A Birthday Wish

I posted this last Friday on my birthday and it garnered a lot of likes and positive reactions on Facebook. In light of all that has happened in the last few weeks, I had to unload some of the heaviness in my heart. Thank you for reading.

"Today is my birthday, yet on my way to work I had tears running down my face. Black people fearing for their lives, Muslims fearing for their lives, LGBTQ communities fearing for their lives, police officers fearing for their lives, innocent people around the world going about their day fearing attacks and slaughter. So much violence, pain and fear.

I was at Eid prayer this past Wednesday in a park in my hometown. The Muslim community has grown so large that we cannot all fit in the mosque, so we had our morning prayer in a public park. The day as beautiful, sunny and peaceful. Yet my heart was dark and cloudy with dread. I looked up as people began to pray and noticed that there were men from the mosque posted around the prayer group, scanning the environment. I realized that instead of praying they were playing the part of security, trying to ensure our safety. My sister even whispered to me before that "do you think they hired security?". Security. For a peaceful prayer at a park in America.

I mourn for the black community, I have never stopped mourning for the black community. I have worked alongside my brothers and sisters from this community since I was 16. My heart is heavy with devastation after seeing the two videos that are in a long line of execution videos, because the systems that criminalize the crime of too much melanin in our skin will not admit their mistakes, they will not concede the need for change.

I mourn today for police officers who were gunned down in Dallas. I have great regard for police that do serve and protect their communities. Once my mother was lost on the highway and flagged down a police officer for help because she didn't know how to get home. When he told her how, she realized she didn't have toll money and the police gave her money for her toll. She was so grateful to him for his generosity and help. On the other end, my husband, who is of Latino background has been routinely profiled and stopped for no other reason than the fact that he was Latino, and based on that alone he was handcuffed to the side of the road and had his car searched because they thought he had drugs. My husband was a Marine, he even has a Marine sticker on his car.

I mourn my community in Bangladesh, as they reel from a terrorist attack in an area full of family members and friends and where my parents lived before immigrating to this country. I mourn for Syria, Baghdad and Turkey. I mourn for Orlando and for the LGBTQ community that have shared their safe spaces with me, no questions asked.

I mourn for all the families, parents, children, siblings and friends who have lost and are losing people here and abroad to anger, violence and rage.

In the end all I can hope for is that each one of us works to make the world a better place in the realization that peace, equality, and empathy are all values we can carry and act on, not only in our daily lives, in our work and in our efforts for justice but also something we demand from the institutions that govern our lives.

You aren't supposed to tell people your birthday wish but that is my wish, this and every birthday."

Love,
Nadia

Happy Birthday to Me: Motherhood a Year Later

Every time you celebrate your birthday by going to town on an obscene amount of shots, or by partying the night away, or eating a pint of ice cream in your pajamas, what you are also celebrating is the day a woman's body pretty much ripped itself in half to give you life. Since we are not in the matrix yet (or are we? ::shifts eyes::) this is true of every single human being in existence ever. For me, this is not just my son Zakir's birthdate, this is my first year anniversary of being a mother.

Me right after birthing Zakir trying my hardest to smile. My face says it all.

At 1:44am a year ago, I gave birth to my son. I was in labor for I suppose about 20 hours, but it wasn't so bad once the drugs kicked in. Drugs were so awesome. I don't think I could thank modern medicine enough for giving me relief during labor. Cool beans to ladies who have done it without drugs, but life is enough of a struggle for me than to make child birth one of them. It chilled me out enough to facebook post during labor and take some nice naps in between throwing up. Because as happy as the epidural was, the pure force of labor still made me vomit all over my mother and the nurse.

SEEN HERE : not me

Motherhood has changed how I look at everything. I don't think being a mother is any different if you physically give birth or adopt. I think loving, caring for and raising a child is one and the same. I also don't think motherhood is a good fit for everyone and that women who choose to never have kids shouldn't be asked constantly to justify their no child status or pressured into having any.  I also realize that motherhood is a privilege, there are women whose greatest wish is to give birth to a child, and for many that deep desire remains unfulfilled. Then there are the mothers who have experienced miscarriages, stillbirths and the loss of an infant or child. For them once they are a mother, they will always remain a mother to that child. In my life I know women who fall under each of these categories, and though I will never pretend that I understand all of their individual experiences, my feelings towards these different situations has only deepened in understanding and respect after becoming a mother myself.

With this is mind I can speak that for me motherhood in this first year is indescribable. I think that's the only adjective that really fits. I described it on my Facebook as "A beautiful, vomity, bloody screaming mess with lots of poop. So much poop. And hugs." I mean really, that about sums it up for me. Motherhood is so damn visceral, in every possible sense. We decorate moms and babies in pastel colors, with a halo of peace and love. Society makes it so serene, so perfect. 

