When Life Said: Lose Me or Choose Me

I’m forty-one years old.

For most of my life, I’ve been ashamed of my age. Embarrassed when anyone said my date of birth out loud — especially if there were witnesses — followed by the inevitable, “Oh my God… she was born in the nineteen hundreds.”

I never wore aging like a badge of honor. I wore it like a cone of shame.

I had moments of pride, sure. Some even lasted a while- as many of you may have seen on social media. But in all transparency, there was always a part of me that felt outdated. Old. And well — in the tradition of the name of this blog — expired.

It started early. When I was young, my father said to me, “Stop acting like a kid. You’re not a kid anymore.”

I was twelve, by the way.

My mother always said he was joking. I still question that — especially since it became a line he used repeatedly until the day he passed. Those age-related remarks set off a snowball effect that followed me all the way to forty-one, haunting me in ways I didn’t fully understand until now.

Getting older was never something I looked forward to. I mean — I absolutely dreaded it.

And then, on October 3rd, I was forced to confront a far more terrifying reality:

What if I don’t get the chance to age again?

No more birthdays.
No forty-two.
No forty-five.
Hell — no fifty.

An age I started feeling ashamed of the moment I turned forty, realizing I was suddenly only a decade away from the big five-oh.

That fear crept in the moment my doctor called with the results of a CT scan. Ironically, it was also the moment aging finally began to feel like the blessing I had always known it was — but had been taught to feel ashamed of.

“Try your best to stay positive,” she said trying to comfort me.

It felt like a cruel joke. Because all I could do was fucking panic.

“Have you been really stressed lately?” she asked, concern written all over her face. “Stress is one of the major reasons this happens.”

I didn’t need long to think.

Because shortly after what turned out to be the most magical birthday of my life — stress entered my world in a way I never could have imagined. And from a person I never expected it from.

“I have,” I replied.

You see, I had a beautiful birthday that lasted almost three days. Something I had never allowed myself before, out of fear of appearing too narcissistic — as if healthy narcissism isn’t a thing. (It is.)

I blew out the candles on my cake and felt — for the first time in my life — like my wishes might actually be heard.

I’m going to get everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Finally. It’s my turn, I told myself as we drove through the magically lit streets of Chicago.

The high lasted a few days. Then forty-one tested me for the first time.

The test came in the form of a woman I considered my best friend.

I found out she had been asking others, “What’s wrong with Faiza? I feel like something’s off with her.”

I was stunned. Confused. I was on the highest high I’d felt in years. And since we called each other best friends, I assumed she would simply come to me — where I could easily say, Not sure where that’s coming from, girlfriend. All is well. What made you think that?

Instead, she said nothing to me — and plenty to everyone else. For days.

When we finally spoke, it became clear she was convinced something was “off” with me — despite my joy, despite my happiness, despite reality.

Somehow, we circled back to an incident from years earlier. One she claimed not to remember at all. Odd doesn’t begin to cover what the fuck I was feeling. But because I loved her — and her family — I had chosen long ago to move on.

Yet here we were. Rehashing the past. Again.

And when I confronted her about gossiping — behavior deeply contradictory to the Islamic values she claimed — she found a way to turn it on me.

Suddenly, I was the villain in a story I never started.

Something in me snapped.

Where I once stayed quiet to preserve the friendship, I didn’t anymore. I went atomic. Years of swallowed anger rose to the surface — anger toward a woman who had wronged, diminished, and betrayed me in ways I never allowed myself to fully feel.

It was as if forty-one said: Enough.

When the call ended, I knew something deep in my body — this was it. Things would never be the same. And they couldn’t be.

Because keeping her meant betraying myself. And honoring the wish I made on my birthday cake meant choosing me — for the first time in my life — over comfort.

The stress that followed was unbearable.

The character assassination.
The distortion of the past.
The years I spent choosing silence so I wouldn’t lose her.

And then the realization hit me like a punch to the chest:

If you have to erase yourself to keep someone — is that love? Or is it a prison?

I fell into a depression so deep it terrified me.

“Aren’t these petty arguments supposed to end by forty-one?” I asked a friend.

“Not when there was never a real friendship to begin with,” she replied.

That truth dropped me even further into the dark.

Losing a best friend is devastating. But realizing they never truly knew you — or you never truly knew them? That’s a different kind of grief.

So when the doctor asked if I had been stressed, I looked at my mother — who knew the injustice of it all — and then back at the doctor.

“Yes,” I said. “Deeply.”

“Well,” she replied, “you’re going to want to remove stressors from your life.”

Little did she know — I already had.

October, November, and December became a blur of lab visits, blood draws, CT scans, MRIs, and waiting. So much waiting.

Every call brought me closer to a question I had never asked before:

What if I never get to celebrate another birthday?

I replayed my life.

The joy — yes — but mostly the pain.

The dreams left unfinished.
The boundaries never set.
The outfits unworn.
The experiences and love denied by culture, tradition, fear — and myself.

So much left undone.

And then it hit me — quietly, the way truths do when they’re done waiting for you to catch up. What if the fear wasn’t about dying at all? What if it was about never having truly lived — at least not as myself? What if my body wasn’t failing me… but demanding a renegotiation?

And just like that, I found myself wondering — If I had spent my whole life afraid of aging, what would happen if I stopped running from it? If expiration dates were never warnings, but invitations? If forty-one wasn’t the beginning of my disappearance — but the moment I finally became visible to myself?

I don’t have answers yet. Just a body asking for honesty. A life asking for courage. And a feeling I can’t ignore anymore:

This isn’t the end of my story whatsoever. It’s the first time I’m finally paying attention. The first time in a very long time – if truly ever- that I’m saying ME first.

Because I do have plans. Big ones. Five-year ones. Hell, twenty-year-olds. Dream-shaped ones. The kind that require risk, appetite, and a willingness to be misunderstood.

I want to build things. Write things. Become things.

I want to make mistakes I haven’t made yet — the kind that come from choosing boldly instead of quietly surviving.

But for the first time, I don’t want to rush past the becoming just to prove I’m worthy of the outcome.

It’s not about having it all figured out. It’s about finally letting myself want what I want — without apology, explanation, or delay.

And I can’t help but wonder —what happens when a woman stops treating her life like she’s expired… and starts living like it’s still unfolding?