The year was 1996. Even though the weather was beautiful and there was a certain peace in the air; my nerves were on overload. My heart began racing the minute I decided to try out for my high school Cross Country team.This is the real kicker; I have never ran in my life. I had just transferred to St. Vincent Pallotti High School from Laurel High School. I wanted to be part of a team. More than that I wanted to meet new friends. My dad ran cross country in High School and was good at it. Secretly, I also had a mission to follow in my dads footsteps. The voices in my head were playing devils advocate saying, ” You can’t do this.” ” You have never ran long distances; your going to pass out.” Every negative thought was going through my head as my feet hit the ground!My heart began racing faster as soon as we lined up to start our five mile run. I begin to run; trying to zone every negative thought out. As team members passed me I began to ask my self why am I putting myself through this embarrassment. At this point my stomach is cramping, my legs are sore and I feel like my body is going to limp any minute. Next, I begin to dry heave. Oh no, I hope no one saw that. At this point I just want to quit but then something comes over me. My internal high says, ” You got this.” I came to this challenging course to prove something. Running is more mental than physical! First, I am going to make this team. Next, I am going to win at least one medal for the season and last I am going to gain self confidence where doubting my own ability is not the first thing that comes to my mind. Even though I wanted to give up more than once that day I didn’t. I went on that season to win multiple ribbons, medals and even coaches award. This all came out of a teenage young lady that never ran more than a mile before making the team. Running has stayed part of my family and my life. I am excited to be a Girls on the Run coach for 3rd-5th graders for three years now. My coaching style is a lot like my coach was back in High School. I coach to build up the girls self esteem, to strengthen their endurance, to prepare them for a 5K and above all to teach them a team is like a family. Teams succeed together! I love to inspire my own daughter to believe in her self as well. She is on her second year as a cross country runner. These core beliefs of teamwork, confidence building, hard work ethics and unity would of never came if I gave up back on that sunny day in 1996.

The day my daughter overdosed
on unrestrained nortriptyline,
all thought dispersed like filmy ghosts
afraid of ICU machines.

Six days my haunted vigil stretched
beside her comatose abyss,
devoid of reason, will, or self–
a graveyard for gaunt manuscripts.

Amid the dark recovery
that disinterred cold skeletons,
stiff rhymes became my therapy
and she transformed– reborn a son.

Despite his newfound happiness
and zest for life I’d never seen,
the phantom novel grew abcessed
beneath a stack of poetry.

Our dual awakenings
sloughed off unyielding zombie cauls;
alive with nerve, encores begin–
and now my words earn peer applause.

Give up, never!
The challenges of life give greater
Satisfaction when struggling to overcome them.

Give up, never!
Through war planes, attacker
On our land, as my partner is an army officer.

Give up, never!
Through financial strains, being a mother,
Teacher, student, niece, aunt, cousin, daughter…
With duties and love to give as worries grow stronger.

Give up, never!
Going through bowl obstruction surgeries, recover
From that alone is like moving through quick sand, a surfer
Of intense pain, stilted, limited movements that border
On the robotic before getting better.

Give up, never!
Immigrating at fourty plus is no simple matter,
With two teens and two adults to give succor
As the cultural, geographical, and familial reservoir
Dwindles and altered to an extreme purveyor
Of loss as we embrace newer circumstances in horror.

Give up, never!
Through each trial, the sun does shine brighter
And belief that you’re being tested makes me stronger.

Give up, never!
Give up, never!
Give up, never!

©️ Malak kalmoni chehab ©️

Dear friends,

Have you ever wanted to give up? If you’re anything like me, that’s happened more times than you can count. One example occurred last week on my first ever cruise.

I would’ve had no interest in cruising, had it not been for my mentor. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call him David. Before I found him, I was a loser in every way. No drivers license, no college degree, no “real” job, and no support system. All I had was a rare disease, a mountain of bills, and an artistic talent that everyone dismissed as useless. David, a brilliant but controversial artist in his own right, took me under his wing and encouraged me when I had nobody. The day we met, I made a promise. I would honor his belief in me by becoming someone worthy of it, and I would devote my life to giving back to him because if it weren’t for him, I would no longer have a life.

That promise brought me on a cruise ship. David and another gentleman were teaching classes on communication and marketing; studying under them was the next step to fulfilling my promise. The first day, David gave an assignment: record your shore excursions and post them to social media. I wanted nothing to do with that! Not only do I hate being filmed, but I don’t thrive in warm, sunny beach climates. Due to my disease, I have trouble balancing on uneven surfaces like sand, and migraines triggered by heat and bright light. I knew this excursion would be grueling, but I owed it to David to try.