SO PEACEFUL

Scrap that, motherhood is badass, it's bloody, it's nature, full force. I'm not talking camping nature. I'm talking lions ripping wildebeests apart, volcanoes erupting, dinosaur extinction nature. The hurricane force that goes through your body when you expel an entire person out of your being is the very core of existence. Raw, unhinged and wild. It was so intense that my brain literally forgot things and fogged out my memory from remembering the hardest parts, it was that physically traumatizing. There is a purpose to this convenient memory lapse, this is so I will want other children. Because believe me, I do want other kids,  nature and my cuddly awesome progeny has tricked me into thinking it's a good idea.

Nature is beautiful

But why is it a good idea? I'll tell you why, because motherhood has changed me. Everyone says it does, but it's so true. I'm still the same person, not even an ounce more mature or put together, but definitely trying a lot harder. Because frankly I have no choice. I have to put on my big girl pants for Zakir, because if I don't no one will put them on for me to raise him. Okay, I lied, my mother helps me tremendously and has been his primary caretaker when I returned to work. My mom helps me with my mommy big girl pants. 

Thanks mother, for helping both my and Zakir survive our first year together

More than that, I feel like my blood, my brain, my heart and my entire being has changed (scientifically it actually has). And I'm not talking about the 20 pound weight gain and missing sexy abs. It feels like my heart got carved out and filled in with something different, and that 'different' is my son. I know I may still have new mom hormones surging through my body but the way I feel towards Zakir is overwhelming if I actually stop to think about it. When he's making super high pitched noises coz I stuck him in his playpen again, or when it takes 2 hours to feed him one meal, the love feeling is kind of taken over by the "oh my god you are so annoying" feeling. But there are magical moments, when I hold him tightly against my chest because that's the only way to calm his yells for "mama, mama, maaaamaaaaaa" or to calm him if he's feeling sick or sleepy. Moments when I watch him sleep at night, tears flow freely from my eyes. Tears of the purest love, intense, overwhelming, I-will-die-for- you, move-the-earth-for-you kind of love. Literally he's a piece of my soul that decided to detach and join the rest of the world outside me. And that's excruciating, it's overwhelming, it's maddening, it's exhilarating, and I guess, well, it's being a parent.

Outside of these off the wall feelings during this first year,  I am just damn grateful.  I would like to pat my mom on the back for helping me keep my son alive and functional. I want to thank all of the friends who have absolutely spoiled my family with gifts, support and love. Seriously, my home is overrun with toys and baby stuff and I bought none of it. NONE OF IT.  They basically made sure Zakir has been clothed so far. I want to thank my fellow mothers who checked in on me and understood when for the first 3 months of Zakir's birth I felt like an absolute crazy person, and frankly hated being a mom. For the first 3 months I wondered why I didn't use birth control because Zakir was awesome but I felt terrible. Not depression as much as physical pain from breastfeeding and birth recovery, guilt at not knowing what the hell I was doing, weight gain I have never experienced and trying to get back to a life that has irrevocably changed. Thank you moms for making me feel less like a wild animal and more like a regular female who had just shaken her world from its core forever. Thank you to my husband, frenemy, partner, good-looking baby maker, Roberto, for taking this journey with me as we navigate our lives as new parents, as a couple, as people wanting to advance our careers as we try to navigate mountains of debt while unsuccessfully (so far) buying a home for our family.

While writing this post, it turned 1:44 am, the time of Zakir's birth. I took a break from blogging to give my sleeping angel koala baby a kiss Happy Birthday. The tears came again, I could barely even choke out the "Happy Birthday" part, and when I kissed him, my tears glistened upon his perfect sleeping face. He's perfect, who knows if I will think that when he's a hysterical toddler and an annoying angsty teenager who listens to music I hate. But for now, he's perfect and part of me thinks, angsty teenager or not, I will always think so.

I'll love you anyway kid.

Nadia 3.0

Often, younger people speak about how 'old' they feel, sites like Buzzfeed post multiple nostalgia lists where Generation X/Yer's wax poetic about how ancient we are.

SRSLY THO GUYS, can you believe BSB is this old now?? WE R SO ANCIENT

There's a great quote that I read stating that "Growing old is a privilege denied to many".

I've lost enough amazing people in my life to realize that this sentiment is very true, so I will very much spare people complaints of how old I feel, since I'm not old...at all. That is until I hang out with teenagers and college students, because then I realize I just want to yell at them to turn down their music and get off my lawn.

