Blast from the Past - Vlog

This one is just me, sitting on my bedroom floor with a dusty old box that says “box” on it. It’s my memory box from when I was nine, and it’s falling apart in the best way. I find cards, pictures, handwritten diary pages, and a lot of random shenanigans. It’s not a tidy collection. It’s a mess of feelings, and I’m here for all of it.

The best friend contract

I pull out a stack of things from my best friend Anna. We met when I was new at school, and she was this cute girl with a fringe, a Cinderella bag, and tiny golden ear hoops. One day she handed me a small piece of wrapping paper. On the blank side, she had written a proposal: “hna do you want to be my best friend please check box yes.” There was a box for yes and a box for no. I checked yes. That was our contract. I still have the handmade cards she made me, full of magazine cutouts and effort. One says, “Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.” I think that means positive vibes, but not the fake kind. The kind that comes from someone who actually sees you.

Mail that felt like a celebration

Right around my tenth birthday, I received my first ever mail. Anna was in another city for Eid, and she sent four cards. A Barbie birthday card, a friendship card, and one where she had handwritten a tiny “Eid” in the middle of a puff-special-greetings card because it was for both occasions. I was beyond thrilled. The spellings were a little off, honestly spelled h-I-S-t-l-y, and there was something about class politics and friendship drama that I don’t even remember now. But the feeling of holding something that someone had made just for me, that never left.

Words that stay with you

There’s a card from my friend Basma. She wrote, “I hope you surprise yourself in a good way by finding out all the limitations you ever put on yourself were broken.” And then: “in moments where you think you survived because of a prayer, know that it was mine.” Basma is the kind of person who still prays for you, even when you don’t talk much anymore. I cried reading that. I also cried once when I was Dramatics president and couldn’t get a certificate to a boy in time, and Basma remembered that story in her card. It’s proof that being sensitive isn’t a weakness. It’s just how some of us are built.

Learning from everyone who crossed my path

My dad was in the army, so I moved a lot. I went to small towns, met all sorts of people. This box holds a magazine my friend Ramsha made, a sweet sixteen card that opens up like a tiny book, letters from friends who moved to America, and a card from my brother telling me to learn to walk in high heels. I look at all of this and I realize: the person I am today, I owe to these people. They wrote things to me, and those words added up. They taught me to look at life not just from my own perspective, but from all these different angles. If you only make friends who are exactly like you, you stay in a bubble. Get to know people from all sorts of backgrounds. That’s how you learn about yourself.

Why I’m sharing this now

I’m not showing you my memory box so you can copy it. I’m sharing it because these small things, the cards, the messy handwriting, the misspelled words, they matter. They hold love. They hold the version of you that someone else saw and cared about. And when you’re having a hard day, opening a box like this is a reminder that you were never alone. So keep your little things. Write the messy notes. Check the yes box. That’s the real positive vibes only.