ALERT! This post is just a pure crybaby rant. Me and my brain was looking for an excuse not to work for a couple of hours, so we wrote this.

It’s been a long, long time since I published a piece of content on my blog…

What happened? Where did I go? Like you care.

Nowhere, just personal stuff. I’ve been star shopping.

Well, well, well…

I knew how hard it is to be a startupper. I was surrounded by startuppers for the last 7 years, witnessing how they would just turn off their personal life and dedicate themselves to products and customers – still complaining that they don’t do enough. I knew what was coming, but not something like this. It’s not hard, i’m just being moody.

I think I just basically signed up to be emotionally bipolar: one day I am on top of the world because we got another paying customer, the next day I’m questioning every life decision because.. just because.

A couple of days ago I asked my close friend V. “am I too complicated or do you think our lifestyle is not righteous?” and he told me: “Ever noticed how we look from outside? We’re in our 30s, have no stable income, walking around with torn backpacks, working from different coffee shops, basically where we can just sit and open laptop… well, we have a life defined as ‘not settled’ as expected by the majority…we live unanchored, no office, no plan, no safety net. We chose uncertainty over comfort. Creation over routine. Freedom and survival over approval.”

I took a step back and realized: for the last year, I’d wake up, go to a coffee shop, work till it’s closed, then go back home and repeat. 90% of the time this was how my days were. Even when I was a student, this was the same. I’d work in different places and projects, also doing murals. Sometimes I realize that I don’t ask “how are you, mama?” And if I did happen to see my friends, an hour in, my legs start shaking or I start biting my nails. They joke that my social battery was running out — but the truth is, my mind is somewhere else. Occupied. Like background music always playing, just loud enough to distract, never quiet enough to ignore.

I realized that I turned inside, living in my head only, so obsessed with working (even if not productive)—just the idea of working—I totally forgot the outside of Narmina: how I behave, how’s my relationship with other people, the words coming out of my mouth… A couple of people casually came into my life because I didn’t care if it’s necessary.. I didn’t care at all.. all of these affecting Narmina. I wasn’t paying attention to who I was letting into my life just because I didn’t care about anything at all.

And people judge. Your family, the people who see you every day in the same coffeeshop, your boyfriend, the security guy at your building who sees you coming home late — they all judge, everyone has a different opinion about Narmina. It’s inevitable — I notice the looks.

There are times I find myself crying in the wc, while walking, or, quite often, just before speaking with a potential customer or advisor. Not just because things are hard.. just because. Guess I’ve not been able to turn off my personal life completely. The hard part isn’t building a product or talking to customers, it’s never been.

The hard part is this lifestyle, and staying true to yourself with all the noises rumbling and mumbling around. The hard part is to keep it consistent. The hard part is to keep your shit together.

Your family thinks you’re playing around with “computer stuff” and keeps asking when you’ll get a “real job.” or showing someone’s daughter’s and praising her. Yeah, I get it… I’m just broke by choice.

Your friends don’t get why you’re stressed about your OpenAI credits running out when they’re complaining about their colleague hitting on them (true story). Yes, in corporate jobs, married quotation marks men and women hitting on each other is apparently a thing—I’ve heard enough. And a lot more disgusting things..anyway, not today’s topic.

Your brain never stops. NEVER.

I realized I hadn’t had a real conversation with anyone in the past year. Saying hello and thank you to a taxi driver in the morning and night, saying “hello, iced espresso please.. 5 ice cubes..” to a barista—that’s been my human interaction for the past months. Pathetic? Maybe. Am I exaggerating? Maybe.

The funny thing is, as someone who’s always prefer writing to speaking, I thought I’d be fine with this, it’s my cup of tea. I mean, I’ve got my blog, my diary journal, and my endless Slack conversations with the team and customers. That counts as communication, right? No.

It’s a lonely game. You wake up every day with this weight on your shoulders that only you can carry. Yes, I have Ahmad beside me, we’re building our product together, but the responsibility that bangs my head against the wall is thinking about the possible guilt: what if I waste his time with my crazy ideas? What if I don’t make it happen?

Guilt follows me everywhere.

Guilt when you take a day off because “what if I could meet with Ahmad and work on something?”

Guilt when you’re with friends because you should be working.

Guilt when you’re working because you haven’t had a real conversation with your mom in a week.

I’m supposed to be everything: strategist, marketer, recruiter, therapist, cheerleader, daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend..

Some days I wake up and think, “Who am I kidding?” Admitting that feels like admitting failure.

Money is real stress. Checking my bank account every morning like it’s going to magically have more money than it did the night before. The worst part? You can’t really complain about it because “you chose this life.”

I’m losing my friends. I am physically present but mentally elsewhere, thinking that I should have met with Ahmad.

I think I have drained my empathy, I can’t relate to people’s problems anymore, and they can’t relate to mine.

Family times become interrogation sessions. “How’s the business going?” translates to “Are you making money yet?” and “When will this be successful?” translates to “When will you get a real job?”

Existential crisis: What if I’m wasting the best years of my life on something that’ll never matter? What if I’m just delusional and this product sucks? What if I could have been making good money at some corporate job instead of checking my bank account before buying coffee? Then I remember the corporate setup and fake people, thinking, nope thanks, I am good.

Every day feels the same. In a regular job, you might not love Mondays and count down to Friday nights — but honestly, I don’t even know what Monday or Friday feels like anymore — and I never knew. TBH, we do wish there were more days in a week, more hours in a day.

Sometimes I catch myself having conversations with myself. I talk, cry, laugh, scream in my sleep as my sister reports every morning.

You know what’s the truth? I am not even putting my full potential.. I’m not working like crazy like before anymore..and still complaining.. yeah now I feel like i’m attention maniac.

Time to time, I meet with my friend O. He’s the kind of friend who gives you a reality check — a slap in the face, holds up a mirror, and says, “Stop whining and do the job, Narmina, you don’t work enough Narmina, I see you don’t work enough; or be honest with yourself: say it’s not for you, quit, and stop wasting people’s time.”

That’s probably what makes us crazy enough to do this shit in the first place. You know what’s the solution? Don’t think, just do. Don’t think how you’re feeling, don’t think that you’re human, don’t think anything at all.

Have said a wise guy in a different way in a different context..We should not care if “this” brings us happiness, we should be caring about if “this choice” is OUR “way”. “The choice” is not responsible for happiness, or how to say, doesn’t care about happiness. We should be dealing with “the choice” itself, and this choice should serve our end goal, nothing else.

Anyway, that’s my therapy session for today. I had it, spit it out with writing, and it’s gone.

I may have gone crazy. Maybe we’re all just a little bit crazy. We’ll end up in psycho wards I swear.

Cheers (with my last iced espresso lungo of the day at 10 PM)

PS: I feel like my friends V. and O. would read this and say: “It’s all because of boredom and idleness, mind your work.” – And, they would be right.

PSƧ: No, no, no.. i’m not complaining. It’s just me, what to complain about?