Mustafa AldabbasBlog
7 stories
The Light That Burned Me, Even Though I’m Not a Mosquito
A childhood fear of darkness, the glow of city streets, and the things we mistake for safety. A personal essay about learning to love light without moving close enough to burn.
The Mirror I Left Broken for Three Years
For three years, a cracked mirror hung by my front door, reflecting a life I had learned to see without noticing what was broken. When I finally took it down, I found myself confronting far more than the end of a relationship: the memories of surviving violence, the fear of abandonment, and the painful ways love can become entangled with trauma. This is a story about what we learn to endure, what we mistake for devotion, and what remains when we finally choose to leave.
We Were Watching Our Relationship Instead of Living It
A dinner meant to bring us closer became crowded with everything we had left unresolved. On old hurt, the need to be heard, and making room for love to be lived.
I Don’t Remember When You Became Part of Me
I don’t remember when love stopped being something I was waiting for and became something I was already living inside. A reflection on intimacy, ordinary rituals, desire, conflict, freedom, and learning how to love deeply without losing yourself.
The Future We Lived Before It Happened
I knew the house we would live in, where I would put my plants, and how his face might change as we grew older. Through the smallest rituals of love, we built a future so vivid that I sometimes felt I had already lived it. This is the story of that imagined life, the promises that gave it shape, and the memories that still make it feel real.
The Sun and the Moon: The Circle We Once Made
In Part Two of After Love, I revisit our sun and moon necklaces, an afternoon by Berlin’s River Spree, and the small reminders of love that remain after separation.
Who Am I When I Love?
I used to think love stories began when two people met. Now I think they begin much earlier, in childhood, fear, displacement, loss, and everything we learned about what it means to be loved.