There’s a Certain Freedom in Owning Your Story

Not the freedom to say anything you want, the freedom to control what you give.
To choose your words before someone else twists them into a headline.

That’s something I learned early.

When you look different, people narrate your life before you ever speak. They fill in the blanks. They decide who you must be. For me, it started young, the looks, the questions, the disbelief when I’d say, “I’m Saudi.” The pause that followed, like I’d said a punchline instead of a fact.

It used to bother me.
Now it fascinates me.

Because we all do it, don’t we? We label what we don’t understand so we can feel safe around it.
But I decided long ago that my difference wasn’t a flaw, it was an opening.
If I could make people laugh, I could make them listen.
And if I could make them listen, maybe I could make them think.

Comedy became my translator.
Not between languages, between worlds.

Still, it’s tiring.
The explaining. The defending. The constant dance of showing humanity to people who already have their conclusions ready.

Some days, it wears on me.
But kindness never does.
That part doesn’t get old.

Because at the heart of it, all I want is to create, to build things that make people feel seen, not divided.
I don’t want to spend my life reacting to hate. I want to outlive it.

That’s the strange thing about peace: it’s not silence.
It’s not being left alone.
It’s being able to speak without being belittled for it.
It’s the space to create something beautiful without someone trying to villainize your intent.

That’s what I’m fighting for, the freedom to be kind without suspicion, to build without justification, to live without apology.

And maybe that’s what heaven really is.
Not perfection.
Just the absence of cruelty.

If I could leave one truth behind, no cameras, no critics, no filters, it would be this:

Life is great.
Life is grand.
Life is the biggest adventure if you’re brave enough to live it to its fullest.
And life is definitely worth living.