23 Now

Birthday came and went. Was much much much appreciated all the calls, texts and messages I received. I can just imagine being someone who has no one to wish them a happy birthday, it would be so sad. At the very least birthdays just give your family and friends an opportunity to check up on you, make sure everything is kosher. And I really appreciate it, even though I tried to super duper downplay the existence of my birthday. 

Age 22 was a heck of year. I would say it was easily my biggest personal development year. All my life I had believed everything was just going to be great and story book for me, no real effort, I was just going to be amazing. There was a purpose as to why I was experiencing the life of Hasheem. This past year I stripped all of that down. Began to really question my significance. And it was humbling, saddening. It was probably my most 'down feeling' year to be honest. I get to the point sometimes where I really don't feel important. But I think it is good, to realize your actual significance and try to build from there. Instead of just convince yourself you are holy based on nothing. 

Going to the Louvre in Paris was really the low point in feeling useless. Me and Muhammad visited the museum during the summer Europe trip. The museum was absolutely humongous. We saw the Mona Lisa, some other popular stuff. Then we lost each other for a good 30 mins to an hour, no phone service obviously. Miraculously found each other again. Then explored Egypt, Persia, Greece, Early Europe and buncha other stuff. We reached a breaking point where there was just way too much information being tossed at us. Centuries worth of artifacts in our faces, our brains to capacity, information just started bouncing off  the surface of the grey matter. We had to leave! We started walking casually pretending we knew how to get out of the place, but we ended up at a hurried pace getting more and more frustrated at how much knowledge there is to know! At one point we just breezed by an entire Alexander the Great exhibit. That man did sooooooooooooo much with his life, yet he is nothing more than a 2 second look to me. Finally we climbed out of that information overload hell, feeling stupid as crap. Only to see construction on a new part of the museum!

I feel I have become more of an identity. I am starting to see how I may shake out. I can see a career path I really like. I really want to get an internship with a construction company this next year. The actual actualization of the architecture is really interesting to me. My plan might be to hang near this side of the profession for a while before getting licensed and beginning to design buildings for a firm making connections on the way of course. But life happens, so these are just plans. 

The most damming thing about my birthday was really trying to strip down if I could do anything for my birthday, what would it be? The only answer I was satisfied with was seeing my hard work pay off. That is my only true happiness I guess. Like if I had won the Architecture competition last week. Urrr, the kid was 70% sure I won that thing man. My ideas were strong and I felt my presentation was top notch, but hey, didn't even place top 15. That would have been soooooooooo rewarding, that is a birthday present. But hey,  I am still bitter about it, but I am recovering. The competition really put down doubts within myself that I am in the wrong profession. I was so happy designing my fire station/community center/residence, lol. Seriously could not imagine doing anything that would bring me more joy. 

Endnote- Cannot wait to change my license plates to 'Sheem'!