30 lessons I learned in my 20's [top 30 list #6]

30 things I learned in my 20’s

1. How to survive a breakup.
2. You’re never too old to fall in love with a boyband.
3. How to drive.
4. The power of telling a story that can move people to laughter or tears.
5. Baby Whisperer est. 2008.
6. It’s okay to relearn everything about something you thought you already knew. 
7. Being a good listener is an incredibly rare trait and can be what someone needs the most.
8. If you spend all your time with someone, and you share your heart with them, you will fall in love with them whether you mean to or not. 
9. You’re never too old to go to a boyband concert.
10. How to manage a classroom.
11. It's okay to own up to your mistakes. Learn how to apologize and make things right.
12. The importance of surrounding yourself with people who make you laugh. Also, people who are excellent and provoke you to grow in excellence as well.
13. What it feels like when you reach milestones in your fitness journey.
14. Accountability is terrifying but invaluable and you only get out of it what you put into it. 
15. Sometimes friendships have seasons.
16. Biblical Greek.
17. How to do my taxes. 
18. Be intentional with your friendships. Take care of them. Be selfless and honest and celebrate who they are. 
19. I will be sentimental forever. It wasn’t just a phase, mom.
20. Some things that I thought would be important forever, aren’t important anymore and that’s okay. It’s called moving on, and it’s healthy. 
21. My siblings are my best friends.
22. Hard, diligent work produces the best fruit.
23. Crying is good for the soul. Pity parties are not.
24. What doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger. You get to decide if you grow stronger by becoming harder, or stronger by choosing to remain tender. 
25. How to start, finish, edit, format, advertise and self-publish a novel. 
26. How to ride a horse and a camel. 
27. Baby therapy is real.
28. God is always, always, always faithful.
29. Guard your heart. Protect it. Nurture it. Take care of it. That applies to your emotions, your body and your mind, as well.
30. Dance parties fix most problems. 

Top 30 movies [Top 30 #5]

Baylea’s Top 30 movies

1. The Two Towers
2. Tarzan
3. Les Miserables
4. How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
5. Inception
6. Mary Poppins
7. Cars
8. Prince Caspian
9. The Emperor’s New Groove
10. Remember The Titans
11. Ever After 
12. It’s A Wonderful Life
13. Jurassic World
14. Frozen
15. Inside Out
16. Pride and Prejudice (1995 version)
17. Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightley version)
18. Kal Ho Naa Ho 
19. Singin’ In The Rain
20. Knight and Day
21. The Bourne Identity
22. Main Hoon Na
23. 10 Things I Hate About You
24. Fievel Goes West
25. Dunkirk
26. You’ve Got Mail
27. What A Girl Wants
28. The Sound Of Music
29. The Return Of The King
30. Little Women

30 Things I Learned As A Teenager [Top 30 list #4]

30 things I learned as a teenager

1. How to be the oldest sibling at home.
2. What it feels like to live in another country.
3. That I was funny and likable. 
4. How to write songs.
5. How to journal consistently. 
6. How to journal incessantly. 
7. Arabic.
8. Quick and efficient typing. 
9. That I can have a crush on someone for 3+ years and not die, even though it feels like I am.
10. My own special code to use in my journal when I was writing in public. 
11. That people actually wanted me to be their friend.
12. What it’s like to hold hands with a boy who likes you.
13. How the right song can be exactly what you need to get through something hard.
14. To “Suck it up, Princess” and
15. “At least you don’t have a prolapsed rectum.”
16. That purity is rare, but important.
17. Physical location and age does not determine how close and deep my friendships have to be.
18. Bellydancing. 
19. That saying goodbye a lot doesn’t make it any easier. 
20. That the Shrek sound track is the best sound track to wash dishes to.
21. To not use too much thyme when cooking.
22. What a scary birth can look like.
23. What a home birth can look like.
24. To fall so irrevocably in love with a country and a culture that it ruins you for life.
25. YouTube. 
26. How to be a LOTR’s fangirl for life.
27. That I actually only love watching basketball and football (soccer) and all other sports are dead to me. 
28. That Settlers is the most complicated and not-fun game. The cutest boy I know tried to teach me how to play, and I couldn’t learn even for him, and that’s how I know it is the most complicated and not-fun game. 
29. Myspace.
30. Confessing your weaknesses/sins/shortcomings to others takes a lot of courage and sometimes your vulnerability is met with gracious understanding and sometimes it is met with the hard fast line of wrong and right, but regardless of the response, it’s still the right thing to do.

