Six years ago today, I married my narcissistic-sociopath ex-husband. Every year, on this day, assuming I remember it, I light a little candle in my mind’s eye for the girl I was, and her initiation into becoming the woman I am now. I light a little candle for the girl who chose herself in the light of living with that man or filing for divorce.

I don’t talk much about that time in my life, not because it particularly pains me, but because I like to leave the past in the past. On occasion I am reminded of the things I survived. Often, I laugh at them, because some of those things I experienced in those two months at the hands of my ex-husband were so ridiculous in his wild irrationality trying to destroy and control me—well, all you could really do is laugh.

Sometimes I remember what happened during that time to add color to a conversation. Sometimes I share the stories to connect on a similar experience. Either way, they are not stories I need any longer, but when I delve into them, it is generally a choice, and that choice is often to celebrate how far I have come and how much I survived.

At the time, during my divorce, I had realized that this was not going to be a short journey back to the equilibrium I came from or forward to the life I wanted. I had been married for two months and my ex showed me in the most painful and obvious ways that this marriage was not going to work unless I accepted the humiliation, apathy, lies, and hurt that he felt was appropriate for me. I think for a moment he thought that the sheer social pressure of being recently married as an Arab, Muslim woman at 33 would’ve forced me to stay in the relationship and keep the marriage intact. I likened myself to a bucking horse at the time, the kind you can’t break. He learned he was wrong and soon wanted divorce almost as much as I did.

But the journey of the divorce was not easy, he made sure of that. And yet that wasn’t my primary worry at the time when I was faced with filing the divorce papers. It was what I would have to do to put my life together—in a way so radically different from how it had been composed before, such that I wouldn’t yield the same result again. And I had no idea what that meant, but it seemed like a great deal of work that was much more than the divorce itself.

The journey began. 

Today, on this gloomy Sunday in Mexico City, I was insistent on going out for brunch. Carlos, my home-loving husband, wanted to stay in. I called upon the version of myself that I knew before I knew him, the version that liked to be out, alone, all the time, reading books and writing at a multitude of cafes in Condesa that one can only call fresa. Fresa literally translates to strawberry, and I heard that the term supposedly comes from the 80s, stemming from cartoon character Strawberry Shortcake. The term is used to describe Americanized Mexicans and the things they like. So, I enjoy fresa cafes. It was at one where I met him while he was working as a waiter.

I remember who I was before I met Carlos, and I liked her. I like who I am with him too. There are such a variety of differences between us. When you combine them with our similarities, which sometimes seem to be opposing in our different cultural contexts, you actually realize we are the perfect pair. Our differences and similarities complement each other. Together, with the sum of our imperfections leading to the sum of our wholeness, we have “experienced an exceptional beauty and learned what it was like to encounter infinity through two mirrors reflecting each other endlessly.”¹

I appreciate everything Sarah of six years ago said, did, and believed, even though I am so different now that I am sure if you brought the two of us together we’d have more opposing thoughts than otherwise. The divorce was scary and hard, yes, but the reason I still appreciate her and have the utmost respect for her is because she led to me. Her choices weren’t all that bad. She knew to divorce that monster after all and had the guts to do it. I exist today as I am, the most fully embodied version of myself I have ever experienced to date, because I existed then, dismally out of touch with the reality of myself, life, and the divine existence all around us. 

Egyptian-American immigrant to Mexico. Divorce survivor. Married to a Venezuelan-Italian immigrant to Mexico. Autistic woman. Content designer. Gym rat. Telenovela lover who also loves to yell pendejo (asshole) at the TV when characters are being insufferably stupid. Rambutan eater. Gratitude list maker. Goat cheese avoider. Tree hugger. Sufi learner. Book reader. Writer. Dervish befriender. Clean freak. I am everything I am today due to the person I was yesterday and the choices she believed were right.

I am eternally grateful to all the past versions of me, but especially that one, the one of six years ago. Unknowingly I took a sledge hammer to my life—like a pendeja.