Get away from me with your YOLO

What I will say is that I am happy my 20's are over...seriously, SO happy that it's over.

I feel like not enough people my age actually think that, most are pretty devastated that their 20's have come and gone. Perhaps because they held our college days, when people were young, sexy, wild and free? Maybe some people had hot love affairs, or just affairs, or traveled around the world, went to awesome concerts and partied their nights away?

I had an amazing college experience in my 20's, to this day it held some of my best experiences ever. I partied, not too hard, but yes had great social times.

But I'm going to keep it real, my 20's were HORRIBLE. If you asked me to define my 20's, I would say that that it was defined by trauma, uncertainty, insecurity, fear, heartbreak...and more trauma.

If I could go back in time and see my bright, shining, happy-go-lucky face as a 20 year old, I would grip myself by the shoulders and say "I am so sorry, but everything will go to hell, over and over again, and then it will go to hell again".
And if my 20 year old self looked to me for comfort or advice to rely on during these trying times, I would just say:

 

Because that's all I could have done is braced myself! There was no wisdom or good advice that would have made any of it easier to handle. Seeing my family go through unbelievable fathoms of despair for YEARS as my mentally ill father was set up and sent to jail for a victimless crime, from when I was 21-27 off and on, to going through intense romantic heartache and confusion, to having no economic or job security and private loans that threatened to financially drown me forever; I have to say that making it to my 30's has been an ACCOMPLISHMENT.

In my 20's I tried to hold it together as our systems worked to decimate my family, I tried to hold it together when I got a call from my fathers prison because prison guards beat him so badly that he almost died. I also thought that I would go to medical school, then law school before realizing (after taking all the important exams) that the reason I could hardly pass any of them was because of a long term undiagnosed learning disorder...due to, you guessed it, severe emotional trauma.

I moved cross country at age 26 for love. I thought coming to California would be a glorious adventure full of sunny days, warm nights and fulfilled dreams. Instead what I got was a completely collapsed economy and a very ill suited job experience that drove me into unemployment with no benefits until I fought for, and won them back myself (with the help of an angel from a local union). What I also got was no friends, no jobs, and backed up loans...oh yea and a father that was put back into prison by a corrupt legal structure.

my 20's

It's nuts to think that a good chunk of my 20's was me hoping to not end up homeless and crazy. I wish that was an exaggeration. The past decade broke me, plain and simple.

But I made it, know why? Because of people, because of people who loved me fiercely and completely. People who believed in me even when I was literally and figuratively scrunched up into  fetal position. People who let me live in their homes for free, people who paid for my therapy, friends who stayed up with me all night to hear the same complaints and fears over and over again without complaining...not even once.

Because of mentors and bosses who took a chance on me to hire me and give me the space to grow and explore my talents. Because of people who encouraged me when nothing I did seemed to go the right way. Because of a man who drove me crazy and who I drove crazy, but who decided that I was still the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Somehow, it's worked out so far

These are the reasons that I am 30 today, because of all of the love, care, devotion and time from countless people who each gave me gifts of hope that grew big enough to give me the strength, perseverance and  fortitude that I hold today.

Sometimes you need people to tell you that you are good enough a zillion times when life is constantly beating you down and showing you the exact opposite of that. I was lucky to have those people. They helped me pick up the pieces until I become some half-healed cobbled up proverbial Frankenstein's monster. In pieces but at least somewhat put together.

As my 30's begin I have to say that I am relieved and excited. I have more confidence, I am in the best shape of my life (take that, hot 20's), and frankly I KNOW that hard times will be ahead, I know that life is full of landmines. But this time, no matter how bad the storm will be, I will have the support and love that will get me through. I will be faster, better, stronger, I will be Nadia 3.0.

I plan to evolve like a Pokemon

And more than that, I hope to be the one that pays it forward and supports others, who makes the world a better place, who is there for people that need it the most. I have gotten way too much love and kindness to not do this. Me not helping others would be a huge injustice to those who helped me survive to be who I am today.

This will be an epic decade, whether there be storms or sunshine, this time I know that I will not be broken.

And if I am, I will just have to patch up again, I've been put back together before you know...

So to recap, my 20's were like this:

And I hope to make my 30's like this:

So bring it on.

28 Years on this Planet

Woohoo, I'm 28!!

 
Last weekend was a celebration of just that, my 28th birthday. I intended on writing much sooner, but a few things came up. One, how do I follow up two emotional posts about a friend's passing, I mean really it's not so easy and it did take a lot out of me. Second, I was in Vegas for 4 days with spotty Internet service and um, party side-effects. Both are not conducive to blog writing, and to top it off, another party side effect was spending 2 days sick after coming back from Vegas. All in all, totally worth it though.