30 Things I Learned Before I Turned 10 [Top 30 list #3]

30 things I learned before I turned 10:

1. That I was loved
2. How to walk
3. How to tie my shoes
4. How to be a sister
5. What it feels like to live with Chronic pain
6. To love stories
7. How magical it is to watch a baby be born
8. How to play the piano
9. How to memorize things quickly and well
10. That I loved reading
11. What it feels like to get stitches 
12. How to ride a bike
13. How to pump on a swing without anyone pushing me
14. That Psalms was my favorite book in the Bible
15. How to skip count
16. That my favorite food is pasta
17. Every single lyric to every single Veggie Tales song for the first 10-ish years
18. What it feels like to take a bus without ac from Minnesota to Mexico
19. Also, what it feels like to travel to another country
20. The words and melodies to copious amounts of hymns 
21. That being healthy and doing what is best for your body is more important than eating what you want because it tastes good
22. That my mother will literally do whatever it takes to make sure her family is taken care of
23. The very first baby steps of journaling
24. How to catch fireflies
25. That my favorite flowers are lilacs
26. The smell of roses remind me of funerals and therefore dead people
27. What it feels like to lose your grandparents
28. How to keep myself amused for hours at a time
29. That my imagination is my best friend
30. That Minnesota is literally the most beautiful state

30 Things I Love About Myself [Top 30 list #2]

I'm reviving my top 30 list! Here's a quick list I made the other day that I hope inspires all of you to find 30 things about yourself that you love. 

30 things I love about myself:

1. My freckles
2. My love of stories
3. My sense of humor
4. The fact that even though I’m 5’ 2” and 100 lb, I have out-eaten my brothers’ giant teenage man-boy friends
5. My (sort of) dimples that appeared when I was 15 after I practiced smiling just right so that you could see them
6. The laughter lines by my eyes
7. My 2-pack
8. That I am the perfect size for hugging/cuddling
9. I can put babies to sleep when I hold them
10. My stubbornness, because you have to be stubborn to not give up and quit when things get hard
11. The color of my eyes
12. My tongue can make the shape of a burrito 
13. That I can usually see a situation from all sides and understand where people are coming from
14. My hair when it’s really long 
15. My love of dancing
16. That I can sing
17. My love of children
18. That I love to listen/observe
19. That I can tell stories that make people laugh
20. That I can tell stories that make people cry
21. My close relationship with all my siblings, regardless of age
22. My ability to be easily amused
23. That I can play the piano
24. That I journal (a lot)
25. My British accent
26. My love for honesty and righteousness
27. My work ethic
28. That I can fit my entire hand into my best friend’s mouth
29. My youthful features that allow me to hang out with people more than a decade younger than me without getting funny looks
30. My emotions and that I express them  

Breathing Again

Going to Morocco was like breathing fresh air again for the first time in 8 years. And not just one mouthful of fresh air, but mouthful after mouthful after mouthful as I finally relaxed my thick wall of self-preservation until I realized it was crashing down around my feet and everything inside of me was alive again. Suddenly I was me again. 

What do I mean by this? Wasn’t I me at all in the last 8 years while living in America? 

Of course I was. But when you come from another country and your heart is broken and there’s no one around you to keep that piece of you that was the happiest from dying, you carefully begin to section off what is and is not acceptable. Living overseas for the 6 most influential growing up years of your life means that that place leaves an indelible mark on you and your character, but when that mark becomes disregarded or misunderstood, you hide it. Protect it. Ignore it. 

I like to think that I’m good at processing my thoughts and feelings and allowing pain to have it’s way for a season so that I can find healing on the other side. It’s important to me that I cry when I need to cry, and express myself when I feel full of thoughts and words and emotions. But somehow there was a piece of me that got missed. Or maybe it didn’t get missed, it was just untouchable. Not because of me, but because of life. Because I was gone. Because no one called me Samira anymore, or told me to, “eat, to get fat, to get married.”, or invited me over to drink atay b’na3na3, or could understand me when words burst forth from my mouth that were in another language. It wasn’t that people didn’t care, or want to understand, it’s just not the same. It can come close. It can touch the edges and whisper on the side, but it doesn’t touch the empty, aching hole right in the middle. 

