Ocean Ave

The speaker values friendships deeply and believes that friendships have helped them navigate life and grow as a person. They emphasize that friendships can take many forms and do not have to fit a specific criteria. The speaker acknowledges that some friendships may end or change over time, but they still appreciate the value those friendships brought to their life. They express gratitude for their sister's belief in their talents and how it motivates them to work hard. The speaker also mentions their interest in writing and how others have recognized their talent in that area. Letters to my friends. I wrote down something. Letters to my friends. I am a person who values friendship very well, very deeply. And I cherish my friends like little diamonds and each one of them are very special to me and have their own place in my life that is irreplaceable no matter how much I try to find another person that's the same even though I never tried to because I cannot simply give up on them. I, since I was young, I relied on friendships a lot. Since I have been having like fairly hard time navigating life like every child trying to understand the outside world that's like speaking a foreign language not literally sometimes it is literally but mostly figuratively. I can't pronounce the word. Yeah, so I relied on friendships to make my life more enjoyable and more bearable since I was a very sensitive child. I am still a very sensitive person or a human being. I take everything to my heart, not personally, but I just tend to feel deeply each feeling and every feeling even though I may or may not show them or like express them externally, but internally I feel my feelings very deeply and friendships have been the guide for me throughout this life. I feel like friendships is kind of a a concept that strengthens every literal meaning that you can find on books or like a person can tell you because we get to make our own, to create our own concepts of friendships that's customized to us and our needs and our person and it does not really matter what the other person thinks friendship is because you can make friendships with strangers, your siblings, your pets, your parents, older people, younger people, your parents, whoever you want to really and you can really form deep friendships with yourself as well if you want to. I feel like it's one of the rarest gifts that we are given in this life that has no cost and no matter who you are, where you are, how are you shaped, you can form friendships. I mean even animals have friends, even plants have friends and I know a lot of people struggle to make friendships which is really really, it sucks because I've had some moments where I've been going through that is I think it's because we mold a kind of set criteria of what friendships should look like. That's why we are stuck in a place where we can't find friends that are loyal to us or anything because truly, genuinely friendships are not like a person, it's not like a person that's like oh you meet or not at work or at school that's the same age as you and probably looks like you or like has the same likings and interests as you or the same gender or whatever and spends all the time with you and it can be like that and I don't think it should be only like that. I have different kinds of friendships. I have this kind of friendships and I have really different kinds of friendships that if I had like limited myself to the only kind of friendship that's really common I would probably not have discovered different bits of other living beings and myself as well because once you get to meet a person you meet them and you meet yourself as well because you discover a lot of things about yourself and you learn a lot of things about yourself during interactions with other people and other like external stuff whether it's like an object or I don't know a job or like a person or a dog it can be whatever it's just it makes you learn a lot about yourself and I feel like navigating friendships throughout my life has contributed to my growth exponentially. I probably would not been the person that, not probably, certainly would not be the person that I am today without all the great friendships that I had and have and it would have not it would have been like half of me or like not like all of me right now. I think that thought did not really come out the way I thought about it so I was saying like the way friendships contributed to me as a person was very very positive and impactful in a good way that's like without it I wouldn't be the great person that I think I am today. It sounds very cocky but I mean if you don't think of yourself as a great person who do you expect another person why would you expect another person think you are great right? Don't wait for another person to tell you you are great just think that you are and be proud of yourself and your achievements so far and I personally have had the most unconventional friendships throughout my life. My friendships looked really really different in every other way. I am best friends with my sister, I am best friends with myself, I am best friends with my friends that I've had at school, at work. I've had best friends, I've had some best friends that are way older than me or like way younger than me. I've been friends even with like everything I just want. Okay that might sound very weird but I do like be friends with all kinds of things even like animals which is I don't think it's a weird thing honestly if you can't form friendships with animals that's I think that's the weird thing and I can and it goes like you know on levels and just because I am friends with someone on a surface level does not mean that this friendship means any less to me or it is any less valuable to me than my friendship that I have with another person for like more than 15 years right? So and also like I've had friendships that have fallen apart throughout the years or like I've had like bad friendship breakups and that does not make me look back to them in a very back to them in a very negative way. Surely the part like the like the friendships that have fallen apart in a I would say dramatic and bad way, I'm not very proud of