When Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” hit the best-selling book charts a couple years ago, I felt the pressure to pick up the book, but something didn’t fully register for me then. “Become what?” I thought to myself somewhat ignorantly. The title didn’t seem to lure me in at that point. Interestingly, tables have since turned. I find myself today feeling deeply drawn to the word becoming as I’ve actualized its meaning as a living experience. Before I get on to reading the memoir, I would love to share with you what has changed for me since 2018.
As the last sun of 2020 disappeared beneath the horizon, I gazed into the distance over the Pacific Ocean and felt a huge sense of relief and excruciating pain at the same time. Pain that I could feel deep in my stomach, concurrently occurring with relief that I could feel offloading my shoulders. I felt a sense of mourning and blossoming all at once. Mourning the loss of my inner child and blossoming of me that I am today.
I felt my body wish goodbye to the child who was a product of her past and forcefully create room for the becoming of me today. Me as a thing of the present, irrespective of the past. I found myself shedding all the external layers that no longer serve me and getting closer than ever to the core of who I really am. Finding only infinite love at the core of my existence, absent of anything else. Getting so close, yet recognizing that I’m still so far. Realizing that my journey of becoming has no end goal and no time urgency. A journey that has no specifications. A journey that just is and will be so long as my breathe infuses me with life.
You may be reading this and feel so lost at what I’m trying to say. To bring you closer to how I feel, I’ll share with you a little anecdote.
When I was about to graduate from high school, I was so eager to leave Jordan to continue my education abroad. I was determined to get into a leading educational institutional to foster my curiosity - and if I’m being honest with myself - to prove my worth too. In the process of applying, I had to explain to others who I was. I had already built that narrative years preceding that so it wasn’t a particularly challenging task for me. The narrative more or less went as the following: “Aya is an Arab woman born and raised in Jordan to Palestinian parents. A victim of the patriarchy who fought endlessly to shatter its existence. A smart woman who deserves to be trusted, as her intellect has proven."
That was my narrative for the years to follow. I stuck to the principles of the story so that it didn't change much. I played the cards that I was dealt, not realizing there were many other decks to choose from. I victimized myself and portrayed myself as the heroine of my own novel. I stayed so close to the rules of the societal game so that I didn't burn any bridges, even if I knew that burning was the only way to heal and move on.
The narrative was beautiful and I’m so glad I built it. It served me for a long time. It allowed me to mark my territory. It allowed me to establish myself as an individual. It allowed me to gain the trust of others around me. But that narrative doesn’t serve me anymore. I am no longer just a product of all that’s happened to me. I don’t want to continue to pass down intergenerational trauma. I am no longer just an accumulation of others’ actions. I am as I am today, simply. I exist in this beautiful body and mind that allow me to be without explanations. Without the need for a story or a narrative.
And that to me is what “becoming" means. Getting closer to an inner truth. Feeling lighter. Feeling freer in my hips. Feeling freer on my shoulders. Feeling freer in my connection to the Earth and all of its offerings. Feeling infinite love for myself and others.
And this is just barely the beginning...