Thailand was “close” because it was another country.

Turkey was “closer” because you could see minarets and hear the call to prayer. 

Egypt was “almost close enough!” because it was the same continent! 

But the second I saw those vibrant green fields and rolling hills out of the window as we descended over Casablanca, tears filled my eyes, my throat felt tight, and I realized, “I know this place. This is home. It’s my home! I know this place!” The wheels touched down and I tried my hardest not to cry, but I couldn’t hold back a few tears because, wow! It felt good to breathe again. 

I kept myself in check, though, because I was nervous. How much had this nation changed without me? How much had I changed without it? We both still looked the same, but was I going to face the sting of realizing that too much time had passed and “home” was gone forever now? I kept to myself as I made my way through the airport and finally through to the outside. 

Now what? 

“Get on a train,” my brother said. So I did, allowing my excitement and adrenaline to carry me through this unknown process. Still, I held myself back. One part of me was soaking in the sunshine streaming through the window and knowing it was the same sunlight that used to kiss my face as a teenager, the other part was preparing myself for disappointment or the familiar touch of fear, whichever might come first. I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. 

A hand on my shoulder. An earful of Arabic. My apologies as I told her I didn’t understand and to repeat it, please. Instead of her throwing up her hands and going to find someone else, she repeated her request to use my phone to call someone. Again, I apologized, but this time because my phone wasn’t from there and didn’t have service. Ah, she said, understanding, then left. 

The Samira inside of me that had been shut up deep, deep down in the most repressed part of my soul saw light for the first time in so long and, yes! There it was! Fresh air in my lungs, and I couldn’t stop the joy that bubbled up inside of me. I had spoken and been understood. I had said words and she understood what they meant. I had been understood. Understood.

Living in the country that I do now means that I am “Samira” and I encounter the Arabic language almost daily. But it’s not the dialect of my heart. It’s not the language that fills my head and sometimes cannot be pushed back down but must come out before I can think of English again. Here, I cannot talk and be understood. In America, I cannot talk and be understood. And it’s fine. I’m where I am supposed to be and every step of my journey has had more purpose than I can fathom, but I missed that; that feeling of fresh air filling my lungs when I speak and see recognition light up another person’s eyes. They understand me. 

By the second day of my trip, I had let down all my inhibitions and allowed myself to revel in the sweetness of being home. And truly, it was home for me because I could walk down the street or enter a home or interact with a stranger and I knew what was expected of me culturally. I wasn’t constantly searching for clues to tell me how to behave or what to say or give me an escape. The stress and fear that had been building up the last seven months were stripped away and, breathe in, breathe out… I was home. 

After 6 days, I felt like a new person. Every part of my being was refreshed from the inside out. That weight of fear was gone. That shadow of doubt telling me that I was doing everything wrong was nowhere to be found. I was Samira again; full of life and breathing deeply.

Leaving that all behind was hard, of course, but I quickly focused on where my feet are now. Here. On the other side of the continent. Yes, I’m not fully who I am in Morocco when I am in this country, but I’m not supposed to be. I’m here to love these people and honor them by learning their language and their culture. I came back realizing how much I have left to offer this city and the people in this place. It’s important to do all that I was made to do in this time, and going home gave me the strength, understanding and desire to do that. 

One of my favorite parts of this story is that it’s not over yet. Not even close. There will be more trips home for longer periods of time where I can breathe again. I can remember who I am and who God made me to be again. Hmdlah, He is faithful. 

All my love,

Samira 

Dear Future Husband, I Don't Need You

Dear Future Husband,

So, I’ve realized a few things. Like, that I don’t need you as much as I thought I did.

I don’t need you for your jar opening skills because I have these handy-dandy jar openers that Suzy bought for me. I’ve opened three jars so far, so… guess that means they work. 

I don’t need you for something to lay next to in bed. I have a body pillow named George. He’s great.

I don’t need you for your singing ability or musical talent because I have some fire playlists to fuel my dance parties. 

I don’t need you to tell me if I look nice or not before I leave the house. I have a mirror and snapchat and twitter. They all tell me I look great, so I guess that’s covered.

