Dalil Majalat Aprah Al Sagheer Lil Asila | The Oprah Magazine

For seventeen years, I spent most of my time at school doodling. I've studied the types of clouds, and what happens to bananas when you put them in liquid nitrogen, but there haven't been any chapters on how to live this life. I wanted to know what we must do to be happy, how to make love last, and why we must continue to live while we will someday be gone. In the absence of formal guidance, I became obsessed with self-help. And by frequenting my mother's bookcase, I learned about the different parts of the body, the bad things that happened to some good people, and how Helen Gurley Brown had it all, all of which made me eagerly await (and still do) the changes of puberty. After college, I entered a new, transparent phase when I read Jung's Theory of Elementary Patterns; The millennium has been greeted with new beliefs about the essence of emptiness – each beautifully prepared but not as filling, like common junk foods. As I got older and reached the age of forty, I discovered that I was fortunate; I had a wonderful husband, great friends, and an interesting job, but I worried that I didn't deserve it all or that I was spoiling it, or that I would lose all my blessings. I was a seemingly cheerful child who longed to make everyone happy, but I lay down wondering: What if the world ended? Now I'm an outwardly happy adult woman and do the same, I have the rest of my life to figure things out, but the rest of my life doesn't seem long anyway. Some things change quickly (the nature of my skin, the elasticity of my knees), and some things don't change at all (I've always been overweight and allergic to it and have never known what motherhood feels like - it was my choice but the final decision). I am not mature enough and yet I am getting old. My indulgence in feelings of fear and pain was unpalatable; Because I was loved. How can I feel that I am lost in this universe while I am drowning in blessings? I had a husband who would put up with me when I got sick or angry or do both. And when I wept for the future—my future, or the future of our rapidly descending planet—he would say healing words that soothe my fear and apprehension, such as: “But I am always by your side.” But when I was forty-five my problem was realizing that I might not always be there for him.