that specific part like the breakup part but friendship itself was great and I would always look up to it and cherish it and if I had to go back I would just do it just like just go through the same things again. Obviously I would try to maybe make the breakup less dramatic and less negative but those friendships have taught me a lot of things. I feel like people put so much pressure on friendships that like it has to last forever to be a great friendship. You have like more value socially if you have a friend that you have had since you were a child or like you've been best friends and besties for like three years, four years, inseparable, you see each other every day and you'll have the same taste and everything blah blah blah you're inseparable. It doesn't have really to be like that. It can be like that which is great as well like but even those friendships that have fallen apart and like you grow out of it sometimes it does not have to be like like the end of friendship is caused by like a fight or something like that. I just can't really sometimes it's distance like makes you just give up on the friendship or like maybe physical distance or like the you just grow to be very two very different individuals and you're not just friends anymore and that's okay and like you don't have to be weird or awkward about it. You were friends at some point and then you're not and that's it that's okay. I feel like it's okay for me it's truly not awkward for me that to introduce or talk about someone as oh they were my friend or we were friends but we're not and that's okay you know we're just not friends anymore and it was mutual and there was nothing dramatic about it we did not fight or anything it's just we grew to be two different people and that's it. And that's okay and on the other side I've had like really really great friendships that have like have lasted for a very long time and I take very big pride in it and I personally could not live without it so I dedicate this episode to them. I wrote some things that I'm gonna read some of the other things and just gonna talk about it because some things cannot really be expressed in words in written words but it just comes to you in the moment. So I want to say that I really really appreciate and I love how my sister and me always feel like the talent I grew up dreaming to be and that's like one of the things that makes me very very um feel great for myself and at the same time emotional and um how to say this it makes me feel a little bit of motivation even though I truly still do not believe that that great person that my sister thinks that I am it motivates me to always aspire and work hard towards that person that my sister thinks I am like she always um um supports me and like um encourages me and like believes that I have um very talented and like blah blah blah I'm smart and everything so even though I as a person myself still do not think that I've got that great of talent and that great of intelligence that my sister thinks I am it pushes me every day to work harder towards that goal and I feel like without that if I hadn't had this um kind of relationship with my sister I would probably not I would probably never think that I'm a talented person or like I'm a smart person in that way when that seems that my sister thinks I am and I would probably not work towards it because if that concept would not even cross my mind and just like to not make it very vague I since I was young I was like um I was a smart kid like academically smart um I would get grades and everything which is like I don't know it's not like it's an achievement but it's not like something crazy but other than that I've had like some small hobbies that I like to do like sometimes drawing painting I used to like um I remember I just remember I used to like drawing painting and writing as well and um throughout the like the 12 years I've um went through in school like a lot of people have told me that like um they like my writings and like the way I write and they think that I am talented in that sector and I have like some kind of gifts when it comes to writing because for the longest time it came very natural to me and it was just it was it was just it was um very automatic to me and I did not think about it twice I did not even make a lot of effort to like write something like an essay or whatever and people really liked it and found it they were impressed by by it and really liked it they were fans of like my writing so I used to write poems and stuff and at some point like it's like you I don't know you make a paper plane and 12 years like very simple and like it's a stupid paper plane you know it's not an invention you did not and it's not you did not invent something like make a rocket and ship it to space it just a paper plane to you but other people see it as a rocket right so I think that's what I mean when my sister thinks I'm a talent and I have a talent or a gift and I still do not see it right now I'm working hard towards it it motivates me every day to work towards it and to see what she actually sees when like she says that I'm talented and I had a gift when it comes to writing um another thing that I love about people around me and my friends is how all the women in my family always told me to pursue education and build a career I'm proud of I never depend on anyone by myself and I feel like this is a there's a very misconception about like um Arab women or like brown women that they are um dependent um they depend on their um spouses or like they're a male figure in their household um which at some point in um the history it was true because like given um the socioeconomic and historical and political situation of those countries for example um a lot of um north not a lot of north african all of the north african countries were colonized and um several times by different um civilizations different cultures and stuff so that had in fact it impacted on the um culture and the view on um women generally and their place that they hold in the society and if somehow it was at some point it was really like women were kind of um really worshipped not like worshipped in a um spiritual religious way but like they