EXPIRED

Hi, I’m Faiza. I’m 40 years old, unmarried, and childless, and in the Arab culture, where I share half my blood, I’m considered “expired.”

Some might even say I’m “beyond expired,” or, as others have put it, a “broken woman.” Personally, I prefer to be known as “The Muslim Carrie Bradshaw”—although, let’s be real, I don’t exactly share
her budget for labels… yet!

If you’ve found my page, it’s either because you’ve been following me for some or all of the past 10 years, or maybe—just maybe—God has brought you here to hear a story you either relate to or need to hear. It’s a story I never thought I’d share. I can’t emphasize that enough but it’s 2025 and I feel if I don’t speak these words, if I don’t share these voices,
they may never be heard, and I may never truly heal.

Ten years ago, my “ExpiredNFabulous” journey on Instagram began but what many of you don’t know is that it started much earlier; back when I was 21. After years of being repulsed by the cultural approach to marriage, I decided to create an anonymous blog. A space to talk about the one thing no one in the Arab or Muslim community dared to
mention: Love. True love. The kind of love Jane Austen wrote about. The kind of love Paul Anka and The Four Seasons sang about. The kind of love that makes your heart flutter when you hear Mozart’s La Clemenza Di Tito’s, Act 1- aria “Ah, perdona al primo affetto.”

I always believed MusRab women (Arab/Muslim women), wanted that kind of love. I knew it, or at least I felt it but nobody had the courage to speak the word. It was as if love were a secret, whispered only behind closed doors, or with those you truly trust. Sadly, that trust wasn’t and still isn’t often found in our community.

Yet, because I dared to ask, “What is love? Can we have it? How do we find it amidst the suffocating expectations of family, culture, and community? Many MusRab women began reaching out to share their stories—stories they had never spoken aloud before. Stories of feeling the warmth of romance in a movie or song, only to quickly look away, ashamed, when surrounded by family because love – true love—was something you didn’t want anyone to think you desired. I couldn’t understand it. How could there be so many women yearning for love, yet none brave enough to wait for it? Why did so many settle for the guy their families pressured, guilted, or forced them into marrying? Why trade the dream of love for a permission slip to start living our lives, only to realize, that we had walked into another prison? These stories were all around us, yet no one was willing to say “I Don’t” to marriage…. except for me.

And this is my story.

NEXT POST 01/05/2025