It is disappointing to write that I lost the consistency and steadfastness I began the year with. Now, I just take each day as it comes along, lament at not being productive in the evening and then, at night, resolve to do better the next day.

My laziness disgusts me, and I have no one to blame but myself, though my favorite culprit to put the blame on is tiredness. But one simply cannot be tired everyday of their life, can they? Not when you’ve barely lived two decades and have no underlying health issue.

I have not been a couch potato…oh, not at all. I do what is expected of me. I attend lectures, study for exams, etc. But the issue? WHAT IS EXPECTED OF ME. Not, what I want to do. That’s no excuse regardless.

At least I am annoyed and ashamed of myself.

With a few weeks to the end of the year, I should be writing about how good I have gotten at managing my time, how I can manage to be productive 80% of the time, how I have improved my CGPA, how I have gotten fluent in Arabic, how I have learnt to stay away from toxicity; people and situations, how I have become a better person, how I can now articulate my thoughts coherently and say, yes, this is what I want, and no, I do not want to do that. How I have completed the half-finished books I started studying, how I have memorized a significant portion of the Quran. Now, I am not doing too much, I am doing nothing at all and it is pathetic. Like me putting off writing this till a few days to the end of the month because I am ashamed of myself and I am running away from the truth is pathetic.

At the beginning of the year, I had clear goals. I knew what I wanted to achieve and the roadmap and pathways to achieving them. I was consistent, dutiful, focused. And then little by little, I started relaxing, telling myself they were just little breaks. Now those little breaks have turned into a fulltime hiatus and what can I do? I only know that I do not want to remain like this. Is this what regression is like?

I read my old pieces and I cannot believe I wrote those words. Me? What do you mean I am a writer? Yes, in a far corner of somewhere is the knowledge that I am or used to be a wielder of words, and the rawness when I read something that stings and brings me temporarily out of this haze. But now…I just do not know. In my words, ‘I got blind, and not just because I lost my glasses’.

I am straying from the point of this essay but when else will I have this opportunity to tell myself the truth. Maybe, at the beginning of the year, I deserved the name al munirah, but where has all the Noor gone to now? I am terrified, have I lost and am I losing myself? I used to try to fix the pieces of me but what if? What if I wake up with the realization that there’s nothing left at all, there are no more pieces of me to glue back? Have I given too much pieces of me out?

At the beginning of the year, I lived. I am just surviving now and it is not enough. I needed space and I got it, but maybe too much of it because now I am in this maze and I cannot find the exit.

Tomorrow I say. I’ll be better tomorrow. I’ll be different tomorrow. Different, better. But tomorrow comes and it is still the same story that I am already sick of. I have all these great ideas that I do not execute, not because I am incompetent or because I do not know how, but frankly because I have become a person that doesn’t do things. I do not want this for myself. This attitude disgusts and scares me, but what is that thing that is stopping me from making the change I so desperately need?

Myself.

So this time, I won’t say tomorrow and then wait for tomorrow. I’ll do it now. I will finish this essay and submit it without second thoughts, do that laundry I’ve been putting off, put my things in order for school tomorrow, then have a long shower. I’ll make that decision I’ve been putting off and tell them that this is what I want. I’ll attend my Arabic class I’ve skipped so much and revise my old books. And before I go to bed, I'll memorize the last few lines of the page I’ve been on for weeks. There, now. It feels nice to have set goals, something to look forward too. I’ve missed the refreshing feeling of crossing out a task on my to-do list.

TO NOT FORGET THE ORIGINAL PURPOSE OF THIS ESSAY

At the beginning of the year, I used to write consistently, but now I do not.

At the beginning of the year, I thought I needed friends but now I know I’ll be just fine. I know now that I am a person that doesn’t need eternal promises of togetherness for the sake of friendship.

At the beginning of the year, I used to feel guilty for saying no, but now I do not.

At the beginning of the year, I used to wake up by 4am but now its 5am because I have managed to convince myself I need that extra hour of sleep though I really don’t.

I am more intentional with studying than at the beginning of the year.

I cook more than I did at the beginning of the year.

I talk more now. And I do not like it.

I do not take walks anymore.

I do not take photographs of nature anymore.

Only now, while writing this, did I realize that some things have changed and others have not. And maybe it will always be like that. I should not expect or look forward to this grand change all at once, good or bad. (Definitely want good).

This is me signing off, to begin my journey to becoming a more productive myself and getting out of this (dump? situation? thing?) that I have

put myself in.