Onn day 2 of the cruise, I was awake at 5:30 AM. My legs were so swollen it hurt to stand, but I did. I showered, dressed, ate breakfast, and met my excursion group at the designated place and time. A crew member led us off the ship, down four flights of stairs. What?! Nobody mentioned that! My balance issues make stairs difficult, but I was afraid I’d get lost if I took the elevator. Slowly but surely, I made it down the stairs and off the ship to wait for a tour bus. Even with sunglasses, the sun hurt my eyes! My legs felt like they were on fire, but I stayed in line until the bus came.

Two hours later, the bus arrived at the beach. I was so nervous! What if I tried to walk on sand and fell on my face in front of everyone? Cane in hand, I made my way to the nearest chair. I could’ve played it safe and stayed there, but this was my first time on a beach since I was ten. Who knows when I’d get to come back? It seemed a shame to waste the chance to swim in the ocean!

The cane helped me walk on sand, but I couldn’t take it in the ocean. The ground gave beneath my feet. The waves threw off my center of gravity, but I kept going. Just when I thought I’d found my balance, I tripped and fell in up to my neck. Everybody stared at me, some with derision, others with pity. A man offered to help me, but I refused. I didn’t want to look any weaker than I already did. I would get out of that ocean myself or die trying!

I returned to my chair, humiliated, frustrated, and ready to give up. Then I thought of David. What would I tell him when I saw him later? I knew he would forgive mistakes, but he wouldn’t want me to quit. So I tried again. This time, I was able to balance long enough to swim in the ocean and make it back to my chair unassisted. Despite many setbacks that day, it was worth it to see the look on David’s face when he heard what I did. His smile and kind words made every hardship seem so small!

For all my shortcomings, I’m not a hypocrite. I won’t give advice I can’t follow myself, so I can’t tell you to love and believe in yourself. Although I don’t love myself, I love David more than I hate myself. I don’t believe in myself, but I believe in him. As long as he believes in me, that’s enough reason to keep persevering.

My advice is to find something you can believe in until you can believe in yourself, be it a person, a pet, a religious figure, a hobby, a cause, a goal, anything. Dedicate yourself to that purpose, and work for it with everything you have. Maybe your dreams won’t come true the way you planned, but when you serve something greater than yourself, good things will come your way!

Good luck!

College isn’t always easy.
It would make me feel queasy.
Homework keeping me up late.
Stress giving me a mental debate.
Is this all worth it?
Should I just drop it?
I can’t turn back now.
My parents would have a cow.
My friends think so much of me.
What a disappointment I’d be
My parents’ money would go to waste.
This decision shouldn’t be made in haste.
My studies will continue.
I will finish what is due.
It will all be worth it in the end.
No matter how I have to bend.

It’s lonely here
Without them, my stories transition to memories
Without them, the laughter falls on deaf ears
The silliness isn’t so silly anymore
And my smile feels forced
It’s lonely without them
The one who needs no introduction because their personality is so loud
The one whose laughter was formed through sadness, but it brings joy to those who are privileged to hear it
The one who is so authentically kind that you can feel their positivity when they enter the room
It’s lonely starting over, but I can
It’s hard finding more like them, but I’ll try
It’s sad and it hurts, but I’ll smile more, and I’ll laugh harder
It’s not easy, but I won’t stop trying to feel whole again
It’s lonely, but one day, it won’t be

Was there a time that I persevered when I wanted to quit?
Was there ever a time I did not?
At the age of 5, when most kids learn to read I could not.
Hour by hour, my mom showed me flash cards of phonics and sounded them out.
My grandpa and grandma read books with me.
I could not get it. Words did not make sense.
I could not see them in the order they were supposed to be in.
I would see a page of words and it would shift to say something other than what I was being told it said.
My eyes deceived me.
Hours passed. Weeks flew. Months turned to years.
I could not read.
One day, the words made a tiny bit of sense. The sounds were memorable. I was nine.

Hour by hour. I read what was expected for school. I traced letters and sounded it out in my head.
Workbook after workbook, page by page.

I could read.

Five years later I walked into the local library and brought home the Hobbit.

Three weeks later I returned it with a head full of stories.