had really great um space and um place in the society for example the Amazigh which are the indigenous people of north africa um they've had queens that were women and there was um a lot of um very impactful women in the north african history that have done great things for their land and their people and everything so that after that somehow the um um place that women have held in their societies for so long like shrinked by time i i know i don't specifically know like which are i cannot name which are the um historical events that led to that but um after like um the 90s or like during the 90s 80s it was like a big um wave of like women that have pursued their education and led to the women in our society right now because before that for example the generation of my um grandmother and older than that they have hadn't the chance the equal chance to um the equal rights to education and other rights um like men in their societies even though before that um women have had very very big i said like they were very impactful in our history like um there was this woman that's called Fatima Fahdiyah that was very very rich and she was a very successful woman and she was um the one who built the quote-unquote first university in the world um as a concept of a university with like classrooms and everything that's located in Fes um which is like i know it's not specifically the first university in the world but it is the first university in the world that's known to the closest concepts of university to this day to this day and she was a woman right and to think that this woman was north african from like a outside or western point of view it was a little bit crazy thinking oh like oh this in a world where um women are oppressed and stuff like that blah blah blah how did they allow a woman to be this rich and have all those um successful businesses let alone um build a university and be the president blah blah blah you know like she's the owner of the university so she was the one that led us to um thanks to her there was generation and generations that graduated from this university that were educated and stuff like that so she had a very big impact in our um history and society like the history of education um in our society so that was very good but after that somehow it went down it was like that it was like uh i don't know what's the word after that like that there was a peak moment of um um privilege and equal rights that women had it went down it wouldn't it went downwards and women started being a little bit um marginalized and not given the same rights as men in our societies so growing up all the women in my family would tell me do not rely on everyone you have to pursue education and your goals so i hold into this thing and this thought very very deeply and whenever i feel like i want to give up on my school and studies not literally but i feel like school is getting hard and everything i remember okay i have to do if i if it's i feel like i don't want to do it on myself i have at least do it for all the women in my family to have um hope that i would be a greater version of themselves not a greater version of themselves literally but like given all the opportunities that i have now and they haven't had back in the time um i just want to do it like not only for them like one of those things that motivate me to go on with and grow my career bigger is those um words that um i've been told growing up by like my aunts i'm very i'm kind of close with my especially um on my mom's side like especially because of my mom's side of the family they are younger and a lot of them were they are closer to me in age so there was more of a friendship that i've had with my aunts than actual like aunt niece relationship so i really really um cherish that and i'm very proud of it and i love it so i think about it it's my woman empire um one of the other things that i've been told and by one of my friends and i did i love really really a lot is um it's one of the things that i love about people around me that are my friends whether they are um i don't know but like members of the family or like my girlfriend like my family friendships or like my male friendships or whatever they're i'm very i'm not very very but like i'm not very very but like i'm close with my brother and even though he is my brother i like sometimes to look at him as my little friend as well so i am very proud of him and of our little relationships that i've been the relationship that i've been able to grow throughout the years he's now like 10 almost 10 a second he's gonna be turning like 20 22 days so i love that little joy that brightens um his eyes each time he sees me it's like um some kind of superhero so um as i said even though like um it makes it a little bit hard and it puts a some kind of pressure on me when my feelings look up to me and think i'm a very i'm a great person um i still take a lot of proud pride in it and cherish it like the difference between me and my brother is like 13 years which is huge um not huge but compared to um my sister we are only three years apart so my little brother always sees me as like this amazing person that's like has some kind of superpowers he thinks that i'm superwoman i don't know like not literally superpowers but he once told me oh you are my superhero and i was like oh my god that is so sweet right and i just love it and i cherish it a lot um i also would like to make a tribute to all the female friendships that i've had throughout my life all the amazing women and girls that i've had around me and i've had the honor to be friends with them they are the most amazing human beings literally i'm like i may sound very biased but i kid you not like these girls and women like some of them like some of my friends i've seen them as girls kids then girls then teenage girls and women and they were so amazing and smart and powerful and resilient and some of the other friendships like female friendships that i've had like i've made later in life it just it's like irreplaceable and it's so how to say it it's like so nourishing it's like the water to my plants i just cannot give up on it and it cannot be put in words there is this some type of