“Assalam alikum. Are you a miss or a mrs.?”
“I’m the pharmacist,” I replied, “Can I help you?”
She asked for some pills.
Then I heard her telling her daughter:
“It’s alright to ask her.”

They made my sister stay at home when she reached high school.
“You’ll eventually get married and stay at home,
And even if you continue your education,
You won’t work anyway,” they said.
masculinity, marriage, parents

“Are you a virgin?”
She lied and said that she wasn’t.
Just so they’d let her marry a friend of hers.
She didn’t love him, but they’re friends.
He understands her situation,
And wants to help her move out of her parents’ house.

We got engaged, and then married.
My mother never talked to me about anything except on the day before the wedding.
It was the first time we talked about boys.
She was very calm as she told me what to do and that I shouldn’t upset him.
romantic relationships, marriage, sex, parents

My first divorce was because I wouldn't have sex with him,
But there were a lot of things I didn’t understand.
My family didn’t tell me anything.
I didn’t know anything at all.
To the extent that I wasn’t quite sure what the bridal cloth was for.
domestic violece; gender violence; physcial violence; sex; motherhood; addiction; social pressure; marriage; divorce

I got married when I was very young,
As soon as I finished college.
It’s not your classic story of finding out he was a different man after marriage.
Everything was clear from the start.
We don’t really understand the meaning of the other person’s actions when we’re young.