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🌟 A Plea from Gaza: Rola’s Story 🌟

Hello, my name is Rola, and I am a mother of two children living in the Gaza Strip. Our lives were once filled with love, laughter, and dreams for the future. But everything changed on October 7th, when the war shattered not only our home but our entire world.

That morning, my family and I were enjoying coffee together on the balcony. Out of nowhere, an explosion erupted, shaking our home violently. My husband and son ran for cover, falling over each other in panic, while I stood frozen, still holding my cup, unable to process the chaos around me. When I looked out the window, I saw that our neighbor’s house, once filled with life, had been reduced to rubble. Ambulances rushed to the scene as people scrambled to rescue the injured and pull bodies from the debris.

The bombings didn’t stop. At night, the rain poured heavily, and the cold seeped into our bones. I stayed awake, covering my children to keep them warm and praying for their safety. But safety is an illusion here. Another explosion shattered the night, and our neighbors’ home was destroyed. Their children, who had been sleeping peacefully under a blanket, were found lifeless, their cover soaked in blood.

I looked at my children with tears in my eyes and thought, How can I protect you? We had to flee our home with nothing but the clothes on our backs. We left behind my children’s toys, their clothes, and their beautiful bedroom. Everything we had worked so hard to build is gone.

Our Current Reality Now, we are displaced and living in a nightmare. Food is scarce, and prices are unimaginably high—$10 for a kilo of sugar! The fear of death hangs over us constantly. My children deserve a life of joy and hope, not one defined by fear and loss. Why can’t we live like everyone else—go to work, visit family, and watch our children play in safety? Why do our children have to grow up surrounded by death and destruction?

How You Can Help I am pleading for your kindness to help us rebuild our lives. We need your support to: 💔 Rebuild our home, so my children can feel safe again. 🌍 Evacuate from Gaza, seeking a future where my family can live with dignity. 🩺 Provide urgent medical care for my children, who need protection from this nightmare.

Even the smallest donation can make a difference. If you can’t donate, please share my story. Every share brings us closer to hope.

What Your Support Means Your kindness is not just about helping us survive; it’s about giving us a chance to dream again. To rebuild what we’ve lost and to ensure my children have a future filled with possibilities, not fear.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. Your support means the world to us. Let’s work together to rebuild hope, one step at a time.

🌸 Please share our story and consider donating today. 🌸

Together, we can create a better tomorrow. 🌍❤️

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🌟 A Cry for Help: My Family’s Struggle to Survive in Gaza 🌟

Hello, my name is Areej Kassab. I’m a 27-year-old English teacher and writer from Gaza, and I’m reaching out to you with a heavy heart and a desperate plea for support. My family and I are enduring unimaginable hardships as relentless bombings devastate our home and our dreams.

We are a family of 15—10 adults and 5 children. Every day is a battle for survival. Food is scarce, humanitarian aid is not reaching us, and my little nieces and nephews go to bed hungry. Among them is my sister, who is deaf, and another sister who has a newborn baby. They, too, are suffering in this crisis, and I’m doing everything I can to protect and provide for them.

💔 A Life in Ruins The war has robbed us of everything: safety, peace, and even the hope of a future here. My family’s needs are basic yet critical—food, clean water, diapers for the babies, gas for cooking, and other essentials to make it through each day.

With rising prices and limited access to necessities, we are struggling to provide even the most basic items. My sister’s home has been destroyed, and we are working together to ensure everyone has shelter, food, and warmth.

✨ My Plea for Your Support ✨ I’m a writer, and I’ve been documenting the harsh realities faced by my community under siege. But words can only do so much. We need action, and we need help. Your kindness can save us.

🙏 How You Can Help

Donate: Every contribution, no matter how small, brings us closer to securing the essentials we desperately need.

Share Our Story: If you can’t donate, please share this post to help us reach others who can.

Your support will help provide food for the children, clean water for my family, and basic supplies to help us survive this unimaginable crisis.

Thank you for reading, for caring, and for standing in solidarity with us. Together, we can create a lifeline for my family—a chance to live, to dream, and to hope again.

With love and gratitude, Areej Kassab ❤️

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the unbreakable connection between me and a song I heard in a fanvid over ten years ago

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Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

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{Words by José Olivarez from Citizen Illegal /@fatimaamerbilal , from even flesh eaters don't want me.}

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"Julius Caesar", William Shakespeare

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Vincent Van Gogh

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I need to stop saying I'm wasting my time when I'm just at home doing nothing, I'M RESTING!!

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trying a different approach and writing a shorter post. my friend mohamed (@ayeshjourney) vets campaigns on the ground in gaza for @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi (these campaigns are on their spreadsheet here), and also helps run the blog @/gaza-evacuation-funds.

mohamed is raising funds for his family, and his campaign is very low on donations. he does so much to help so many people, and i hope we can show him the same support and generosity. please consider donating even £5 if it is within your means, and if you cannot donate please reblog, and please follow mohamed for any updates!

gofundme link here

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— Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

[text ID: I wish the world were ending tomorrow. Then I could take the next train, arrive at your doorstep in Vienna, and say, 'Come with me, Milena. We are going to love each other without scruples or fears or restraint because the world is ending tomorrow.' ]

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"if you dont ask the answer is always no" yeah but what if the answer is no plus they think im weird for asking. did you ever consider that in ur stupid fucking philosophy

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musings on october

1. Alfonsina Storni, 2. Cy Twombly, 3. William Stanley Merwin, 4. Cy Twombly, 5. Virginia Woolf, 6. Jorge Albericio, 7. Gala Mukomolova, 8. Andrei Tarkovsky, 9. Czesław Miłosz, 10. Andrei Tarkovsky, 11. Thomas Wolfe, 12. Andrei Tarkovsky, 13. Louise Glück

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Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I’m one of them.

Ray Bradbury

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i just heard the phrase “if you wouldn’t trust their advice, don’t trust their criticism” for the first time and i don’t think i’ve ever needed to hear anything more

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Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you’re in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you.

Deepak Chopra

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― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

“I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.” 

― Kahlil Gibran, The Madman

― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“All freedom is relative—you know too well—and sometimes it’s no freedom at all, but simply the cage widening far away from you, the bars abstracted with distance but still there, as when they “free” wild animals into nature preserves only to contain them yet again by larger borders. But I took it anyway, that widening. Because sometimes not seeing the bars is enough”

― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”

― Toni Morrison, Beloved

― Jean-Paul Sartre

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.

― Maya Angelou, The Complete Collected Poems

― Franz Kafka, Amerika

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

― Viktor E. Frankl

― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.” 

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

― E.B. White, The Trumpet of the Swan

“This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me.”

― Kafka Franz, Diaries, 1910-1923

― John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman

“And I want to be held down. I don’t know what to do with the horrifying freedom that can destroy me.”

― Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.

― Franz Kafka