Flipping through the pages of my 11-year-old self's diary, I traveled back to a multitude of memories that I never thought I would regain. Looking back at the older versions of myself, I never thought this is the person I would become. How much one could change in a span of just two months boggles my mind. Ever so intricately as something as simple as my handwriting and writing structure, I can't even seem to recognize that. The thoughts I used to blurt out with a really dry blue pen and the clean lined paper of my old Disney princess-themed diary, the innocence that poured out of these papers, even my attitude towards myself, the situations I've been through, the many obstacles I encountered at such a young age, the people I surrounded myself with, the wounds I worked so hard on healing for myself and others, all came rushing through the nooks and crannies of my brain.
I stumbled upon a bulk of papers, dry tear drops all over, the blurred blue ink here and there. It caught my attention, I skimmed through the pages, the first one read;
"Spring 2017, Kuwait City
We just arrived in the Kuwait airport, I looked for my father, searching for a man in a white dish-dash with the traditional hatta and igal among a sea of men that all look the same. Then I found him, wearing his usual Dallas Cowboys cap and a casual dress shirt and pants."
I didn't attempt continuing, as I can recall everything that happened after as if it was today. That was the first time I travelled to Kuwait. A place I can call home. I skimmed and scanned through the paragraphs of the memories I gained; the souvenirs I collected; all the paper work we had to finish, and most importantly, all the food I ate. The I read through the parts where I noticed symptoms of an illness that I was afflicted with due to dehydration and the sudden weather change between Jordan and Kuwait. To say the least, it took away from the fun I could've had instead of checking of the fun activities I wanted to do off-of my bucket list, I was checking off lists of doctor appointments that were scheduled for the sake of my health, with no room to complain.
I walked myself through a part of my life that was more like a slow-burn book, the events so detailed and dense that one feels a need to impatiently race the plot, and reach the ideal happy ending of. But for me, that was not the case. The 4 months I spent, going back and forth from hospital to hospital, clinic to pharmacy, and one fever patch to the other, are now like a nightmare I woke from, petrified and sweaty all over with a sense of shivers running up and down my spine. It was a period of time that I've gotten over miraculously, going from one illness to the other, while still keeping my strong will to be an overachiever. I made my own form of online classes, before anyone could even foresee the idea of distant-learning. From my bedroom in Kuwait to my 5th grade math teacher's class, attempting to finish homework, catch up on crucial lessons of basic pre-algebra math, with the help of the world wide web, and still trying to enjoy the moment.
With the delay of my legal paper work, I couldn't leave Kuwait and had to spend an extra unprecedented amount of time in Kuwait. Though I was happy about that; it still ruined a lot of my plans for the school year and for summer. I had to skip a month of the second semester, and was left with a time crunch before my final exams. Time passed me by like a stranger, just as I could remember reaching Kuwait, I was back in Jordan. On the day of my Honor Roll ceremony, I woke up feeling very flimsy and felt like I had a slight fever, I blamed it on the jet lag and rolled on with my day. Moments that preceded me leaving the house, I paused before the mirror just to notice multiple red blotches and clusters of rashes slowly forming on my neck and arms. Wether funny or not, it was an out-of-body experience. Yet another case of sickness I didn't think I would go through. Turns out, I caught Rubella from an unknown source in between my flights from Kuwait to Jordan.
I felt a heavy sense of bleakness flood my body. It's a day where I'm supposed to get rewarded for my achievements, but I'm stuck in the doctor's office, prohibited from mixing with the other kids in my grade as this case is contagious between children and pregnant women. Thinking I would break-free from a frail state of immunity, I had a lot planned ahead for a fun summer with my friends and family, but all of it was completely erased after I was handed that damned doctor's report with a note on it stating that I should be exempted from attending the rest of the semester and that I'll have to spend more months bedridden and useless, in a feeble state of melancholy.