trend on um instagram or tiktok i'm not on tiktok but i've seen a lot of videos about it and i love it there is um this one that's called girlhood and they just show a bunch of random pictures of like girls being girls which is so relatable and so beautiful i love to see it it's just like sometimes it shows like the very very good moments of those girls lives and the very very bad moments of those girls lives and it just so shows like how um um feels little life is it's like it goes up and down like a fucking roller coaster and yeah it's it's not only a girl thing it's not like a woman thing it's a human thing everybody's life has ups and downs but i feel like i just i think it's so magical to see a woman from the outside she's so put together and she's so beautiful and she has like this beautiful jewelry smells so good absolutely stunning makeup and everything by the same time she can be she can be a very very strong like physically and mentally person and at the same time she can be very very sick during her period and like screaming and crazy and she can be also very very mature and leading up like great conversations and debates or she can be a team leader in like some sort of um i don't know um convention whatever like it just makes me like um contemplate how so transforming women can be they can be so different things at the same time and at some point like sometimes it can be so unbelievable because growing up as a girl in the 2000s in the early 2000s i was born in 2001 so i grew up in the early 2000s i've had like consuming the mass media all those movies and like people telling you and stuff like that i've had that the idea that a woman or a girl can only be one thing or like only so little things there's only so little options for women to be or like some specific shapes that a woman can mold into like she can be only a square triangle or a circle and that's it but growing up and i'm so growing up and i'm so lucky that i get to like um see that and i'm so lucky and happy that i grew up in this generation where i can see that a woman is not only one thing and i don't know if you actually understand what i'm saying obviously not understand but like deeply deeply know what i understand i want to say because if you um have grown up like in this generation like in the early 2000s um there was one picture of what a very very good looking woman can be and this one specific thing a woman cannot be pretty and smart at the same time if she's smart she's dorky and she's socially awkward but if she's beautiful she's not very smart she's not good at sports she's only good in relationships and socially and that's it but growing up i fucking realized you can be everything can be so smart and have a great sense of style great makeup skills and take care of yourself and have amazing social skills high iq and high eq and you can do all of it and you can be physically strong emotionally strong and mentally strong and everything you just can do everything and everything you want i know this may sound very very um obvious like what the hell of course like oh yeah women are human beings and they can do whatever they can but growing up especially in a third world country which is highly misogynistic and sexist i have been told like a woman cannot be astronauts or there was never a picture of a woman that's an astronaut or when you think of a matrimony i don't know how to say it was a physicist it can only be a man or like if you think of oh let's say an athlete what comes to you the first thing that comes to your mind is somehow a man or like a famous like football player it's a man or like a boxer it's a man um great chef it's a man um i don't know it's just like it's just like that but now in this day and time i am so so happy that it's not the same and like a woman is not only one thing a pretty woman is not only like straight blonde hair and thin she can have curly hair she can have curves she can be brown white black purple pink i don't fucking know we can be whatever you want to be and you still can be and you still can be all those things and this is something that i've helped i have learned like growing up and like with time and everything but i've seen it in real life as well and i've seen it through my female friendships and it's so beautiful and so i don't know how to describe it's indescribable it's just like i haven't really experienced love and affection as deep as i've experienced it with my female friendships and like this support just because you're a woman they support you um like those bathroom talks or like when you are on your period nobody supports you as like as a girl like when you go when you are in school and you get your period and you don't know you panic and you don't know what to do you can literally go to any girl round and go you don't even know you ask her if she has a pad she was like okay i got you and she will literally go out of her way to give you a pad if you walk up if you walk down the street and you have your period leaked and you can't see it through the pants there's gonna be a girl who's gonna come up to you and help you and tell you and everything there's those little things that women are there for each other and they help they hold your hand through it and it's just so beautiful and so irreplaceable and that's yeah that's it period like this is what i want to say it's it's just so amazing i feel so lucky that i've had such great great great female friendships i 99% of i would say 90% of my female friendships have been so successful and so nourishing and so beautiful and loving and supportive way more than any other species in this world and like i don't know i don't want to create this kind of um debate of like oh between men and women but genuinely i've had more women rooting for me and supporting me and believing in me and my success and my achievements more than men i've been questioned like my achievements have been my achievements have been questioned by more men than women and i you cannot tell me oh that's just a human thing or just so random blah blah it is sexism and there is this really subtle sexism that you cannot really see or understand unless you are a woman who went through it and grew up