I don’t need you to open my bedroom window for me when it’s nice outside, even though it’s too heavy for my hands. I just leave it closed and it’s fine. 

I don’t need your advanced math to help me calculate things that my first-grade-math-loving brain can’t handle. They put calculators on our phones now. They’re super legit. 

I don’t need you to cook for me. I’m getting really good at it. Or at least, making a few good meals to tide me over the times I don’t feel like cooking, and hey, if I don’t feel like cooking then who cares? Not me. And you’re not here. 

I don’t need you to make my bed for me. As frustrating as it is to try to stretch a fitted sheet over a large mattress on my own, I can do it. It takes me fifteen minutes, but baby, don’t rush me. I said I can do it. 

I don’t need you to scrape my windshield when it’s covered with ice. We’ve got defrost. And even if we don’t, I’m a Minnesota girl who has scraped windshields with her driver’s license before. 

I don’t need you to get me up in the morning with a cup of coffee, because I don’t drink coffee. 

I don’t need you to change my flat tires or oil. Mostly because I don’t have a car anymore, but even if I did, there are places people go. Or my dad could teach me. Or my sister, because she knows and heck, if my little sister can take care of her own car then I can, too.

I don’t need you to watch movies and shows with me. Buffy’s great during the scary parts and he never disagrees with my opinion. 

I don’t need you to build shelves for my things or fix my toilet when it breaks or restring my clothesline. I can just reorganize my books. I can fix the toilet myself. My clothesline still has a few years left in it… inshaAllah. 

I don’t need you to drive me when I’m tired. I just roll those windows down and keep on going. 2am and nobody else is on the road? That’s when One Direction is the loudest and I’m singing at the top of my lungs. 

I don’t need you to go to the grocery store for me. I know how to stock my cupboards and refrigerator, thank you very much. They may be completely empty by the time I work up the courage and energy to do it again, but I do it. I don’t starve. 

I don’t need you to motivate me to keep my body strong and healthy. I like the way I feel when I work out and I eat what my body needs. 

I don’t need you to keep me warm. I have fuzzy penguin socks. I have my best friend’s sweatshirt. I have a hot water bottle and a heating pad. 

I don’t need you to help me move across the world. I did it. On my own. Not quite sure how, but I did, so thanks, but I’m good.

I don’t need you to be the person who fixes everything when I’m struggling or in pain. I have my journal. Those pages catch my tears and my secrets and keep them perfectly. It has reflected back to me who I am and how I want to change and given me a safe place without judgment to be completely honest. Yes, it’s true, my journal can do nothing to help me when I’m unable to move or cook for myself, but I do have Jesus, and He’s a very good comforter. He also catches my tears.

I don’t need you, see? Not for those things. Not for this list that I’ve made thousands of times since I was little, outlining to God why I shouldn’t be single anymore, why I shouldn’t have to wait to meet you. But I’m here now. I’m 29. All the things I thought I needed you for… I don’t. Not actually. Sometimes the solution is not what I want, but there is a solution. The need is met. So I don’t need you to take care of my car or help me pay bills or do things around the house because I clearly have that covered. What I do need, however, are your eyes. Your laugh. Your soul. 

My pillow doesn’t talk back when I can’t fall asleep.

Dancing on my own isn’t always the best cure for a bad day.

I can’t hold hands with my journal. 

I want to look up into your eyes and see a person. I want a face to memorize, a laugh to grow old with, and a soul that is so rich and so deep that I can’t even see the edges fifty years down the road when we’ve shared everything. I want you. I want a friend who can see the tears in my eyes and hold me. I want a lover who tells me I’m beautiful without me asking how I look. I want a companion who brings out the best in me. I want someone to love, in the good times and the bad times, for better or for worse, in sickness or in health, because even though we may forget who took out the trash last or whose turn it is to clean the bathroom, we don’t need each other. We can wake up each day knowing we can take care of ourselves, but we choose to take care of each other. 

So, here I’ll be. Taking care of myself. Loving my life. Being awesome and conquering fears and obstacles that I never thought I’d be able to take on my own. I hope you’re doing the same, babe. You got this. Can’t wait to choose you because I want to. 

Yours always,

Baylea