Assalamualaikum and hi everyone. I hope you are doing well. Have you watched Disney Tangled? A story about a girl named Rapunzel with long golden hair trapped by her evil 'mother' in the highest tower until she meets a man named Flynn Rider. When she is caged in the tower, she wonders, "When will my life begin?" She even has a song about it, a good one. I still remember the first time Tangled came out at the cinema in 3D, my kakak and abang took me to watch the movie with them. It is my all time favorite Disney movie.

Have you ever felt the same as Rapunzel? You sit and ponder, "When will my life begin?" 

You exist, obviously, but you are not truly living.

Do you get what I mean?

I wake up in the morning, scroll through my phone, take a bath, go to work or wherever, and then I come back home, take a bath again, scroll through my phone again until I fall asleep. And it repeats, over and over again.

I feel like Rapunzel, trapped in the highest tower by her cruel mother, forced to do the same things repeatedly. Except, in this situation, I am both Mother Gothel and Rapunzel.

Being a Rapunzel, I know there is life out there, something I long to see, but something within me is too afraid to venture out. Too afraid to discover if there is happiness on the other side of the road. Too afraid to break free from the routine that is so boring but in some twisted way feels comfortable. Or maybe too afraid to realize that all this time, I’ve been spending my youth unhappily, wasting it on something so mundane.

You see, sometimes, without even realizing it, we become like Mother Gothel, caging ourselves in. We know we’re not “exactly” happy.

We keep lying to ourselves, saying "this is enough for me." but is it really?

I already have the answer in my heart. 

Sometimes we try to protect ourselves too much, even from happiness. We rob ourselves of the potential happiness we could have. We feel content with just feeling “plain” every day.

What can we do then? I think the Rapunzel and Mother Gothel within us need a Flynn Rider, someone unafraid to take risks, to venture out into the world we long for, recklessly.

Till then. 

Like a unicorn, I'm off to spread magic elsewhere,
Nadiera Hashim
8:30pm
Kedah, Malaysia.