Margins of January

January lived mostly in the margins this year, between things I did not have the language to name yet.

These are the fragments it left behind, unpolished and honest, exactly as they were lived.

Margin 1

This city taught me something I didn’t expect.

You can live inside beauty… and still feel unsettled.

Growth doesn’t always feel loud, sometimes it looks like this.

Letters By Hiba (@lettersbyhiba2026)

Living abroad reshapes you quietly. Not with dramatic moments, but with long walks, unfamiliar skies, and the slow realization that you are changing, even when life looks calm.

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Margin 2

Some departures are visible...

Some stay far away...

You don’t board the plane……but something in you still leaves.

And the water keeps quiet.

Letters By Hiba (@lettersbyhiba2026)

There are moments when movement happens elsewhere (in the sky, in the distance, in other people’s lives) and yet it rearranges you completely.

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Margin 3

Even the sea has rules.

Lines you’re not meant to cross……boundaries you don’t see until you reach them.

Freedom is often carefully managed, especially in calm places.

Margin 4

We assume light is about clarity.

But often, it’s about focus..

what stands tall, what frames the view,

and what quietly disappears into the background.

Letters By Hiba (@lettersbyhiba2026)

Not everything visible is meant to guide. Some things are built to be noticed… even when they’re not in use. Attention is designed. So is what we overlook.

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Margin 5

I forget how heavy my thoughts are until they quiet down.

Letters By Hiba (@lettersbyhiba2026)

I forget how heavy my thoughts are until they quiet down.

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Margin 6

Both were doing what they knew.

Letters By Hiba (@lettersbyhiba2026)

I used to think one side was braver than the other. Light versus dark. Staying versus leaving. Now I know…. both are responses to fear, and both are ways of surviving. What matters is not the wing, but the moment you realize you are allowed to choose.

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Margin 7

I wasn’t afraid of the height.I was ready for the view.

Letters By Hiba (@lettersbyhiba2026)

I stood where the ground no longer tried to hold me. Not to leave… not to fall… but to remember how it feels to trust my own balance. The wind didn’t ask who I was becoming. It simply stayed, and let me listen.

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Margin 8

Some freedom begins at the line you hesitate to cross.

Letters By Hiba (@lettersbyhiba2026)

I stood at the edge longer than I admit. Not afraid of the dark, just careful about what it would ask of me.

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Margin 9

I’m not lost.I’m unfolding.

Letters By Hiba (@lettersbyhiba2026)

I didn’t rush toward what was brighter. I walked slowly, letting the colors meet me where I was.

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Margin 10

The storm within.

They say I never panic.

What they don’t understand is that I do …. just inward.

The storm lives inside me, but I have learned how to let it collapse gently at the edges of myself instead of flooding everything I love.