Dang, one minute ago I turned 31. Now I am officially in my thirties. Yesterday, I was at Rose Market and bought some tobacco for my hookah. I got carded, the cashier looked at my ID and said, “You’re my age, I thought you were seventeen.” Thank You mr. cashier man at the bomb persian market!! You made a thirty-something year old woman smile.

31 seemed like forever when I was 21. I just wonder how a decade past by so fast. I definitely could not forsee that I’d be where I’m out. I was married, and thought I’d have four babies by now and be teaching in some Islamic school and writing. Now I’m single renegade African American muslimah in a PhD program. Watch out now!!

Thirty one? What can I say about that and what I’ve seen and what I’ve done. I’m in the process of pruning so that I can grow. Things have been coming crazy full circle for me. I’ve found that I’ve grown a lot, but I still have many of the same faults and shortcomings. Still a push over, still got a crazy temper, still moody and introspective at times, and ridiculously silly on other occasions. Sometimes I’m all world weary and feel way beaten down beyond my years. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t worked hard enough and done enough.

I have times of regret and look back at all the stupidity I got myself into. I remember when my mind used to be razor sharp, but feel as if my head is full of useless garbage. I dunno, maybe it was those occassional and not so occasional smoke sessions in the past or maybe it is grad school. I can look back and locate times when I was so far from my true self. I can look back and have memories of being in some trouble I didn’t need to be in. Regret is a useless emotion, but as one gets older you begin to realize fully the consequences of your decisions. I can tell the shorties why a lot of choices are wack, yeah I know from experience. Before I went to school, I felt like my life was on pause. Now as I look back it seems like it all went fast forward. Right now, I wonder if I can press pause or slow-mo and catch up with time as it slips by…

31 years not quite wiser but sharper, rawer, and snazzier.