Over 75 years. Plus one.

It's been one year.

And when I say one year, what I mean is, well over 75 years, plus one.

Over 75 years of oppression, occupation, apartheid, and land theft.

Rape, torture, illegal imprisonment.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Just in case there's anyone still thinking that all of this began on October 7th, 2023.

Last December when I updated my first article on Palestine which I wrote in November, I remember thinking how indescribably horrific it was that in 2 months, over 17,000 Palestinians were martyred, and that surely it would all have to end soon.

Never in a million years would I have been able to imagine that after 12 months, the unspeakable slaughter of the Palestinians would still be continuing, with the death toll well over 100,000; educated estimates have it far closer to 200,000.

And now Lebanon is being invaded.

Just in case there's anyone still thinking that all of this had to do with Hamas.

Part of me hesitates to share my personal experience and how much all this has affected me, because it's nothing compared to what is actually happening to the people in Palestine and Lebanon.

But nevertheless I'm committed to sharing my journey here, with the intention that it resonates and inspires others who may have gone through or are going through the same things.

For almost the entire month of October last year, I was so distraught I ate almost nothing. For months afterwards, I had frequent nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night in a panic clutching my chest, dreaming that I had been crushed under the rubble, unable to move or breathe.

I had a recurring nightmare that my last boyfriend, who was a Muslim Arab man, was being hunted by the IOF and I was frantically trying to get him out.

All of this was exasperated by the fact that in February of 2024, a car crashed into my living room one foot from where I was sitting. It was an absolute miracle that my cats and I were not injured or killed.

But it left me very shaken and traumatized, with a very very small taste of what it's like to nearly die in your own home. I found myself having severe flashbacks, bursting into tears at random moments, and unable to sit in the living room again or feel safe in my own home, especially at night.

I felt so alone and isolated, as I had almost no one in my physical everyday life who shared my concern or perspectives. The only people I felt I could connect with were the like-minded souls I found on social media.

I struggled on a daily basis to do even the most normal everyday tasks. And it was mind-boggling to me to fathom how everyone else was just going on with their lives like nothing was happening.

In the first 8 months of the non-stop onslaught on Gaza, I watched over 9,000 videos. I stopped keeping track after that.

I go into more of the details of the transformation that came from the first few months of both bearing witness to the current genocide and educating myself on the past events in this article here.

As the months went on, I had to find a way to pace myself, and I would love to say that I found a way to cope with the pain, trauma, and heartache of everything I was learning and experiencing, but I didn't find a way to cope.

I'm not sure there is a way to cope with such things.

When coping is not possible, change is essential. I couldn't cope, I had to change.

I had to become a different person. I made the conscious choice to let everything I was experiencing break me open, but only so the light could get in.

Do you see Lovelies? That's how we're all going to make it in the end, by letting the light in.

That's the only way.

Sometimes even being able to find the light in the face of such incredible Darkness is a miracle in and of itself.

An act of courage and resistance.

And I often struggled with that as I witnessed such horrific atrocities that I never could have imagined were even possible.

Seeing child after child with their head literally blown off. Toddlers shot by snipers in their head and their chest. Teenage boys with their hands zip tied behind their backs, run over by tanks and bulldozers, legs first, while they were still alive.

An unborn child blown out of its mother's womb, the umbilical cord still attached.

Bombings so severe, that entire family lines were wiped out at once. Where no whole bodies could even be found, all that was left were bits of flesh, collected in plastic bags.

And all of that led to something equally unexpected; the most intense feelings of hate and rage and anger the likes of which I had never even come close to experiencing.

That would all be hard enough of course, but as a spiritual person, I really struggled with those thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

At first the spiritual ego came in loud and fast, ever so swift to remind me that "it's not loving or spiritual to have hate or anger, you better not be thinking or feeling that way. Anger leads to hate and hate leads to the dark side and so you better watch out!"

However, I am far enough along on my journey to know without a doubt, that the voice of my true nature, never ever speaks in the tone of judgment.

And so I knew there had to be a different message here.

Because I don’t believe the Divine recoils from our rage.

I don’t believe that Love, in its highest form, is afraid of grief.

And I sure as hell don’t believe that silence or neutrality is more “enlightened” than the truth.

The truth is, I had to feel the hate. I had to feel the burning, wild anger.

Not because I wanted to live there forever, but because those feelings were sacred signals; messengers showing me what my soul stands for.

You see, my anger doesn’t mean I am straying from my spiritual path.

It means I am walking it.

Because if my spirituality has no room for the oppressed,

for the murdered,

for the dispossessed—

then it isn’t worth a damn.

If my metaphysics don’t break down in the face of genocide and still resurrect themselves into a deeper, more embodied form of truth, then what good are they?

What I’ve come to understand is this:

It’s not about choosing between despair or denial.

It’s about expanding wide enough to hold the both/and.

To weep for every child killed, and to hold the vision of a free, flourishing Palestine.

To scream at the injustice and to whisper prayers for healing.

To hate the systems of evil and to remember that every soul is made of God, even those who’ve forgotten.

I don’t have a tidy ending to this post. I wish I did.

Because this story isn’t over.

Because the bombs are still falling.

Because the blockade continues and they are literally starving to death.

Because the world is still pretending it doesn’t see.

But I will leave you with this: 75 years plus one.

And still, they rise.

Still, they sing.

Still, they resist with poetry and gardens and love so stubborn, it makes empires tremble.

And me?

I will keep speaking.

I will keep grieving.

I will keep remembering.

I will keep loving.

Not because it’s easy. But because it’s sacred.

Because I made a promise to myself: that no matter how dark the world gets—

I will always let the light in.

And someday soon Inshallah, millions of lights will join me.

Until then, and as always, Free Palestine.