On Halloween, because we don’t celebrate it, my dad would drive me somewhere, anywhere different. Like Little Italy in New York to walk around and teach me all about the food and culture.
When your parents regulate everything you hear and everything you intake, it forces you to get creative in other ways. It sparked the writing bug and the very overactive imagination. Because I’ve had a lot of time by myself and a lot of time isolated from regular culture, I created my own.
I’m a Scorpio with a Pisces moon. I am very critical of myself. I’m actually way less critical of others than I am of myself. I’m in my own head a lot. It’s hard and really discouraging.
I learned everything the hard way – like, literally, everything. I know that God does that to people that he has lessons for. I just wish that I had learned less extreme lessons.
I think we all do: I think we wonder if we’re supposed to be here if we’re doing the right thing if we even want to be here. At least, I do all the time.
I don’t have a primary doctor, a primary hairstylist, a primary anything. I don’t even have a primary address! Everything is just whenever I can find one.
There’s something different about growing up black and Muslim, especially in New Jersey. It’s like when I left the mosque and I left my dad, I felt unprotected, but I also felt a weird sense of pride, like I was involved in this other way of living that was cool to me.