But had I not been a pendeja six years ago, I wouldn’t be here, enjoying the dog adoption that appears in Condesa’s Parque Mexico every weekend, a 25 min walk from my home. Many of the dogs adorably wear sweaters. I joke that there is a very Mexican urge to put sweaters on all types of dogs—even the tough ones that in the US we’d never dress get sweaters here. I smile at the dogs in printed fleece frocks. I love it. The dogs and the park, but also my life here, made possible the pendeja in myself that perhaps was not that much of a pendeja after all. 

As if he knew today was an important day, this morning, my husband kissed me on the face while I was sleeping and told me “tu eres tan bella,” which translates to, “you are so beautiful.” He hasn’t done this before. I don’t know how I was awake enough to receive it, it was dark outside. But I somehow was. He told me later he has no recollection of saying it either.

“Tu eres tan bella,” I want to say to this life I built. I am of course joking when I call myself a pendeja—I know at any given point I was doing the best I could with what I had, and at the time marrying my ex-husband felt like the right choice. It’s ironic that marrying him eventually led me to meet Carlos that fateful day and gave me the foresight to recognize a good man when he was there, despite his financial and social circumstances.

Because in choosing to get divorced two months after getting married, what I was saying to the world—what I was saying to myself—was that I would never give up on me. That I was worth it. I would live a life I would love, with no regrets. And standing here, at 39, right before the age of Islamic maturity of 40, in my chosen home of CDMX, with the partner of my highest possible timeline, I can confidently say I have no regrets. None. And this makes me feel very confident that no matter what I face in life moving forward, I have the tools—I have what it takes—to always choose a life that feels fulfilled, aligned, and happy. 

In front of me, a father and son, who look strikingly similar, are kicking a soccer ball back and forth. A small chihuahua—wearing a pink sweater—barked to be held. Her boy owner picked her up and rode her around on his scooter. My husband doesn’t really care for these sights and I understand why. In Mexico these things are mundane. But to my slowly decolonizing American brain, these are the richest, most delicious moments of life. I can’t remember the last time I saw a father and son kicking around a ball in California where I am from. 

The square in Parque Mexico feels like a living organism to me. Dogs chase balls their owns throw for them. Kids take rollerblading classes. Throngs of people join the weekend dance salsa and bachata classes. You can set up a screen and play pickleball. People are doing tricks with hula hoops. Others are doing fitness routines. No one bumps into anyone else despite the activity all around. That’s why I feel like it’s a living organism—it’s in perfect unity with itself. 

It was at this moment, while I was crossing the square to pick bougainvillea flowers to make some Mexican bougainvillea tea, that one of the fitness guys almost ran into a dog chasing a ball. I laughed. Okay, so maybe it’s not a living organism. It’s definitely not the most authentic part of Mexico City by any means. And it is not perfect. I don’t come here that often anymore because Carlos finds it boring and I can’t explain to him how seeing other people spend time with those they love and do things they love not only makes me happy but brings a certain luminous satisfaction to my life. This is hard to explain to anyone that’s never experienced the cold store that is the United States of America. 

One day, the Sarah who made the choice to marry that man six years ago may be so distant that wedding day is no longer a bookmarked page in my life. Who knows what this life away from the US and Americans of European descent will lead me to! That bookmark already isn’t one I turn back to often. But perhaps there will be a new bookmark, a new moment I look back on to reflect how far I’ve come. 

It may be good but it can also be bad. And that doesn’t really scare me. While I won’t necessarily like it if it’s an uncomfortable experience, I understand that it’s a part of this thing I have signed up to live. And, there is also no reason to assume the worst. What if the future is better than our feeble imaginations could conjure up? This is what I tell myself lately, in this current version of Sarah that I am.

No matter what happens, good or bad, and likely a mix of both, I will always know that I have the tools to get through whatever I’m going through—primarily because I will always have the tool of choosing myself. 

1.  Shafak, E. (2010). The forty rules of love: A novel (p. 171). Viking.