On Being Unafraid to Love (And Other Things I Thought About While Floating in Frenchman Bay)

Continuing my conversation, my thoughts, and my reflections from being on the boat a day before yesterday. Sitting there, reflecting, just enjoying the sun, golden light coming down with a cool breeze brushing my cheeks. The air was sweet and salty, so healing, absolutely calming to me, bringing so much peace. The water splashed behind me, and the island stood still and hard, like it had nowhere else to be either.

I believe relationships are an essential part of our betterment, our good life, our balance, our health, and our well being. It is so important to have wonderful friends and loved ones who support each other, who offer moral and emotional support, who are simply there. And beyond that, having a partner, a spouse, someone who truly cares about you and is there for the rough and the tough, that is a rare and precious thing.

A lot of people can be there for you in the good times. But it is the difficult times, when you are on your knees with dust on your face, facing financial hardship or health struggles or some other monumental challenge, that reveal who is really there. Those are the relationships worthy of celebration, respect, and appreciation.

In talking with others, I have noticed something many of us share: a feeling of being disposable in our relationships, as if our feelings, our time, and our energy are easy to walk away from instead of being valued. That concerns me, because it is not how we are meant to treat each other. We are meant to support one another. Relationships are supposed to be good for us, unless a person is genuinely unhealthy for our lives. Generally speaking, healthy relationships are an essential part of living well, and they take real effort to maintain.

Every relationship, whether friendship or something more intimate, will have conflict and disagreement. What matters is not the conflict itself, but how we repair. It takes time, effort, and a real willingness to be emotionally vulnerable and open. I know that is difficult for many people, which is exactly why reaching out to those who understand and have walked a similar path matters so much. That is how we build healthy relationships, healthy communities, and raise healthy children. This country has suffered from transgenerational trauma, a lack of healing, a lack of support, and a lack of access to medical and mental health care. We need more of all of it.

Now let me go back to something I also have been reflecting on. I am a Muslim man. There is a lot of hate and bigotry directed at brown and Black refugees, immigrants, Muslims, and the faith of Islam itself. Unfortunately, most people never take the initiative to learn about the traditions and culture behind it, to see the commonalities we share across different ethnicities, cultures, and beliefs.

Muslims have often been portrayed in film and entertainment as a kind of boogeyman, someone scary, hiding their face, reduced to a caricature with a thick beard and covered head, running as though that alone makes a person threatening. There is nothing wrong with having a beard. Plenty of people in this country do. The portrayal exists to create fear, nothing more. I am not apologizing for who I am. I am unapologetically proud of my faith, my culture, my background, my ancestry. I wish more people were willing to sit down, talk, and discover the commonalities we share.

Coming back to the boat, I feel grateful. I am here because of the many wonderful people who have been an integral part of my life, some of them for years, some only for a few days, and even those few days carried real love and support. I have also come across people who were not healthy for me, and I have forgiven them. Not to justify their behavior, but because I understand much of it comes from their own trauma, their own unhealed wounds, their own unfinished work. Still, I have to move forward, just like the water keeps flowing, just like the wind moves across my cheek. We are all connected. Fluid.

I hope people become more receptive and understanding. Build the relationships. Do not run away. Build real connections. Meet people. Sit down for coffee or tea. Make your own if you have to. Just get out and have a little hangout somewhere. And I will say it again: be unafraid to be loved, and unafraid to love. Even without leaning on cliché, it remains one of the most powerful and beautiful things there is.