The Baguette Problem

I don’t really like sourdough. I know that sounds dramatic. It’s bread. But I’ve tried to like it. I’ve had them fresh out of the oven, dipped them in olive oil, made sandwiches with them. I’ve given them every reasonable opportunity to win me over.

They’re fine.

Crispy. Chewy. A perfectly respectable bread.

But if you asked me what kind of bread I actually wanted.

I’d say a baguette. I’ve only had it once. It was good. Not the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Not some life-altering loaf that changed my understanding of carbohydrates.

Just good.

And then I got food poisoning from it. So I stopped eating it. I decided it wasn’t worth it. Which was easy enough to say until, every once in a while, I wanted it again.

I never said that, though. I didn’t tell anyone I was craving a baguette. I didn’t even really tell myself. Instead, I’d buy a sourdough. And sourdoughs are not bad.

Sometimes I’ll even use the same ingredients I would have used with a baguette to make the same kind of meal.

And for a moment, I’ll think,

Maybe this is what I wanted.

It’s not.

But it has three of the five things I liked.

It’s crispy.

It’s chewy.

It goes well with everything.

Three out of five isn’t bad. Three out of five is actually pretty good. Three out of five is enough to make you wonder if you’re being unreasonable for wanting the other two.

So I start negotiating with myself.

Maybe I don’t actually like baguettes that much. Maybe the sourdoughs are better. Maybe I just need to get used to it. Maybe I can learn to like it.

Then I realized, I have done this exact thing my whole life.

Romantically.

Friends.

Career.

Cities.

Not my dream job but it gets the bills paid.

My friends never check up on me but they’ll respond if I need them.

I wish this shirt was in a different color but I’ll grab it because I like the design.

I’ll want something very specific, and when I can’t have it, I’ll find something that resembles it closely enough.

Three out of five.

They make me laugh.

They’re kind.

They’re available.

They don’t have the emotional capacity I wanted, but they have the humor.

They don’t make me feel completely understood, but they understand this one part of me.

They aren’t what I imagined. But they have enough of it that I can build the rest in my head. And then I become incredibly committed to convincing myself that enough is enough. I become a lawyer for the defense.

But look at this.

And this.

And remember when they did that?

I collect evidence for something I already know. Sometimes I think we do this because admitting we still want the original thing is much more frightening than settling for a convincing replica.

Because if I admit I still want a baguette, then I also have to admit that I am still willing to want something that once hurt me.

And maybe that is the part I don’t want to face.

It’s easier to say I like sourdough.

It’s easier to convince myself that the three things are enough.

It’s easier to call myself picky for wanting all five.

So I eat the sourdough.

And it’s good.

That’s the problem.

If it were terrible, I could leave it alone.

But it’s good.

Just not what I wanted.

And maybe that is what makes the almost so dangerous.

The almost is never nothing.

It is usually something good.

Good enough to stay.

Good enough to defend.

Good enough to make you question whether asking for more is selfish.

Good enough that you can spend months, sometimes years, trying to convince yourself that you never wanted anything else.

I think that’s what we romanticize.

Not the breadcrumbs.

The resemblance.

We find something that looks enough like the thing we wanted, and instead of admitting we’re still hungry, we convince ourselves we are full.

Growing up, my mom would always say, “I know you more than you know yourself.” I would roll my eyes because I genuinely didn’t believe her. “No you don’t,” I would mumble. She would go, “inti binti…” which translates to, “you are my daughter,” and follow it up with, “…and I know you.”

Growing up, my mother and I bumped heads a lot. We never truly got along. There were times when I wasn’t the nicest to her, and neither was she to me. I would love to say that our relationship has always been perfect, but that is not the truth. I believed that as I grew up and went through so many different phases, I had changed so much that there was no way she could know me that well.

When I was 18, I developed an eating disorder and lost a lot of weight. I was very insecure about it, but I never talked about it. I went to a gathering after not being around the community for months, and it was the first time I had been back. I usually wore loose clothes, so people didn’t notice much. But that day, I wore something a little more fitted. I was having a conversation with someone when one of the girls interjected, “Oh my God! You lost so much weight.” Later that night, another girl stopped me and said, “Oh my God, how did you lose this much weight?” And then came another comment: “Losing weight is nice, but you have literally lost all your curves.” In the Yemeni community, making comments about people’s bodies is very normalized. It happens often. It’s horrible, but it’s true. Those comments stayed in my head all night. I repeated them to myself the entire drive home.

My mom was behind the steering wheel. She took a look at me, deep in thought. She whispered my name. I didn’t respond. My head was turned away from her, gazing through the window. In that moment, she reached over and hugged me with one arm. I started bawling. She said, “It’s okay. You are very beautiful. You’ll always be beautiful.” Did my mom know about any of the comments? Did I tell her about what I was struggling with or how insecure I felt? No. But did she know? Yes.

