2011, was full of light bulbs, za following is what comes to my mind tonight:

• Our regional full-seasons-long-revolutions made me imagine a whole new world, no matter how much conservatives hijack it, they won’t for long.
• As I grew some distance with old friends; I connected to new like-minded people.  I feel stronger, I feel informed, I feel I won’t take anymore BS.
• Not only have I entertained the thought of letting my parents know of another side of my queerness they haven’t seen (I use queer in its literal meaning here), I even dreamt about it last night!! Guess what? It went more than fine, actually in the dream, a brother of mine said, oh my, we need to open up more from now on, share more, we can’t be afraid to tell each other anything as a family. Oh yes. I adore him even if he said that only in a dream.
• For all those years I was secretly thinking how there can’t be one queer culture everywhere, there must be specifics to our culture that is different than the west. Well guess what! Found one local that is different than my local, and found one regional different than my regional. Yes, I feel blessed!
• Queer. Yes, this is what i came to chose as a label the last quarter of this year, it felt capable of holding the many facets of my existence &  identity and that it can include a larger bubble that is not divided into gay and straight! (How boring that system really is.)
• I learned how I can discuss politics, queer and otherwise in my native tongue, بالعربي! Ain’t that cool! (yes, I am making fun of me being so pathetic-in-that-context)
• I learned that sentences like “i don’t want to be hurt” or “i don’t want to hurt you” are exaggerated, that hurt, fear, disappointments are over emphasized, overrated as we with give them too much attention and time better be spent on action and living the moment.
• I discovered my superpowers, how i need to use them more efficiently  while exerting some control over them so i don’t scare people off! (No, i can’t mention them to just anyone, yes that includes you!)