in a time that's been like that and it's just it's just like that and i'm so thankful for all the female friendships in my life that have taught me and shown me and proved to me and to the world that there isn't one specific image of what and or like a shape or a color or a sound whatever what a woman can be she just can be whatever she is like every other species in the world in this lifetime or existence yeah um one of the um i'm having a brain fog right now um yeah another type of friendship stuff heard that's kind of atypical is um i don't know but if you are in like an age like where you can legally or like capable to work in the work environment you will be working with people from different ages different backgrounds like so different from you and as a my first job that i've had is when i was 19 i was a cashier in a local um small business that was like a grocery store and it was so cool to me to be like um 19 i've had a friend who was um 17 and another friend that was like 20 and another friend that was my co-worker and she was 50 years old and another friend who was um my co-worker as well and he was i don't really know it was he he already had had his child as well like working with us and he that child was already grown up so it was really amazing to be to make all those kind of friendships of course we are um like those friendships were built because we work together and they kind of um has this fell apart when i quit that job i also was friends with one of like my co-workers who was 12 years old he was working there because his dad it was his dad's business so he wouldn't just work there because he wanted to hang out and just work with us and when we were standing behind the counter we were all like having as much fun and doing the same job with the same effort with the same seriousness regardless of our age our gender our ethnicity whatever and it was so great there was so something so special about it i was 19 my my other co-worker was 17 and my other co-worker was 12 and we were just having fun it was really fun and like none of us like had a problem with um our age difference or anything we just took each other very seriously in the same way at the same level and i find it very interesting and very nourishing as well um when you grow up in life and you start like having those experiences where you you see or like you work with a person that's on a daily basis so you don't really have to be friends with your co-workers but i was lucky enough to be friends with my co-workers and i got along with them so well so you form those friendships with a person regardless of their age because most of my experiences like of my friendships i've had like up to that point it was people at the same age as me like going to school blah blah but then at work it's not like that you find someone who's like almost in their 60s it's a grandpa and someone who's like there to um pay off their debt and someone who's there just to like you know save up money for their summer vacation someone who's there was making women from like their actual that's their actual job and so we have so different lives like different struggles different achievements different like things that empower us but somehow we just all of those things did not matter and became friends in a very very non-judgmental way it was just so beautiful and so interesting and so um it contributed to the person that i am now like in a very very big way and i love it and i'm very proud of it i will never um give up on the way that that experience had transformed me it's just um um uh i don't know how to say it i cannot see myself without it you know and it was just i learned a lot of things like i never had a chance to talk to a person that's older than me as if they are my friends especially a stranger you know and to see older people taking you seriously like that it was i don't know how to say it but it was he created this kind of pride in me like that i've never felt before like i mattered not only because i'm a person but they can rely on me they see me as a person they do not see me as a child they see me as an equal to them in that in that um um context you know which i found very very interesting and i still think about it all the time and not only in that job like i've had different jobs after that and it was always the same like if you are lucky enough to work in an environment where like it's so different for me like your co-workers like are there for different purposes they come from different um backgrounds they have different um realities and stuff but all of you come there you have one purpose just to go through the day clock in and clock out and if you are as i said lucky enough to have great people working with you just become friends like and it would be kind of unnatural to me to i don't know have a friend who's like like talk to someone who's in their 60s as a casual like as casual as i used to do when in my job but in my job it really did not matter and that person talked to me as their friend as well and it was so beautiful and it's so i don't know this is kind of different i unlocked a different type of pride in that moment to see myself getting i'm taken seriously by older people or like younger people it really did not matter that as long as i did my task the way that i had to do it with all seriousness and it was just yeah i would not give up on that as well um and there's my another type of friendships that i've had which i it kind of contributed to the person that i am as well and it was very very very neurogenetic a big place in my life as well or the person that i am is my male friendships that i've had it it was not very common like not common was the word um it was not very um evident or like it did not come up oh hi how are you you're gonna be my best friend for the for the next i don't know given years but there were some moments where i just became friends with those people and i just loved how regardless of like um all the misconceptions of that i have of like men or or what they have of women obviously it's person whenever we meet a new person we all bring a baggage with us um but those all the men the male friendships that i've had and i've had i have