Fast forward to when I was 19. I had a guy wanting to come ask for my hand. This was the first time something like this had happened, and I had no idea how to tell my parents about a guy. I was pacing around the kitchen, deep in thought. My mom was sitting at the dining table. She was on her phone, but every now and then, she would look up at me. She called my name. I ignored her. She called me again and told me to come here. I stood in front of my mother. She just said, “There is something.” “What, Mama? Nothing.” “No, there is something. What is it?” “Mama, nothing.” She took one final look at me. “Who is it?” I was caught off guard. “What are you talking about?” she asked firmly. “Who is the guy?” My shoulders dropped. I was defenseless. I didn’t bother putting up a fight. “How did you know?” I asked. She responded very casually, “Because inti binti, and I know you.”

Recently, I have been struggling with my mental health. It has made me difficult and angry. Conversations are not easy for me to have, and I snap at everyone in the house. This morning, my mother and I had a disagreement. Not really a fight, but I was dismissive and, again, difficult. I went up to my room and spent some time there before coming back downstairs. My brother and I got into it about which car each of us should take. This was happening in front of my mom. She was on her phone when she interjected, “No one is upsetting you. You’re upsetting yourself.” I gave my brother an angry glare. She looked up at me and saw my eyes. She called my name very softly, and I just turned and walked away. She called me again. I ignored her. She got up and followed me, calling my name again. I turned around, and she had her arms open for me. I walked up to her, and she took me into her arms. I let out a primal cry. You know the kind of cry. The kind that comes from a place you have been suppressing for too long. “What’s wrong? Who upset you?” I didn’t respond. “It’s okay. It’s stress. It’s okay. You are not leaving the house right now.” She sat me on the couch, gave me a drink, and said, “Drink this. I’m going to pray, and I’m coming back.” When she returned, she sat down beside me. There was minimal conversation. We watched a Turkish episode together, and she never let go of me.

How did she know? Because she is my mother, and she knows me. Although, I also think that when she looks at me, she sees a mirror reflecting back everything she used to be. Maybe my mother knows because she was once in my place. Maybe she recognizes things in me that I haven’t even learned how to recognize in myself yet.

But how would I know that? It’s not like I am her daughter and I know her.

That seems to be the theme of the past two days. I know, it sounds like a heavy topic to have sitting in the front of your mind for that long.

Yesterday, I went to a khutba where the speaker talked about Ismail R.A. and Ibrahim A.S. He spoke about how Ismail A.S. was willing to forgo so much for the sake of Allah. Then he asked one question that echoed in my mind:

“Who is your Ismail?”

Which basically translates to: what are you afraid of letting go of?

Later that day, I watched a vlog from a girl I’ve followed since I was 16. I don’t watch her consistently anymore, but whenever I see her name, I always click on her videos. She reminds me so much of myself.

She spoke about turning 30 in a month and reflecting on her twenties. One thing she said stood out to me: she was never afraid to begin again. She talked about moving into a new apartment and how the place she really wanted didn’t work out. SubhanAllah, it just wasn’t meant for her. She ended up choosing somewhere else instead, a home she looked at, tilted her head a bit, and said:

“This could work.”

And somehow, everything fell into place exactly how it was supposed to.

Okay Shahd… nice observations, but what does that have to do with you? Glad you asked.

I am a 24-year-old Yemeni girl… a very unconventional 24-year-old Yemeni girl. I don’t fit the traditional “wifey” Yemeni girl stereotype in a lot of ways. In an effort to overcompensate, I try to fit into the standard of having my life all together. Graduated. A couple certificates. A standard, good-paying job.

But it doesn’t feel like me.

I don’t feel like myself. I feel like I’m just throwing myself into work and the never-ending responsibilities of life. Something in my soul feels off. I feel like I’m constantly doing things for everybody else, thinking about everybody else all the time.

Where is the room in my life that fits me?

So what am I afraid of losing?

Am I afraid people will see the truth? That I genuinely don’t know what I want to do with my life? Am I afraid that the timeline I created for myself a couple years ago isn’t coming together the way I imagined?

Or is it that when I finally choose myself, I’ll be looked at differently? That my worth is tied to how useful I am? That when I stop juggling everyone else and finally let my arms relax, everything will fall apart?

And if that happens… what do I do then?

That creates a lot of beliefs about myself and the world. If I stop performing for everyone else and finally hold the mirror back up to myself, I have to confront what I actually want. That requires vulnerability, honesty, and courage. All the things we as humans try to avoid, because just because something is right doesn’t mean it’s easy.

I’ve spent my whole life bridging two worlds. I’ve spent so much of it shrinking, overcompensating, and trying to keep up with the rat race that I never stopped long enough to ask myself the heavy questions.

Does this mean I’m going to burn my life down overnight, quit my job, travel abroad, and suddenly discover who I am?

No. Not necessarily.

But it does mean I need to make room for Shahd.

To do more of the things I love. To start learning how to say no. To give myself the privilege of being specific. Specific about what I love, who I am, and what I expect from this life.

Sometimes nothing changes except the way you see it, and suddenly, everything feels different.

