I See a Change (Riyadh)

I see a change
I see a change in my country. Slight changes that seem as baby steps. I guess baby steps are the safer course of change. It is gradual. Many might not even sense that change. Being a 23-year-old Saudi woman who has never crossed the borders of her country has helped me notice the slightest of changes around me. Just as a person who would notice a little ant passing on a long road because she/he has been staring at that road whole her/his life.

These changes have gone against my assumptions. I have assumed I would need a struggle, a fight and long arguments with dad "my male guardian" to get me a passport, but life is certainly unpredictable.
An example of these promising slight changes is the loud music played in public nowadays that you would never hear 2 years ago. Loud beats in stores or at carnivals. Wait, carnivals? Food trucks? These are also recently introduced propositions to my culture.

I believe these slight changes in the restrictions will lead to the grand regulation that would permit women to depend on themselves solely to issue a passport to travel, get married and enjoy equal rights with the opposite gender. If you would ask me how music played in public can lead to a change in a regulation that persisted for centuries, I would say, "Time".

Time changes everything. It physically changes us as we grow older, changes cultures, changes geographical features and changes us all in an unavoidable way. You might think of it as the monster that snatches away your youth. However, it is my hope. My hope to be a person with free will. Time is that stream that carries a chest of gold. You just have to wait on the side for the flowing water to bring that chest of hope. I am being optimistic, calling it a chest of gold although it might contain deadly insects. But, even before I take a grab of that chest, I know it contains gold because I've seen this golden chain dangling out of it.

That golden chain is the slight changes I see in the restrictions. It is promising, it is slow, but, it's worth waiting for. Not saying I should sit and wait for that grand regulation that permits me and other women to lead our lives without the consent of a male guardian, but these changes are definitely going to smooth that bumpy road I'll have to cross to reach my dream of being free.

Nada Alanbar