Soooo worth it!

I'm not sure about most people, but there are two big reflection points for me every year: New Years and my Birthday (and everyday, but you probably already knew that). When I think of my birthday last year (which was covered in a previous blog posting), I was surrounded with Bay Area friends, great food at a packed get together in my own backyard. It always amazes me to see how much life I lived in that year, from 27 to now. To sum up how I felt at 27, I include this picture...

I tend to use this picture a lot...

And my piece of advice at 27 was "I don't know shit. And when I think I do, I'm just fooling myself." Sage advice, funny how it'll most likely be relevant no matter how old I get.

But things have changed of course! I'm a year older! and wiser (perhaps?). What's funny is that a year ago I felt very immature and this year, I just feel old. Does that make any sense? I feel like my older friends are wanting to toss their laptops out the window when I make that statement. But I mean it, this past year of my life has been overwhelming and brimming with lesson after lesson. To the point where I feel like lessons are right-hooking me to oblivion. At this point last year I was hopelessly contemplating a career direction (while consulting at one part time gig only) and hoping to combine my love for art/poetry/photography into something that made sense.

Now I do have a full time job! Just recently I started working full time for a health and wellness organization in the East Bay that works with marginalized API communities called Community Health for Asian Americans (CHAA). I will be working as a Community Wellness Advocate for Youth, but this was after working as a part-time social media coordinator for the organization (you can check out the blog I started here). So I was using photography and writing to cover the work CHAA was doing, and also documenting the issues, lives and cultures of the communities we worked with. I am also now the South Asian Political Blogger for Hyphen Magazine, a super hip and super connected magazine that recently had George Takei on the cover.

George Takei is my internet God

It only took me 2 years to find a full time job again. It was a tough two years, one year on unemployment and another working two part time jobs with no benefits, and a constant splitting apart of the little focus I do have.  Man, that was tough (say "first world problems" and I will e-punch you in the face). The economy took a toll on so many people, including myself, and being in California was hard as well since I had left my entire network on the East Coast.

But here I am, not only with a social network, but a political network as well. I am serving on the boards of two Democratic organizations, on the East Bay Young Democrats and the Black Young Democrats of the East Bay. It's crazy, it's a lot of work, but I am learning so much about the political process. It's a good thing to know, who can figure where any of this will lead me one day (running for office? maybe? maaaaybe?), but regardless it's all  part of my 'process' right now.

See: My Process

Speaking of process, the next big (see: Huge) event in my life is Charlotte, NC. I was recently elected to be a delegate representing California's 13th Congressional district at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina this September 3rd. I actually came in as the third highest vote getter amongst 19 women who ran! It's nuts, I still can't believe I was elected, and as the event gets closer I find myself getting more and more excited and nervous. Will this be a life changing event? Will I do something embarrassing on National TV? Will I high-five Pres. Obama? Will I be tackled by the Secret Service? I DON'T KNOW, but I do think it'll be an amazing experience for sure. I am fundraising $1,200 to go to the convention ( hey broke homegirl is still working for the non profit world!). So if you want to help a brown, progressive, South Asian, Muslim, API, young, kick ass sista make it to convention, please click here to support. I will be forever grateful to you, and steal you an Obama sticker. Or you can just think of it as helping someone get further in the political field who actually has the interests of marginalized communities and human rights in the forefront of her efforts. Anything helps, even 10 bucks adds up!

Yay, help get Nadia to Convention!

So here goes another year. Another huge event (convention), more fundraising (see above), and having more life changing, heart wrenching and mind expanding experiences. In the past year I attended so many political and human rights events as I looked to empower myself and my community. I went to Vietnam and had one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I was able to advocate on Capital Hill both in DC and Sacramento with NAPAWF. I did another year of the South Asian Vagina Monologues, and the wonderful experiences just never stopped unfolding.

And this was the year that I met Travis, a person who's passing still weighs upon my mind and heart. A year ago I didn't even know he existed, and in such a short time he came and went through my life. I also lost my friend Yvette, who attended my birthday last year and was the last person I dropped off that night. I lost my Barbara Nanu (great aunt), who took care of me and my sister when we were babies.

My dear Barbara Nanu, R.I.P

My 27th year was so bittersweet and beautiful- full of hope, new experiences and heartbreak. I am grateful for those experiences, though I do feel a but overwhelmed by it all.

But 28 will only bring more life trials and joys. I gotta stand proud and take it all in. Bring it on 28, I'm ready. And even if I'm not, I'm gonna give it one hell of a try.

My 'Bring It" pose