I am now a writer.

Perseverance pays off.

Dear Youth Me,

When people are asked to describe you, your no-quit attitude is the lead of your story. You almost quit writing this. Why?

You did not know what to write about and you have felt for the longest time that anything you do academically has to make up for the things you can’t do physically.

You have not quit countless of other times — and as much as you do NOT want to say this… this most DEFINITELY WILL NOT be the LAST.

So, before I move any further, CONGRATULATIONS to YOU for taking the time to look back and see what you have accomplished; writing this piece is TRULY a PRIME example of YOU NOT quitting!

Another example can be seen where you are right now, what ground are your feet hitting?

The ground of YOUR home; the place where YOU are staying by YOURSELF!

I do NOT really comprehend when someone says you have a NO-QUIT attitude because EVERY goal you set for yourself has one ending, SUCCESS (or at least a lot of them).

After graduating with your masters degree in Sports Journalism, it took you nine months to find a job and as much as you wanted one, you are lucky enough that you did NOT NEED one.

But you made a DEAL with your parents that a job equaled moving out.

As much as your PARENTS MOTIVATED YOU and still do, you found that job YOURSELF… congrats!

Keep on being you!

Your Youth Self.

Love,

Jake

To a girl,
Young, scared, hurt, and overcome by the feeling of wanting to crawl out of her skin. You have come so far. You have marched down the length of that dock, felt the dead, dry, prickly summer grass on the bottoms of your feet, and you’ve kept walking. You threw away that swimsuit, you know the one. The pale blue bikini with the tiny yellow and pink flowers. You’ve even gone back to that lake. It took you a couple tries, but you gathered the courage to place your picnic blanket under the big oak tree, remove your shoes, and swim in the beautiful deep blue Washington water once again.
I don’t blame you for staying away for as long as you did. Even just driving on the bridge that overlooks the water made you shiver. There were a lot of firsts that happened that day at the lake, and the weeks to follow. It was your first time going to the lake without an adult. It was your first time visiting the public swimming area of the lake. It was your first time jumping off the long wooden dock. It was your first time being touched by a man. It was your first time feeling the gaze of a man threaten you into silence. It was the first time you were so terrified that you couldn’t make even the tiniest weakest sound. It was the first time you felt like an uninvited guest in your own body.
Some disturbed people will tell you it was your fault. “A fourteen-year-old girl shouldn’t be wearing such a skimpy bathing suit,” they’ll say. That is an idea that has been passed down through the generations, and unfortunately, that idea is still widely communicated to young girls today. But you know now that the way you dress is never an invitation to somebody else. I wish someone would’ve told me that in the weeks that followed.
I am incredibly proud of the way you handled yourself in those following weeks. Looking back, it was upsetting that there wasn’t more the police could do. You gave them the location, the date and time, and they even had you go to the police station and meet with an artist who drew a portrait of your assaulter while you picked his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose out from a book of a thousand little drawings. It was like playing paper dolls. You still question if you got it right. You didn’t have a clear image of his whole face. Just his eyes. Those penetrative eyes that silently shouted at you to sit still, stay quiet, and tell no one what had just happened under the water. His eyes were the easiest feature to pick out of the book. To this day, I believe you could still pick them out of a crowd. Some images just never leave, even if the pain has started to fade.
Pushing through that darkness and letting that fear die out was one of the hardest things you’ve done. Even if your predator wasn’t brought to justice, you created a personal justice. Your body belongs to yourself again. You feel at home in your skin, and you dress however the hell you want. You wear scarves in your hair, bikini tops and little jean shorts, turtlenecks and long skirts, cropped shirts. You wear it all, and you don’t wear any of it to send a specific message. You just like how you look. And let me just say that that is a huge accomplishment in a society that raises women to hate how they look once they reach a certain age. Keep fighting that predetermined narrative.
Taking back your body was the first step. June 14th, 2023, you went back to that public swimming area. You wore your favorite swimsuit. You took your dog and your partner at the time for extra comfort and support. Getting back in the water was hard. That dock might always hold a painful memory, but you will never let it keep you from enjoying something that everyone has the right and privilege to do. Young girls shouldn’t have to fear something as innocent as a lake day or removing their swim coverups in a public swimming area. You have now marched back down the length of that dock, jumped into that water, and enjoyed the freedom of your body swimming in the magnificent deep blue Washington waters. Those eyes aren’t watching you anymore and those hands have let you go.