Advanced Essay: A bad Memory

Intro:  Is it possible to hate the feeling of love? Why can’t we just be with the people that makes us happy? My goal with this paper was to just go all out and not be afraid to write what I feel. I feel that I did well with description, and focusing on a larger issues for many people in the world. I feel that added to my scenes.

A Bad Memory.

In hopes of gaining more knowledge you try to understand a variety of things and why they matter to you especially. You try to understand why there are memories you put an effort in forgetting and decisions you wish you could erase. You dab at making sense of things that have always been complicated in your eyes. I can’t come to acknowledge the fact that I have put myself in such a position, a position of self-destruction. As I pace back and forth in this large, cold room, I feel goosebumps crawling up my spine as I was disgusted by the actions I have taking to solving my problems. I plan on leaving this world for the better. What other choice is there?

At a young age, we are always reminded that soon we shall meet our prince charming, so we should safeguard ourselves. However, once the time has come they make it impossible for you to keep your happiness. Now I feel beads of sweat on my forehead, and the shaking of my hands I can no longer control. Had I known I would be in such pain, I would have tried harder to control my love.

I have falling in love with a man. I never understood the saying “love hurts” because I found those words foolish. How can love hurt, when love is supposed to make you content? I have come to realize that the saying indeed is true and it’s me who is foolish. I had all my hope up, I would dream of the day him and I would live happily ever after. However, my family has snatched away our happily ever after. They have refused the man that I love because of where he is from. I tried to explain that love doesn’t have an age, a race or a gender. Nonetheless, once the heart is filled with ignorance, it will always be difficult to see two sides.

In this same room he came with respect, to ask for my hand in marriage. That was were I went wrong. We should have ran away together, like I suggested. He wanted to get my fathers blessings. We had planed to see how this day would turn about, and I have giving up on making the ignorant understand that I am just a young girl who is in love with a man. A humbled and honored man who has a different culture than I do. This is a day I would try so hard to forget but I won’t be able to.

Father- “You’re a man of a different background than Aissatou.”

Lover- “I love Aissatou so I will learn what she knows.”

Father- “Culture and tradition is something you grow up around not something you learn from just a simple explanation.”

Lover- “I will love her till the end, and live the way she wants us to live, with your culture.”

While these words are being exchanged, neither my father nor my lover is backing down I found something to focus on. I had to free myself of this debate. Something that reminds me it’s not the end of the world though I am heartbroken. I stare at the shahada frame. I stare at it not comprehending what it was for a few minutes. I observe it’s gold edges and gold writing. The writing is in English and Arabic. The Arabic letters are bigger and they are on top. The English letters are medium sized and they are on the bottom. The rest of the image is the color burgundy. There is also a gold line surrounding the words. Everything about the image is shiny and polished. The Arabic words have vowels on top or under the letter, which are smaller than the letters. I feel my eyes blur with tears, but I will not shed any. No one deserves to see me in such a vulnerable state. Than I am shocked at the words I hear next.

Lover- Why can’t you just let your daughter be happy? Your so stuck on culture and what people think of you, that you don’t even think or care about how she feels.

Father- Can’t she think about her family? She is being ungrateful and she only thinks about herself.

Me- Dad?

Father- Leave my house now! The audacity to come into my home and disrespecting my cultural beliefs.

Lover- Please sir, try to understand.  

Father- There is nothing to understand, please leave.

My lover stares at me and I look away because the longer he looks at me the more I think of leaving with him. I look away and stare back at the shahada frame, the only thing that is keeping me sane. He leaves and my dad walks to his room. I am still lost in this frame as I realize how heavy it looks to me today. As if it’s also feeling my sorrow. The gold edges have small silver crystals around it. The English and Arabic words have glitter inside of them. The English words are translating what the Arabic words mean. I stand up and touch the frame. The meaning now stands out the me. I learned that I can’t be with the man I have falling in love with.






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