they are very very very um unique and dear near and dear to my heart and they are rare as well it's not i don't have a lot of guy friends i can count them on my fingers but um how to say this i cherish it a lot and i take a great part in it because with those friendships i have discovered a lot of things i have learned a lot of things about myself and i loved how these men or boys have never looked at me as a girl or a boy it was i was one of the very few times that i've been um treated or seen or perceived just as a person it did not really matter if i was if it was a girl and it had to be whatever i was treated the same as another person or the next person and they just um supported me or like cheered for me the same way my girl friends would cheer for me and they believed in me as well and it was just so great and so refreshing just to have like those kind of men around me in a world which like can be very very sexist and misogynistic and very very cruel to women and condescending as well it's like how it gave me another hope or uh how to say this i of yeah faith in men that's why like whenever like i talk about um my sexist my experience of sexism or like whatever i've had like a hostile experiences experiences experiences i don't know how to say this um like for me i know i always like whenever i meet a person like a man i just try as much as like or like a guy as i try as much as i can to leave all these um stereotypes and you know behind me and give this person a chance because i have had like i have experienced great great um friendships with men that like a lot of people did not have a chance to experience and i consider myself very very lucky to have those men or guys as friends they are special and smart and strong and talented in different ways that makes them special in their own ways and not just because they are men and i felt like whenever i try to reflect and think about my relationships with those um guys i just think of like i never had a specific experience that was bad just because i'm a girl you know if we had a fight or like a argument something it was only because it was a person to person kind of issue you know and i really just love that and like because i want to see a lot of like not all of them but a lot of women around me that have like um they have friendships a lot of them are so like those friendships are merely um how to say this i'm based off like there's a girl and a guy and they are friends whereas with these kind of friendships that i have it really did not matter or like does not matter and most of them were like we met at school like my cousins or something like that especially because it was like we met as sometimes when we are kids and especially when you are kids and you're not very very affected by society yet you really do not see the the other person as a as a like a girl or a boy apart from like you know their appearance there's nothing else that comes with it whereas now when you see a man or woman you see a lot of other things besides their gender just because they are a man or a woman or whatever it's there is a lot of things that you know it's just ideologies this history this culture traditions that have been stuck to us consciously or subconsciously and somehow you cannot really really not get rid of it you can try we can we try our best to just to leave it behind us but you can't help but when you see a person you see all of these things with it dependent on again what this person is but i just i'm so thankful and i want to say thank you if you are a friend of mine and you are the guy or a man thank you so much for giving me for restoring my faith in the male species in general thank you for not being the stereotype of women is or can be you know and obviously i would not have been friends with that mistake i don't think that's a specific thing for girls specific things for boys but it was just so cute sometimes there's some cute moments and some some moments are funny that like where some of my guy friends that are genuinely just so curious about some things that belong to the quote-unquote girls world like for example once i went to the dining hall and i've put on like um stick on um nails press on yeah press on nails and they were like they were they had ornaments and they had little pearls in them they were so cute and i loved them and you know when you don't know it's a person um have nails like when a girl comes up to you oh my god i love your nails you're so happy like it's natural you know but when i sat down like i said that it's a wall there was full of guys around me they were like my um some of them were like my classmates and some of them i knew from the dorm and stuff um i did not like expect that they would even see that i had like different nails or like compliment my nails or make a comment on my nails but i was in and i'm like oh you have nails like that and they were so genuinely curious and they were so surprised and they like they liked it in a way that was like so cute it's like little kids trying to understand this new thing they have never seen especially when it told them it was just press-ons you know they were not my real nails and they were not like i did not get them done at the salon something was just i bought it a set and i put it on and that's it they were so um shocked and surprised and they loved it so much which a lot of men would not feel comfortable expressing that or a lot of interest like making a compliment about your eyeliner or something like that because they would think oh that's because you are a man you would not pay attention to those things but pay attention to those things does not make you any else of a man and does not really um challenge your masculinity it just shows that you are a person and you're a good absorber observer and you appreciate good things and beautiful things it means nothing but you have a good taste you know and those things that make me so happy and proud of like all the male friendships i've been able to build and have throughout these years i've lived and i take great pride in it so yeah thank you and i think it's getting a little bit long so i'll just say as a last note thank you to all my friends and i love you