Happy Sixth Birthday, Kashmaley!

Here’s some love to the littlest feminist I know ❤

When Kashmala was turning five (last year), I decided to start writing letters to her as a birthday message – that I hope she’ll read when she grows older. Or now, whatever works. The first letter can be read here. Here’s the second one. InshaAllah, I’ll write many more to her, if I don’t forget ❤

I’m actually not sure what I’m going to say here … then again, I wasn’t sure what I was gonna write in the last one, either, but I feel like I wrote a pretty good letter to her ❤ Just being real and honest when I say I’d consider myself pretty darn lucky if I had an aunt/uncle like me. But I’ve got a niece who love me unconditionally, so no complaints here!

Dear Kashmala,

Wise words from 5-year-old Kashmala

The Kashmala – I THINK in Apr 2013?

For the past several months, I’ve been going through some shit. That includes losing people/friends that I regret losing (no, don’t be like, “Well, they weren’t worth your friendship in the first place if they had to choose to get out of your life,” or, “Oh, well – their loss!” No, it’s their loss, maybe, but it’s my loss, too, and I’m not okay with that), and some other stuff. I share these things with Kashmala because I love her opinions, I love her reminders to me that “It’s okay, I’m here for you. You want me to do your make-up? Let me do your make-up and then you’ll feel sooooo good.” I share stories and anecdotes of my friends with Kashmala, and she knows the names of some of my closest friends and has even talked with some of them through Skype, Whatsapp, gchat, Facebook, etc. She’s loveable, and she’s easy to talk to and have fun with.

So, as I lose people that Kashmala has come to know about or interacted with before, she goes, “I hate her; don’t ever, ever talk to her again” (I love that she takes my side – loyalty FTW, ai). I told her of two people I’d briefly been close to this summer in Oman who stopped talking to me without at all communicating their feelings to me about whatever problem we were having and who denied any tension when I went up to try to talk to them about it; I told her about this other friend I lost whom she adored; she saw pictures of my friends on FB who are no longer in my life, and I told her that, na, I didn’t know them anymore, etc., etc. And finally came her wise words: