Choosing Yourself Despite Yourself

I had a dream. Actually, I woke from a dream. I woke up to myself. I woke up with an insatiable appetite, famished for my reality.

The tears I had wept inwards on the dark nights of my soul were actually the pains I felt giving birth to myself! I was the woman I could not hear because of my own clatter!

While I was afraid, sitting with my head between my knees, I was the patience telling myself, “You’re not alone! Just wait!”

As I was sitting helplessly in the pits of Yusuf, I was the light creeping in from above! As I was searching for a way out of a dead end, I was the one saying “No, not that way!”

When I resisted the masters showing me the path, I was the one moving forward despite my resistance. As I was looking for love in men, I was the one saying, “Are you looking for Züleyha before becoming Yusuf yourself?”

As I was begging for love in others’ eyes, I was the diamond inside the jewelry box that I was sitting on!

Forgetting the children pulling my skirts in my own playground, I was the voice saying, “Look at yourself first,” as I gave advice to others.

Once I decided to let go of the ideological flags I was carrying, the roles and the things I was hanging onto in order to add value to my own existence, choosing to stay in the pain of these, I was the Phoenix giving birth to itself!

When I read the boring sentences my illiterate mother used to say, books years later, I was the one who understood the wisdom in them!

Throughout the power struggles I went through, forever wounded as I kept bumping into the same walls, I was the one asking, “If there is no change with this cycle, what am I supposed to change?”

I was longing for my home country on one hand and trying to exist in a country I did not know at all on the other.

At times, when I couldn’t breathe, when I was drifting away wherever the wind blew, as I listened to songs lost in self-pity, I was the one saying, “You are more than you think!”

Now a voice tells me, “I was the one taking you through all of them, so you would understand, hear, see, and love.”

And as I was walking over the glass and passing through fire, I knew that the door toward myself could only be opened from the inside!

I stood up one day, my legs trembling, and began to walk, one step at a time. And when I grabbed a handful of soil and put it on my forehead! Southwest, north, south, left and right, front and back, and time and space: all was one! When I raised my hands up to the sky, I felt the One. I knew we were One! I was witness to the truth of humanity, animals, and even objects at that moment!

As the heavens revolve, all of you are accompanied by the melody of life. I was at the place where the weak voice turned into a shriek scream! I was at a place where I knew the one who loved and the one who reviled were the same. I am now at that place where everything becomes colorful even though it were once black and white, the place where the curtain is left open. The red of the rose and its smell touches differently, and the sun is more yellow. The tree is greener, and the moon is more silver than silver itself!

With tears in my eyes, I am the daughter of the moon washed under its light!

And this woman I adorned and sold in the slave markets for years still, from time to time, tries to fit into those clothes that no longer fit her. It’s true! I love her and accept her, because she’s the one who brought me to myself. I love her patience and her conscience. In a world where it is impossible to be yourself, I love her efforts to be herself. I love that she struggles to be loyal to herself. I love that she can burst into laughter while tears roll down her cheek! I love that she looks for her reality! I love that she is always the student!

And now I know that is impossible to betray!

The voice that says, “I am in love with the dear soul further deep inside my soul” is no longer weak. It is the voice of my soul screaming, and all you need is within you, right there!

That voice that walked through many slim bridges and struggled with demons says, “Everything is you! Your hell and your heaven! The runner and the lost! Your friend and your enemy!”

Come on! Go ahead and be furious with the outer world, because you are the world! You are hunger, fullness, fear, and love! You are the one who both creates and destroys!

You are God, and God is you!

And now it is time to share what you know, even if you are to be stoned for it, without overstepping! Be able to get to the meaning of the sentence!

If you fade from the scene, all you would be left with is the Creator…