In 2025, I took every single man off my Instagram and completely deactivated all of my social media accounts. Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t leave social media because I was heartbroken, secretly engaged, or pressured by my family. I left because one ordinary moment made me realize I no longer felt human on it.

I’ve always had public social media accounts, never really caring about who stumbled across my content. Over the years, I gained a following and assumed attention was simply part of the experience. People watched, people liked, people came and went, and I never questioned it.

Until one random day in May.

I posted a photo on my story. Normally, I never check who views my stories, but that day I did. There were countless men liking it, strangers whose names I barely recognized. Usually, that kind of attention would have boosted my ego. Instead, I felt uncomfortable. Almost disgusted.

I realized I didn’t know who these men were, yet I existed as something for them to consume in passing moments of boredom. Even though I was fully covered, I suddenly felt reduced to an image, something to look at rather than someone to know.

That discomfort stayed with me longer than I expected. It forced me to ask a question I had never seriously considered before: Who was I being seen for?

And that’s when it hit me: my beauty is actually the least interesting thing about me.

Not because beauty doesn’t matter. Not because there is anything wrong with wanting to look pretty or enjoying fashion, I love both. But somewhere along the way, I realized how easily we begin to measure ourselves through visibility. Through attention. Through being perceived.

We spend hours perfecting how we present ourselves: following fashion trends, learning new hijab styles, trying makeup techniques that promise desirability. Although, none of this is inherently wrong. The problem begins when we stop asking whether we are expressing ourselves or unconsciously shaping ourselves around what feels chosen, liked, or validated.

I love the way I look, and I would be lying if I said I don’t enjoy being noticed. But I started realizing that enjoyment had quietly turned into a reliance, and that dependence made my sense of worth feel fragile.

Because beauty alone was never meant to carry the weight of my identity.

I began to understand that I feel beautiful for reasons that have nothing to do with appearance. I feel beautiful because of the way I speak to people. Because of my thoughts. Because of how I treat others. Because of the values I carry when no one is watching. That is how I truly started understanding my worth.

Our appearance may be one part of who we are, let’s say… approximately twenty percent, but when we hyper-fixate on that single category and try to make it one hundred percent, inadequacy becomes inevitable. I realized that if my self-concept changed every time I looked in the mirror, then I had built my confidence on something that could shift overnight.

Focusing only on how I looked was like staring at one corner of a painting and calling it incomplete. When we step back and see the full picture, the painting finally begins to make sense. Beauty becomes an accent to your identity, not the foundation.

Even conversations about modesty and the male gaze can unintentionally become male-centered if we aren’t careful. When everything revolves around how we are seen, we are still defining ourselves through someone else’s perspective. True mindfulness means shifting the focus back inward.

By all means, wear the makeup. Buy the dress you love. Express yourself fully. But don’t let appearance become the only language through which you understand your worth.

Allah gave you your beauty, and it belongs to you before it belongs to anyone else.

Whether you choose to share it with the world or keep parts of it private is your decision. But beauty was never meant to be the driving force behind your identity.

My beauty was never meant to belong to an audience. It was entrusted to me first.

Ten years ago

I was at a family friend’s house.

An older lady sat there,

weaving her daughter’s hair into a French braid.

I watched her fingers,

steady, practiced,

like she had been threading patience into every strand.

Confidently,

I offered my help.

She looked at me, intrigued.

“You know how to French braid?”

I laughed.

“I’m a softball player. Of course I know how to braid.”

So she worked on one side

and I started on the other.

Fingers running through the little girl’s hair,

section after section,

but something was off.

No, no, no…

Why do they look like that?

I tried again.

Cross, tuck, pull.

Focused. Frustrated. Fumbling.

She glanced up.

“I thought you knew how to braid,” she said.

“I do,” I shot back,

defensive, embarrassed.

Then quieter,

“I guess I just don’t know how to do it on someone else’s hair.”

She smiled.

“No, you just don’t know how to braid,”

she teased.

And we laughed.

I rolled my eyes.

Played it off like it didn’t sting just a little.

Every game after that,

we had to wear our hair pulled tight,

braided before stepping onto the field.

Every single game,

I wanted to snap a photo,

send it to her,

show her I got it now.

That I do know how to do it.

Seasons passed.

I stopped braiding my hair as often.

And I only saw her twice more after that.

Then last year,

I attended her funeral.

Cause of death: suicide.

Now, every time I pick up a strand of hair,

my fingers remember her.

I wonder

if I had told her she lives in the rhythm of my hands,

would that have changed anything?

Tonight,

I am going to sleep with my hair woven in two braids.

And I hope

wherever she is,

she knows

That she was never forgotten.

Because that’s the strange thing about suicide

You stay

Even after you have left

Your fingerprints are pressed deep into this earth,

indented into the soil,

woven into the air we breathe.

You once lived here.

No matter how much you think you are forgotten,

someone remembers.

Someone will think of you when they hear a song,

a phrase,

a certain brand,

or… when they wear French braids.

Subscribe now